September 26, 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.
- Rocket Lab touts its proposed Mars Telecommunications orbiter
The company is one of several bidding for this contract. Hence the repeated X tweets plugging it.
- Nineteen and a half minute Dragon engine burn to raise ISS’s orbit cuts off prematurely at 3.5 minutes due to “being on unexpected tanks”
Both Dragon and ISS are safe, but it is not yet clear exactly what the problem was.
- On this day in 1992, the Mars Observer mission was launched by a Titan III rocket
The orbiter was lost three days before it was to enter Mars orbit from a catastrophic failure in its propulsion system.
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 from 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. If you buy it from 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
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.
- Rocket Lab touts its proposed Mars Telecommunications orbiter
The company is one of several bidding for this contract. Hence the repeated X tweets plugging it.
- Nineteen and a half minute Dragon engine burn to raise ISS’s orbit cuts off prematurely at 3.5 minutes due to “being on unexpected tanks”
Both Dragon and ISS are safe, but it is not yet clear exactly what the problem was.
- On this day in 1992, the Mars Observer mission was launched by a Titan III rocket
The orbiter was lost three days before it was to enter Mars orbit from a catastrophic failure in its propulsion system.
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 from 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. If you buy it from 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
Looks like we have a little more info on the burn, via Jay Keegan at NASASpaceFlight:
https://x.com/_jaykeegan_/status/1971609055098507423
The second attempt succeeded, apparently.
https://x.com/_jaykeegan_/status/1971659602367598635
Mars Observer Launch 1992
Retro Space HD (2020)
https://youtu.be/N5zSxB60jiI
4:00
[with the obligatory autistic-factoids:]
“Mars Observer was scheduled to perform an orbital insertion maneuver on August 24, 1993, but contact with the spacecraft was lost on August 21, 1993. The likely reason for the spacecraft failure was the leakage of fuel and oxidizer vapors through the improperly designed PTFE check valve to the common pressurization system. During interplanetary cruise, the vapor mix had accumulated in feed lines and pressurant lines, resulting in explosion and their rupture after the engine was restarted for routine course correction.
-A similar problem later crippled the Akatsuki space probe in 2010. Although none of the primary objectives were achieved, the mission provided interplanetary cruise phase data, collected up to the date of last contact. This data would be useful for subsequent missions to Mars.
-Science instruments originally developed for Mars Observer were placed on four subsequent spacecraft to complete the mission objectives: Mars Global Surveyor launched in 1996, Mars Climate Orbiter launched in 1998, 2001 Mars Odyssey launched in 2001, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launched in 2005.”
Two recent space books—
Soviet lunar efforts:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0387218963
Japan’s hopes:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/3031455711/
@Jeff Wright:
I had not known how far along the crewed Moon mission the Soviets were. Debating on that purchase. Second entry sounds like being damned with faint praise. Asian space is China by a country mile, India coming up, and Japan; I don’t see Japan crewing a ‘climb of Mt. Niitaka’ next year on home-made hardware.