SpaceX launches another 29 Starlink satellites

9:13 am

SpaceX last night successfully placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 9th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

166 SpaceX (a new record)
83 China
16 Rocket Lab
15 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 166 to 136.

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House joins Senate in proposing a new space bureaucracy here on Earth

11:52 am

Gotta feed those DC pigs!
Gotta feed those DC pigs!

In mid-November a bi-partisan group of senators introduced legislation they claimed would help the U.S. beat China in space by creating a new government agency called the “National Institute for Space Research.”

The absurdity of creating a new agency to do this was obvious. Don’t we already have something called NASA that is tasked with this job? As I noted then, “This is just pork.”

Rather than funding real research or development in space, this legislation simply creates another Washington government agency supposedly functioning independent of presidential or even congressional oversight (a legal structure the courts have increasingly declared unconstitutional).

Well, it appears two congress critters in the House have decided they had to keep up with the Jones in the Senate, and have now introduced their own variation of this legislation.

Yesterday, Congresswoman Valerie Foushee [D-North Carolina], Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, and Congressman Daniel Webster [R-Florida] introduced H.R. 6638, the Space Resources Institute Act, bipartisan legislation which directs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Administrator and the Secretary of Commerce to report to Congress on the merits and feasibility of establishing a dedicated space resources institute relating to space resources, the surface materials, water, and metals often found on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids.

The bill would give NASA 180 days to submit its report.

This is just more junk from Congress that will do nothing but distract NASA from its real business, fostering a new American aerospace industry capable of colonizing the solar system for profit. Note too that like the Senate bill, this House bill is a bi-partisan effort in stupidity.

As I said in reporting on the Senate version of this proposal, “Ugh. There are times I wish I didn’t have to read the news from DC. It almost always depresses me.”

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Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

Software issue forces Russia to delay Proton launch until next year

11:28 am

Because of a software issue detected once the rocket was arrived in Baikonur, Russia has been forced to delay one of its last Proton launches from next week until next year, with the new launch date undetermined.

[O]n Dec. 13, 2025, final checks revealed a problem in the Block DM-03 upper stage which forced to postpone the launch, Roskosmos announced. According to the Zakryty Kosmos Telegram channel, a software issue will require the return of the rocket back to the processing building and the disassembly of the payload section. The potential need to ship the onboard avionics back to the manufacturer would likely push the mission well into 2026.

Proton has largely been retired, though it appears it has some undetermined number of military and government launches left on its manifest. In 2023 there were discussions to restart its assembly line, but nothing since has been announced.

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Components for the first Ariane-6 Amazon’s Leo launch shipped to French Guiana

11:20 am

The components for the first Ariane-6 launch in its 18-launch contract with Amazon are now on their way by boat to French Guiana for a launch earlier in 2026.

Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite network, Amazon Leo, reached another milestone this week as Arianespace’s hybrid industrial cargo ship, Canopée, departed from Bordeaux, France, transporting essential components of the Ariane 6 rocket for its first Amazon mission planned for early next year.

…Canopée’s voyage is supporting Amazon Leo’s inaugural mission on Ariane 64—an Ariane 6 variant featuring four additional boosters for maximum satellite launch capacity. The vessel will transport the rocket’s central core stage, upper stage, and other critical components on a weeks-long journey across the Atlantic to the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Once there, the components will undergo final assembly and integration in preparation for the LE-01 mission.

Though Ariane-6 has successfully launched four times, none of those versions were this most powerful version. The plan is for it to place in orbit 32 Leo satellites, some of which Amazon has already shipped to French Guiana.

Arianespace plans six Ariane-6 launches in 2026, though it is unclear how many of these launches will be for Amazon. Amazon, which has about 154 satellites in orbit, needs to get about 1,450 more launched by July to meet its FCC license obligations. Both ULA and Blue Origin say they will be ramping up their launch pace in 2026 to meet this need, but it remains unclear if all three rocket companies can get the job done on time.

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Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

 

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

Vast opens Japanese office

11:06 am

As part of its recent push to establish links with as many foreign governments as possible, Vast announced earlier this week the opening of a new Japanese office, to be headed by a retired Japanese astronaut.

In November Vast announced preliminary agreements with Uzbekistan, the Maldives, and Columbia. This new office in Japan continues that trend. The company is clearly marketing its demonstration single module space station Haven-1 to these international customers. None have yet committed to a flight, but expect a lot of action once Haven-1 launches in the spring and is proven operational. The company wants to fly four 30-day manned missions to the module during its three year mission, and if launched successfully these international customers are likely to sign on for flights.

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SpaceX official confirms it is considering an IPO

10:58 am

In a message to employees on December 12, 2025, SpaceX’s chief financial officer, Bret Johnson, confirmed the company is considering issuing an initial public offering of stock sometime in 2026, but that nothing has been decided in any way.

His announcement also indicated the reason to do so would be to raise enough funds to “ramp Starship to an insane flight rate, deploy AI data centers in space, build Moonbase Alpha and send uncrewed and crewed missions to Mars.”

I think the question is whether the company is raising enough revenue from Starlink to do what it wants, or whether it now sees a need for more investment capital that it cannot get from either that revenue or private stock sales. If it finds in the coming months the former is sufficient, the stock sale will be put off, probably for several years. If it finds the latter, than we shall see this IPO sometime in 2026.

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Leaving Earth cover

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

 

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

The two American launches today set a new global annual launch record exceeding 300+

10:56 pm

Liberty enlightens the world
Now liberty is enlightening the solar system!

Two American companies today successfully completed launches from opposite sides of the globe, and in doing so set a new global benchmark for rocket launches in a single year.

First, Rocket Lab placed a Japanese technology test smallsat into orbit, its Electron rocket taking off from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand. The satelliite, dubbed Raise-4, was built by Japan’s space agency JAXA and carries eight different experimental payloads from a variety of academic and industry entities, including a test of a new solar sail design.

SpaceX then followed, launching another 27 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage completed its 9th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

165 SpaceX (a new record)
83 China
16 Rocket Lab (a new record)
15 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 165 to 136.

More significantly, with these two launches the total number of successful orbital launches in 2025 has now exceeded 300, for a present total of 301. To put the spectacular nature of this number in perspective, until 2020 it was rare for the world to exceed 100 launches in a year, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union. Most often, the total each year ranged between 50 to 80 launches.

Those numbers are now history, and it has been competition and freedom that has made all the difference.
» Read more

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South Africa lifts its racial quota rules for Starlink

11:01 am

The South African government has finally removed the racist rule that required SpaceX to sell 30% of its company to local black citizens before allowing Starlink terminals to be sold in its country.

Instead, the government will allow SpaceX to do what the company had repeatedly offered to do, make substantial investments in “local development programs.”

Starlink has been unable to launch in South Africa for years because the current ICASA rules require telecommunications companies to sell 30% of their equity to historically disadvantaged individuals. Starlink has consistently refused, stating it does not sell equity in any market where it operates.

But now under the new directive, multinational companies that cannot sell equity due to global shareholding structures can instead make substantial investments in local development programs. These equity equivalent investment programs must be worth either 30% of the company’s South African operations value or 4% of annual local revenue. The programs require approval and monitoring by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition.

…Starlink has already outlined plans to invest nearly R2 billion in South Africa. The company proposed investing R500 million to connect approximately 5,000 schools to high-speed internet, benefiting about 2.4 million students.

One of the reasons the government backed down on this issue is that it received more than 19,000 public comments in which 90% blasted the racist quotas and demanded the government approve SpaceX’s proposals.

If you live in South Africa however don’t expect to go out and buy a Starlink terminal tomorrow. Final regulatory approvals will still delay Starlink availability until late 2027, at the earliest.

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More details revealed about what caused the damage on that Russian launchpad

10:46 am

Anatoly Zak at russianspaceweb.com has uncovered more details behind the collapse of the mobile platform at Russia’s only manned launchpad at Baikonur.

According to one rumor from Baikonur, the mobile platform was retracted and moved back to the rocket as many times as five times, as the specialists tried unsuccessfully to secure it in its parking position inside its shelter, after the routine call to retract the platform had been issued during the final countdown less than an hour before launch.

When the personnel was finally ordered to evacuate the pad some 30 minutes ahead of the liftoff, the decision was made to leave the platform in its parking position inside its shelter without securing it properly rather then to postpone the launch. It was not immediately clear who made a decision to proceed with the launch despite this clear violation of launch criteria.

The veterans of the center speculated that the mission management had been under pressure to go ahead with the launch so not to disappoint high-ranking officials and as many as 3,000 paid tourists who came to the remote center to witness the event.

Sounds remarkably reasonable. Zak’s report also adds that Russian officials say they will have a new mobile platform in place and the launch pad operational by April 12, 2026, the day when Russians annually celebrate Yuri Gagarin’s first human flight in space.

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China launches recoverable capsule; satellite launched two days ago just misses Starlink satellite

11:03 pm

Two Chinese launch-related stories tonight. First, one of the nine satellites launched on a Kinetica-3 rocket on December 10, 2025 apparently almost collided with a Starlink satellite after deployment in orbit.

As far as we know, no coordination or deconfliction with existing satellites operating in space was performed, resulting in a 200 meter close approach between one of the deployed satellites and STARLINK-6079 (56120) at 560 km altitude.

The government-owned pseudo-company that launched the rocket, CAS Space, responded shortly thereafter.

Our team is currently in contact for more details. All CAS Space launches select their launch windows using the ground-based space awareness system to avoid collisions with known satellites/debris. This is a mandatory procedure. We will work on identifying the exact details and provide assistance as the LSP.

It is possible China did the proper due diligence but the large number of satellites in orbit as well as being launched simply makes these events increasingly likely. It is also possible CAS Space is lying, and it didn’t do a thorough analysis prior to launch. Either way, this incident should force it to do a better job in the future.

Next, China tonight (December 13, 2025 in China) continued its annual end-of-year ramp up of launches, placing the first Dear-5 recoverable capsule into orbit, its Kuaizhou-11 rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. This capsule is comparable to Russia’s Bion capsule, designed to be used for research in orbit for return to Earth for sale.

China’s state-run press made no mention where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

164 SpaceX
83 China (a new record)
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 164 to 135.

11 comments

December 12, 2025 Quick space links

2:55 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.

20 comments

Leftist lawsuit against beach closures at Boca Chica appealed to higher Texas court

10:59 am

The leftist anti-Musk activists groups have now appealed the dismissal of their lawsuit against the law allowing more frequent beach closures at Boca Chica for Starship/Superheavy launches.

The lawsuit was filed by Save the Rio Grande Valley (SaveRGV), the Sierra Club, and the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas against Cameron County, the Texas General Land Office, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, and the Texas attorney general. When the case was reviewed by the lower court in Cameron county, it dismissed it entirely, saying the activist groups had no standing and had failed to show any harm from the law.

The activists then appealed to a higher court.

The Thirteenth Court of Appeals found the Plaintiffs have standing and that immunity had been waived for each Defendant. The case was remanded to the trial court to proceed on the merits, but Defendants appealed the Thirteenth Court’s ruling to the Supreme Court of Texas.

Oral arguments before the Supreme Court of Texas will occur on January 13, 2026. In the more rational world of America until two decades ago, the case would be thrown out again, since the law that initially limited these beach closures was legally revised by the state legislature.launches. Just because these leftists don’t like it doesn’t mean they and the courts have the right to cancel legal legislation.

We no longer live in that more rational American world, however. Politics now rule, and it is leftist politics that most often win, regardless of the law or rationality.

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The beginnings of a planetary nebula

9:49 am

Calabash Nebula
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope back in 2017 but released this week by NASA’s PR department. It shows what astronomers have nicknamed the Calabash Nebula. From the Wikipedia page:

The Calabash Nebula, also known as the Rotten Egg Nebula or by its technical name OH 231.84 +4.22, is a protoplanetary nebula (PPN) 1.4 light years (13 Pm) long and located some 5,000 light years (47 Em) from Earth in the constellation Puppis. The name “Calabash Nebula” was first proposed in 1989 in an early paper on its expected nebular dynamics, based on the nebula’s appearance.[5] The Calabash is almost certainly a member of the open cluster Messier 46, as it has the same distance, radial velocity, and proper motion.[6] The central star is QX Puppis, a binary composed of a very cool Mira variable and an A-type main-sequence star.

The star in the center is an ancient red giant that is in the initial stages of dying. As it does so it periodically erupts, sending out jets of material from its poles. The result is this elongated shape. According to the release, “the gas shown in yellow is moving close to a million kilometers an hour.”

Over the next few thousand years these eruptions will shape the planetary nebula. Since the central star is actually a binary, those two stars will likely act like the blades in a mixer, adding more interesting forms to the material as it is shot out to form this nebula.

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Space Force creates new naming system for its satellites

9:36 am

Though this is hardly the most important story of the day, the head of the Space Force yesterday announced that the agency has now established a new naming system for its in-space satellites and weapons.

The result is a taxonomy of seven categories tied to seven mission areas. Orbital warfare systems will take their names from the Norse pantheon. Cyber warfare tools from mythological creatures. Electromagnetic warfare systems from serpents. Navigation warfare tools from sharks. Missile warning assets from sentinels. Space domain awareness systems from ghosts. And satellite communications systems from constellations.

The service is also taking care to avoid copyright issues, Saltzman said: “We had to find categories that you could use, like ghosts or constellations or things that nobody could claim ownership of.”

This naming system will allow one to immediately identify the general purpose of the satellite or payload, though of course more specific details will be classified.

The system will however also include a less informative numbering system:

Alongside the thematic nicknames, the Space Force is also adopting a new alphanumeric satellite designation scheme. Each spacecraft will receive a two-letter prefix indicating mission type followed by a number. For example, the next generation of geostationary reconnaissance satellites will carry the RG-XX designator, adding a layer of standardized classification to complement the symbolic names attached to operational systems.

It was not made clear whether this naming system will be applied to previously launched spacecraft.

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Iraq and SpaceX close to signing Starlink deal

9:28 am

Meetings this week between SpaceX officials and the Iraqi government appear to have finalized an agreement that would allow Starlink to be marketed inside Iraq.

The meeting on Thursday concluded with discussions on “the final procedures related to granting satellite internet licenses, including the license designated for SpaceX, as well as avenues for strengthening cooperation in the telecommunications sector, the services provided by the company, and its prospective coverage areas,” the statement added.

It is not clear if the deal has been signed, or is simply written and still needs review. Based on the little information provided, it sounds as if SpaceX will be marketing its terminals directly to Iraqi citizens. I suspect however that some Iraqi government entity will demand a cut, and might even demand the right to do the marketing itself, as a number of other nations have done.

Regardless, Starlink continues to expand worldwide, and in doing so makes censorship increasingly difficult for the petty power-hungry thugs that run many of these third world nations. And when Amazon Leo begins operations, that censorship will become even more difficult.

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Avio to build $500 million rocket facility in Virginia

9:18 am

The Italian rocket company Avio has selected Virginia as the location where it will build a $500 million solid-fueled rocket facility as part of establishing its American-based division.

Italian rocket builder Avio has announced that it has selected the state of Virginia to build its planned US-based production facility. The $500 million project forms part of the company’s expansion of its defence business.

Avio founded its wholly owned US subsidiary, Avio USA, in 2022 to capitalise on a market opportunity created by constrained solid rocket motor production capacity relative to surging demand for tactical propulsion solutions. Since then, the company has signed contracts with the US Armed Forces, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin.

Avio presently builds the Vega-C solid-fueled rocket, which until this year was managed and controlled by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) commercial division, Arianespace. That arrangement however is ending. Beginning next year, Arianespace will be out of the picture. Avio is already marketing its own rocket, as indicated above, and as part of that process the company has been expanding operations, such as creating this U.S. division.

And for Avio this situation presents a great opportunity. The only company producing solid-fueled rockets and missiles in the U.S. appears to be Northrop Grumman, and the lack of competition has made its rockets expensive. There is room for competition. Moreover, the decisions of the Biden administration to provide the Ukraine a very large percentage of the Pentagon’s missile stock means there is a big need to replenish those stocks.

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Turkey begins construction of spaceport in Somalia

9:07 am

Somalia

According to statements by one Turkish official this week, his nation has begun building its own spaceport on the southeast coast of Somalia at a location not yet specified.

Türkiye has begun construction of a space launch facility in Somalia, marking the country’s entry into an exclusive group of nations with oceanside spaceports, Board Chairman of Baykar Selcuk Bayraktar announced on Thursday. “Türkiye now has a space launch station. Normally, you need to be by the ocean. Türkiye has a 30 kilometer by 30 kilometer area in Somalia,” Bayraktar said during a panel at Take Off İstanbul 2025. “When you have oceanside access, you can deploy launch vehicles, meaning you have a spaceport. There are 12 such places in the world. Because Somalia is part of our heartland geography, there will be a space station there,” he noted.

This plan has been in the works since earlier this year, though few real details (such as its specific location) have not been released. It appears however that Turkey wants to use it to test both ballistic missiles and eventually launch orbital rockets. The location on the coast will permit test flights of bigger missiles that Turkey cannot do from its present test sites inside Turkey.

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China launches nine more Guowang internet-of-things satellites

8:56 pm

China today successfully launched another nine internet-of-things satellites for the Guowang (or SatNet) constellation, its Long March 12 rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport.

China’s state-run press did not reveal the number of satellites, but the previous three Long March 12 launches that carried Guowang satellites all launched nine, so I think it is safe to assume nine launched today as well. This was the sixteenth launch for this constellation, which now has about 119 satellites in orbit, with a planned 13,000 once complete.

The Long March 12 is expendable. Though the launch proceeded over the ocean, one drop zone for the rocket’s lower stages was in the Philippines, where authorities warned its citizens to avoid those zones and to exercise caution if they see any likely rocket debris.

An upgraded version, the Long March 12A, with a first stage designed to land vertically and be reused, is scheduled to launch sometime in the next two weeks.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

164 SpaceX
82 China (a new record)
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 164 to 134.

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SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites

3:08 pm

The beat goes on! SpaceX today continued its torrid launch pace, launching another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 16th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

164 SpaceX (a new record)
81 China
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 164 to 133.

5 comments

December 11, 2025 Quick space links

2:45 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.

  • Perseverance detects static electricity produced by Martian dust devils
    I didn’t post this story last week when it was first announced because the media framed it as “Lightning found on Mar!” That’s balderdash. What was actually found was that the dust moving in dust devils produces static charges that have now been detected. I should have clarified this point then. I thank Jay for getting me to correct this omission.
5 comments

Astronomers: 70% of smaller galaxies don’t have supermassive black holes at their center

2:43 pm

Astronomers reviewing data collected by the Chandra X-ray Observatory have found that 70% of smaller galaxies don’t appear to have supermassive black holes at their center.

A team of astronomers used data from over 1,600 galaxies collected in more than two decades of the Chandra mission. The researchers looked at galaxies ranging in heft from over ten times the mass of the Milky Way down to dwarf galaxies, which have stellar masses less than a few percent of that of our home galaxy. … The team has reported that only about 30% of dwarf galaxies likely contain supermassive black holes.

You can read the paper here [pdf].

This conclusion not only impacts the theories on the formation of supermassive black holes in the center of galaxies, it influences the present theories on the formation of galaxies themselves.

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Scientists posit that Neptune and Uranus might be rockier than previously theorized

12:35 pm

Scientists doing new computer modeling of the known data now posit that Neptune and Uranus might not be as icy as previously believed and instead could be more like the inner terrestrial planets like Earth, much rockier in their interior.

According to the work carried by the UZH scientific team, Uranus and Neptune might actually be more rocky than icy. The new study does not claim the two blue planets to be one or the other type, water- or rock- rich, it rather challenges that ice-rich is the only possibility. This interpretation is also consistent with the discovery that the dwarf planet Pluto is rock-dominated in composition.

…With their new agnostic, and yet fully physical model, the University of Zurich team found the potential internal composition of the “ice giants” of our Solar system, is not limited at all to only ice (typically represented by water). “It is something that we first suggested nearly 15 years ago, and now we have the numerical framework to demonstrate it,” reveals Ravit Helled, a professor at the University of Zurich and initiator of the project. The new range of internal composition shows that both planets can either be water-rich or rock-rich.

This new hypothesis might also help explain the multi-polar magnetic fields of both planets.

All is uncertain of course, as this is just a computer model based on limited data. Nor is it a surprise that an alternative conclusion appears to work. We know so little about these distant worlds that it is likely that multiple theories could fit the data, and all could be wrong when we finally learn more.

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French startup The Exploration Company now building an in-orbit servicing spacecraft

12:28 pm

The French startup The Exploration Company, which has been developing an unmanned cargo spacecraft called Nyx to supply the commercial space stations under development, has now also gotten funds from the European Space Agency (ESA) to build an in-orbit spacecraft designed to provide refueling and servicing capabilities as well.

More information here.

In a 25 November update on its progress with an ESA-funded project, the company revealed that it is also working on a spacecraft called Oura, designed to refuel satellites in orbit, thereby extending their operational lifespan.

…As part of the 25 November update, the company announced that it had been awarded a Phase B2 contract for the InSPoC-1 programme. The Phase B2 development of the project will include activities up to Technology Readiness Level 6, which represents the development of a prototype and its demonstration in a relevant environment.

Once again, this contract from ESA is radically different than its past policy of building and owning everything itself. Instead, it is hiring this French company to develop this capability, which this French company will then own and be able to sell for profits to others.

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Scientists map the outside edge of the Sun’s atmosphere

12:22 pm

The mapping of the Sun's atmosphere

Using multiple solar observatories in space, scientists have now been able to map the approximate location of the outside edge of the Sun’s atmosphere, the point “where the speed of the outward solar wind becomes faster than the speed of magnetic waves.”

The panels to the right are a sampling of that mapping, and is figure 3 of the peer-reviewed paper [pdf]. The bulk of the data (black) comes from five spacecraft observing the Sun from the L1 point a million miles from Earth. The blue line is data from Solar Orbiter, while the red line is data from the Parker Solar Probe. From the press release:

Astronomers have produced the first continuous, two-dimensional maps of the outer edge of the Sun’s atmosphere, a shifting, frothy boundary that marks where solar winds escape the Sun’s magnetic grasp. By combining the maps and close-up measurements, scientists from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) showed that the boundary grows larger, rougher and spikier as the Sun becomes more active.

…The boundary in the Sun’s atmosphere where the solar wind’s outward speed becomes faster than the speed of magnetic waves, known as the Alfvén surface, is the “point of no return” for material that escapes the Sun and enters interplanetary space; once material travels beyond this point, it cannot travel back to the Sun. This surface is the effective “edge” of the Sun’s atmosphere, and provides scientists with an active laboratory for studying and understanding how solar activity impacts the rest of the solar system, including life and technology on and around Earth.

This new data further refines the nature of the boundary, as earlier probes had already given scientists a rough idea of its size and nature.

2 comments

Yesterday’s posts are sadly lost

12:07 pm

The outage earlier today unfortunately toasted everything I did yesterday. That also appears to include the comments people left as well.

I will attempt to recreate those posts later today and over the weekend. Sorry however about the comments. I don’t think I can recover them.

UPDATE: I think I have recreated all the posts from yesterday. I was also able to repost the lost comments from the National Academies of Science story because commenter Edward had them still and sent them to me.

If I have missed anything, please comment below.

6 comments

Pentagon decides New Glenn must fly four times before its certifies it for military launches

11:33 am

Pentagon officials yesterday announced that before it will certify Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket for commercial military payloads, it must complete two more successful orbital launches, for a total of four flights.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will have to complete four successful orbital flights as its pathway to certification under the U.S. Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant said Dec. 10 at the Spacepower conference. Garrant, who leads the Space Systems Command, said Blue Origin selected the four-flight benchmark and the government agreed. “The government is supporting a four-flight certification for New Glenn,” he told reporters. The rocket has logged two successful missions so far, and Garrant said a third launch is expected “earlier in the new year than later.” If upcoming flights stay on track, he added, “I think they’re going to be in a fantastic place to become our third certified provider and compete for missions.”

If certified, Blue Origin would join SpaceX and United Launch Alliance as the Space Force’s third heavy-lift launch provider.

It is surprising that the military is requiring four successful flights from Blue Origin, but required only two from ULA’s new Vulcan rocket, and certified that even though there were problems on Vulcan’s second flight.

These extra flights should not cause a significant delay, since Blue Origin is expecting to complete a number of launches in 2026 to meet its obligations under its Amazon Leo contract

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