June 9, 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 still uncertain about next Starliner test flight
The agency still doesn’t know if the next flight will be manned or cargo, and is still aiming for a launch in early ’26. Nothing has changed still its last statement at the end of March.
- Analysis of status of ULA’s Vulcan rocket suggests launch cadence in 2nd half of 2025 will be robust, possibly 2x per month
Only the first half of the video has new information. The company says it has 15 rockets in storage ready to fly, and customers screaming for them to get off the ground. We shall see.
- NASA releases image by Mars Odyssey of the giant Martian volcano Arsia Mons
The image is cool, looking at the volcano obliquely as it peeks up through a layer of clouds
- On this day in 1988 astronomers using the Kuiper Airborne Observatory made the first direct observation of Pluto’s atmosphere
That atmosphere comes and goes depending on where Pluto is in its 250-year-long year, orbiting the Sun in a relatively eccentric orbit.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
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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 still uncertain about next Starliner test flight
The agency still doesn’t know if the next flight will be manned or cargo, and is still aiming for a launch in early ’26. Nothing has changed still its last statement at the end of March.
- Analysis of status of ULA’s Vulcan rocket suggests launch cadence in 2nd half of 2025 will be robust, possibly 2x per month
Only the first half of the video has new information. The company says it has 15 rockets in storage ready to fly, and customers screaming for them to get off the ground. We shall see.
- NASA releases image by Mars Odyssey of the giant Martian volcano Arsia Mons
The image is cool, looking at the volcano obliquely as it peeks up through a layer of clouds
- On this day in 1988 astronomers using the Kuiper Airborne Observatory made the first direct observation of Pluto’s atmosphere
That atmosphere comes and goes depending on where Pluto is in its 250-year-long year, orbiting the Sun in a relatively eccentric orbit.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I’d love to see it – I really would – but no one has ever ramped up launch cadence this fast with a brand new rocket.
Yes. Everything Vulcan-related has been indeterminate but Real Soon Now for years. I do not anticipate that we have reached Peak-Lucy-and-Football for Vulcan yet. Two launches a month by year’s end sounds as funny as any dialogue line from Airplane – e.g. “Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.”
Not that Blue is exactly burning up the flame trenches either. Mission number two for New Glenn is now supposedly NET August 15. I’m not planning to bet the rent on that.
A meme comes to mind – Trump’s head Photoshopped in place of Lloyd Bridges’s over the line, “Looks like I picked the wrong day to cancel SpaceX contracts.”