March 27, 2026 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
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Year: 2026
The Ross Sisters – Solid Potato Salad
An evening pause: From the 1944 movie Broadway Rhythm. Makes me want to go to a potluck picnic this weekend.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
March 24, 2026 Zimmerman appearance on the Space Show
David Livingston has now archived my appearance earlier this week, March 24, 2026, on the Space Show. You can view it or download it here.
A good conversation about Isaacman’s proposed changes to NASA’s Moon and space station programs.
March 27, 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.
- Elon Musk touts SpaceX’s completion of more than 500 rocket landings
As Al Jolson once said, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”
- PLD touts successful strongback testing using a full‑scale mockup of its Muira-5 rocket
The strongback now gets shipped to their French Guina launchpad. First launch still targeting this year.
- Astroscale touts its almost year-long ADRAS‑J rendezvous demo mission, now preparing for de-orbit
It did fly-around observations within 50 feet of an abandoned upper stage. The company plans a follow-up mission to de-orbit that stage in 2027.
- Chinese pseudo-company Sustain Space completes a week-long first set of tests of an early robotic refueling arm onboard its Xiyuan-0 satellite
Nice video at the link. More info here. No fueling was done. They were testing the arm’s ability to move and hit a refueling port.
Neptune as seen by Voyager-2 in 1989, four days before closest approach
Click for original image.
Cool image time! In two earlier posts I highlighted the pictures taken by Voyager-2 of Neptune’s two largest moons, Triton and Proteus, when it made its close fly-by of Neptune in 1989. Other than a very distant low resolution picture of 105-mile-wide Nereid, Voyager-2 took no other good images of Neptune’s other known moons.
So today, let’s begin a tour of some of Voyager-2’s imagery of Neptune itself. The picture to the right, reduced slightly to post here, was taken on August 20, 1989 as the spacecraft was beginning its approach to Neptune. It shows the full daylight hemisphere of the gas giant. From the caption:
The images were taken at a range of 4.4 million miles from the planet, 4 days and 20 hours before closest approach. The picture shows the Great Dark Spot and its companion bright smudge; on the west limb the fast moving bright feature called Scooter and the little dark spot are visible. These clouds were seen to persist for as long as Voyager’s cameras could resolve them. North of these, a bright cloud band similar to the south polar streak may be seen.
Next week I will post some of the other good shots taken of Neptune, as well as one or two close-ups of Triton that need highlighting. Sadly, at that point we will have more or less reviewed most of the best data now available of this distant world. Astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope in subsequent years to attempt to track its weather patterns, but even Hubble really can’t provide enough resolution to really make that research substantive.
But stay tuned. The Voyager-2 images to come are worth viewing.
China launches “test satellite”
China yesterday afternoon successfully placed what its state-run press merely described as “a test satellite”, its Long March 2C rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.
That state-run press also provided no information as to where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.
The leaders in the 2026 launch race:
38 SpaceX
15 China
4 Rocket Lab
4 Russia
SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.
War Department conducts classified suborbital missile test from Cape Canaveral
The War Department yesterday launched an unidentified suborbital missile test from its Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, providing no public information about the rocket, the purpose of the launch, or who built it.
An unidentified missile launched and zoomed across the Atlantic Ocean Thursday, March 26, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, leaving a slim white contrail against the afternoon blue sky. None of the Space Coast’s major rocket-launch providers had missions scheduled on Thursday. The mysterious unannounced launch occurred at roughly 12:30 p.m.
The Pentagon did not respond to media requests for information.
The missile was likely a suborbital hypersonic test, but that is pure speculation. What makes it unusual is the lack of any information about launch provider. In recent years the military has relied entirely on the private sector to build its hypersonic test program. This launch suggests the War Department has moved from testing hypersonic components on private rockets, airplanes, and capsules to building and testing its own final hypersonic missile prototype.
This is also pure speculation. We will have to wait for some clarification from the Pentagon.
Ispace to replace engine on its lunar lander, delaying its NASA mission to 2030
The Japanese lunar lander startup Ispace has been forced to institute a major shake-up of its upgraded lunar lander design because a subcontractor’s engine did not meet the required specifications.
The engine, called Voidrunner and built by Agile Space Industries, was about to be installed in the lander for a 2027 launch of NASA lunar lander mission when a review found its performance to be unsatisfactory.
After closely monitoring the engine’s status and conducting careful review, Ispace has determined that a change in the development plan to incorporate a new alternative engine is necessary to ensure the successful execution of the lunar landing mission. The new engine, which will replace VoidRunner, has already been developed by the alternative supplier and has a proven track record of operation in past lunar missions.
The company has also decided to standardize its two lunar lander designs, one developed in Japan and the second in parallel by its American division. The new lander, dubbed Ultra, will use this new engine and fly all of Ispace’s subsequent missions. The image above shows the company’s original lander Hakuto-R on the left, compared to its new Ultra lander on the right.
This change will delay its planned NASA mission by three years, to 2030, though the company hopes it will not impact the schedule of two other lunar lander missions for Japan. Its new updated schedule, all using Ultra:
- 2028: a Japanese mission funded by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
- 2029: a Japanese mission funded by Japan’s Space Strategy Fund (designed at encouraging the private space sector
- 2030: NASA’s mission, being built in partnership with the American company Draper
Ispace has also created a new lunar satellite program, to provide communications, location data, and satellite tracking from lunar orbit, with a goal of launching its first lunar orbiter by next year, and five by 2030.
As a lunar lander company Ispace has had a very mixed record. It has successfully flown two landers to lunar orbit and then down to the surface. Each however crashed, failing just prior to landing due to software issues. This new delay of its NASA mission is not going to please NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, who instead wants to speed up the agency’s lunar lander program, flying almost monthly beginning in 2030. It likely means Ispace is going to have problems winning any new NASA lander contracts, until it proves its new Ultra lander design.
SpaceX launches another 25 Starlink satellites
SpaceX this afternoon successfully placed another 25 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage completed its 23rd flight 39 days after its previous flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2026 launch race:
38 SpaceX
14 China
4 Rocket Lab
4 Russia
SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.
Carl Perkins & Ringo Starr – Honey Don’t
An evening pause: Performed live 1985.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Readers: I am in need of evening pause suggestions. If you’ve sent me suggestions in the past you know the drill. More suggestions are welcome! If you haven’t and want to suggest something, say so in the comments below, but DON’T provide the link to your suggestion or mention it. I will contact you to send you the guidelines so you can send it to me to schedule.
Proteus, Neptune’s second largest moon, discovered by Voyager-2 in 1989
For original images go here and here.
Our tour continues of the only close visit to Neptune on August 25, 1989 by Voyager-2. The two pictures to the right were taken by the spacecraft during that fly-by of Neptune’s second largest moon, dubbed Proteus. Both pictures are shown as Voyager-2 took them.
The top picture was taken from a distance of about 540,000 miles, and has a resolution of about five miles per pixel.
The satellite has an average radius of about 120 miles and is uniformly dark with an albedo of about 6 percent. The irregular shape suggests that 1989N1 has been cold and rigid throughout its history and subject to significant impact cratering.
The bottom picture was taken from a distance of about 91,000 miles, and can resolve objects as small as 1.7 miles in size.
Hints of crater-like forms and groove-like lineations can be discerned. The apparent graininess of the image is caused by the short exposure necessary to avoid significant smear.
Proteus was not known prior to Voyager-2’s fly-by, because it orbits so close to Neptune (about 73,000 miles) that the ground-based telescopes of the time could not see it in the glare of the gas giant. It was discovered in early global pictures of Neptune as Voyager-2 approached.
While planetary scientists have made some educated guesses about the moon’s origin and geology based on these two images, they are simply guesses. These are the only detailed images we have of Proteus, and neither is particularly good.
March 26, 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.
- Vast issues a statement supporting NASA new space station plans
Not surprising, as their module development program can easily fit with NASA’s own core module proposal.
- JAXA posts update on the most recent launch failure of its H3 rocket
Engineers have “almost pinpointed” the failure to a honeycomb panel, a failure apparently noted previously. Two solutions are being considered.
- Astroforge touts its precision laser mining system that extracts material without the need for a drill
Still needs to be tested in space or on the Moon.
- Namibia rejects Starlink because SpaceX refused to give it ownership rights
And like South Africa, SpaceX said nope! And so Namibia remains in the dark age.
- In 1999, NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter was lost when one team used imperial units (pounds) and another used metric units (newtons)
One of the most egregious failures by NASA ever.