DW News – Mining the world’s most precious marble
An evening pause: Some more fascinating human technology.
Hat tip Cotour.
Year: 2026
February 6, 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.
- Isaacman: NASA astronauts can now use their smartphones on ISS and Orion
It appears Isaacman is slashing some old hidebound NASA rules about using commercial store-bought equipment.
- Boeing is shifting 787 Dreamliner work from Washington state to South Carolina
This accelerated this shift, which began five years ago. The flight from Democratic Party strongholds continues.
- EU’s European Commission awards consortium led by French rocket startup HyPrSpace the contract to develop a fast launch capability
At present this appears to just be an initial design study, not an actual launch contract.
- Starlink now available in the former Soviet Republic of Tajikistan
Everyone’s getting it but Russia. It seems invading your neighbors is bad for business in all ways.
- Senate committee delays consideration of bill to streamline FCC satellite licensing
More shenanigans by stupid members of the swamp. In this case the delay is caused by senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), who appears to want to flex her muscles.
- On this day in 1974 Mariner 10 reached Venus and returned the first close-up photo of the planet
The image, using an ultraviolet filter, revealed the dark absorption streaks caused by some material in Venus’ atmosphere that still remains unknown. The spacecraft also discovered the super-rotation of that atmosphere, 60 times faster than the planet’s rotation.
- Documentary describing the maiden flight of the space shuttle Challenger in 1983
I haven’t watched it so I cannot vouch for it. It does appear to be assembled from historic footage.
One of Cassini’s first close-up images of Saturn’s rings
Click for original image.
Cool image time! My exploration of the Cassini image archive continues. The picture to the right, reduced and enhanced to post here, was taken on May 2, 2005 by Cassini soon after it moved into a close orbit of Saturn where it could get high resolution images of Saturn’s rings. This is one of the first.
This is also a raw image that has not been calibrated or validated, to use the science team’s terms. Thus, the white dots scattered across the image could be artifacts that need to be cleaned up, not examples of Saturn’s many moons.
Regardless, the image illustrates the incredible delicacy of these rings, despite the fact that they are gigantic, spanning almost 45,000 miles in width, with a thickness ranging from 30 to 1,000 feet. And yet, there are so many distinct rings they almost resemble an old-fashioned vinyl record.
A new American satellite constellation gets FCC approval
The satellite startup Logos has won approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for its proposed 4,178 satellite internet constellation.
The Federal Communications Commission partially granted the Redwood City, California-based venture’s constellation proposal Jan. 30, clearing operations in K-, Q- and V-band spectrum under certain conditions while deferring and denying parts of its higher-frequency requests. The satellites would operate across seven orbital shells ranging from 870 kilometers to 925 kilometers above Earth, with inclinations spanning 28 to 90 degrees.
Under FCC rules, Logos must deploy and operate half of the constellation within seven years, with the remainder in place by Jan. 30, 2035.
The company last year raised $50 million in private investment capital, and hopes to launch its first satellite by 2027.
It seems this constellation is coming to the game very late.
Has the FAA officially approved Starship launches for Kennedy Space Center in Florida?
Proposed Starship/Superheavy launchsites at
Kennedy (LC-39A) and Cape Canaveral (SLC-37)
It appears that though the FAA’s preliminary summary that it issued on January 30, 2026 only suggested it was leaning to approve Starship/Superheavy launches at SpaceX’s LC-39A launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, it now appears that SpaceX is treating it as an official approval, and has begun work re-configuring LC-39A from the launchpad used for manned Falcon 9 launches to a facility for launching both Falcon Heavy and Starship/Superheavy.
The launch pad has seen a pause in action due to SpaceX working to finalize the Starship tower and launch pad on the site. Then on Wednesday, Feb. 4, a crane appeared next to the Falcon 9 launch tower, attaching to the crew access arm.
“For our manifest going forward, we’re planning to launch most of our Falcon 9 launches off of Space Launch Complex 40. That will include all Dragon missions going forward,” said Lee Echerd, senior mission manager of Human Spaceflight Mission Management at SpaceX during the Crew-12 prelaunch press briefing. “That will allow our Cape team to focus 39A on Falcon Heavy launches and hopefully our first Starship launches later this year.”
This Space News article today claims the FAA has issued a final approval for Starship/Superheavy at LC-39A, but it links to that preliminary summary from January 30th, which as far as I can tell is still preliminary and does not include an official approval.
Not that it matters. The FAA appears quite prepared to okay Starship/Superheavy launches at LC-39A, and it now appears SpaceX is proceeding under that assumption.
Russia launches classified nine satellites
Russia yesterday successfully placed nine classified military satellites into orbit, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northeast Russia.
The rocket’s flight path took it over the Arctic, where all its lower stages fell harmlessly. As for the satellites:
Based on these orbital parameters, it appeared that upon forming its initial near-circular orbit at an altitude just below 330 kilometers, the Fregat released one (main) payload (Object 2026-023A). The space tug then maneuvered to a near 500-kilometer orbit, where it released the rest of its passengers (Objects B, C, D, E, F, G, H and J).
The 2026 launch race:
14 SpaceX
6 China
2 Rocket Lab
1 Russia
Launches in the past week have dropped practically to zero, for what appear to be technical and political reasons. SpaceX has paused launches as it investigates why the upper stage on its last launch on February 2, 2025 did not correctly do its de-orbit burn. China meanwhile seems to have partly done the same after losing two rockets in launches in mid-January, a Long March 3B and the Ceres-2. There have been no launches of its workhorse Long March 3B rocket since then, while the Ceres-2 launch was that rocket’s maiden flight for the pseudo-company Galactic Energy. Since then there have been no launches by any of China’s pseudo-companies. It could be the new government agency in charge of all these fake companies has imposed its will and paused them all while the Ceres-2 failure is investigated.
Voyager Technologies and Max Space team up to develop inflatable planetary structures
The station designs as of the end of 2025
The space station startups Voyager Technologies, which is leading the consortium developing Starlab, and Max Space, which is developing its own inflatable Thunderbird station, have now partnered to use their combined talents to develop inflatable planetary structures for habitation and cargo.
In terms of their space stations, they are similar but different. Voyager’s Starlab station will be a single giant module launched on Starship. The consortium building this module had hired the interior decoration company Journey to design the interior, and yesterday showed off a mock-up of that interior.
Max Space’s Thunderbird is an equally large single module but because it uses inflatable technology it will launch on a Falcon 9. The company plans to launch a smaller demo module in ’27 to prove this technology.
Both companies will now use their skills together to begin design work on inflatable habitats that both NASA and SpaceX could use on the planned lunar and Mars colonies.
The phased development path includes ground validation and in-space demonstrations later this decade, with the goal of enabling operational lunar and Mars capabilities aligned with NASA’s exploration timelines. The partnership emphasizes early risk retirement, interoperability and commercial scalability as guiding principles.
In other words, these companies are expanding their business model to sell their products across a wider range of uses. This deal does not change my rankings of the five space stations currently under development, as shown below, but it is an interesting data point that suggests the technology of these space stations can be marketed in many other space-related areas.
» Read more
Stephen Sondheim – Someone in a Tree
An evening pause: For my birthday, a repost of a 2010 evening pause of one of my favorite Broadway songs, from Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures, which I only recently learned was his favorite song as well.
It tells the story of a significant moment in history, the moment when Japan’s leaders signed their first international treaty in 1852 with the United States, but from the point of view of outside witnesses. Its point is profound, that history is not just made by the leaders who sign the deals, but by every individual who makes up the whole of human society.
It’s the fragment, not the day
It’s the pebble, not the stream
It’s the ripple, not the sea
That is happening.
Not the building but the beam
Not the garden but the stone
Only cups of tea
And history
And someone in a tree.
Pluto’s implausible atmosphere, as seen in 2015 by New Horizons
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on July 14, 2015 by the camera on the New Horizons probe as it flew past Pluto, the only time a human craft has gotten close to this distant planet. From the link:
These high phase angle images show many artifacts associated with scattered sunlight; the Sun was less then 15 degrees from the center of the LORRI frame for these observations. But the outline of Pluto and its hazy atmosphere are also visible.
To see the atmosphere the light from the planet itself has been blocked out.
What is implausible about Pluto’s atmosphere is the location of the planet, about 3.7 billion miles from the Sun, out in the nether reaches of the solar system. At that distance sunlight is very weak, and produces very little energy. And yet, there is enough energy here to produce an atmosphere of mostly nitrogen gas, with trace amounts of metane and carbon monoxide. Scientists think this atmosphere only exists when Pluto is closer to the Sun in its somewhat oblong orbit, and freezes out the rest of the time. As Pluto was just retreating in 2015 from that closest approach in the last two decades of the 20th century, New Horizons could detect its presence.
But then, we really can’t be sure if this atmosphere truly vanishes when the planet is farthest from the Sun, as we have only so far observed 96 years in Pluto’s 248-year orbit.
French startup The Exploration Company completes first splashdown tests of Nyx capsule prototype
The French cargo capsule startup, The Exploration Company, has successfully completed the first splashdown tests of a smallscate prototype model of its proposed Nyx capsule.
On 5 February, The Exploration Company announced that it had successfully completed a splashdown test campaign at the National Research Council’s Institute of Marine Engineering (CNR-INM) in Rome.
A 1:4-scale mockup of Nyx, with a mass of around 135 kilograms, was built for the test campaign by Poli Model, a small Turin-based model builder. For reference, the full-scale capsule will be 4 metres wide and stand at 7 metres tall. The subscale model’s exterior was fitted with pressure sensors, accelerometers, and a gyroscope.
The tests were conducted in the CNR-INM facility’s Umberto Pugliese towing tank, a 470-metre-long pool measuring 13.5 metres across and 6.5 metres deep. Between 13 and 28 January, a total of 20 drops were conducted at varying heights and speeds in calm water, which the company explained maximised repeatability.
The company hopes to fly a fullscale demo mission to ISS in 2028, and wants to upgrade Nyx to manned capabilities in the 2030s.
Israeli weather satellite startup raises $175 million in investment capital
An Israeli weather satellite startup, dubbed Tomorrow.io, has now raised $175 million in investment capital to build an AI-driven constellation of satellites to supplement the smallsat constellation it has already launched.
This financing builds on a proven foundation of execution. Tomorrow.io has completed the full deployment of its first satellite constellation, having launched 13 satellites to space, achieving 60-minute global revisit, while scaling an AI-driven intelligence platform now embedded across critical industries. DeepSky extends this foundation into the next phase of the company’s roadmap, supporting continued commercial growth, expanding data coverage, and unlocking new high-frequency sensing capabilities.
I find amusing this new desire to label all computer programming “AI”, when in many cases it is simply the same software slightly upgraded that these companies have been using for years.
Nonetheless, this story signals the continuing transition in the weather satellite industry from the government/Soviet-style model, where all weather satellites are built and operated by governments, to the capitalism model, where governments and industry buy weather data from privately built, launched, and maintained commercial constellations.
Astronomers use SphereX infrared space telescope to study interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas
False color images of SphereX infrared data.
Click for original.
Using NASA’s SphereX infrared space telescope, astronomers have now detected a range of new molecules in the coma surround interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas as that coma brightened and grew in December 2025 following the comet’s closest approach to the Sun in the fall.
You can read the research paper here. From the press release:
In a new research note, mission scientists describe the detection of organic molecules, such as methanol, cyanide, and methane. On Earth, organic molecules are the foundation for biological processes but can be created by non-biological processes as well. The researchers also note a dramatic increase in brightness two months after the icy body had passed its closest distance to the Sun, a phenomenon associated with comets as they vent water, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide into space.
In every way this interstellar object continues to behave like an ordinary comet, which is actually quite profound. It tells us the rest of the universe is not that different than our solar system.