To read this post please scroll down.

 

THANK YOU!!

 

My November fund-raising campaign for Behind the Black is now over. As I noted below, up until this month 2025 had been a poor year for donations. This campaign changed that, drastically. November 2025 turned out to be the most successful fund-raising campaign in the fifteen-plus years I have been running this webpage. And it more than doubled the previous best campaign!

 

Words escape me! I thank everyone who donated or subscribed. Your support convinces me I should go on with this work, even if it sometimes seems to me that no one in power ever reads what I write, or even considers my analysis worth considering. Maybe someday this will change.

 

Either way, I will continue because I know I have readers who really want to read what I have to say. Thank you again!

 

This announcement will remain at the top of each post for the next few days, to make sure everyone who donated will see it.

 

The original fund-raising announcement:

  ----------------------------------

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five 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. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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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.


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

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.

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 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

8 comments

  • Dave Walden

    Robert:

    I notice that my follow-up check representing my donation has yet to clear. Did you receive it?

    Dave Walden

  • Dave Walden: Yes, I did, and I have deposited it. Give it a week or two more.

    Thank you again! I was quite floored by your generosity.

  • Rockribbed1

    Space is big. China likely did this on purpose

  • Steve White

    Seems like that shell around the Earth is increasingly crowded. Surprised we haven’t had more collisions given the planned satellite constellations for internet service. Makes me wonder if SpaceX might consider lifting the orbitals of the next generation of satellites just to have elbow room.

  • Dick Eagleson

    Rockribbed1,

    I certainly bear no love for the PRC – as anyone familiar with my comment history here can readily attest – but there is an old principle that most likely applies here – never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by mere stupidity.

    The PRC had, quite literally, 75 – 80 times more to lose from a collision than did SpaceX. The PRC would-be mega-constellation in question – to which the nine sats launched were added – numbers barely over 100 birds at present after a full year of quite unimpressive deployments. SpaceX, in contrast, has about 8,000 Starlinks in service with 3,000 of those launched just this year. Starlink sats have a small, but still non-zero, infant mortality rate so losing one sat to PRC incompetence would be of no consequence to the larger Starlink project. Not even a rounding error.

  • Richard M

    Michael Nichols, SpaceX’s VP of Starlink Engineering — whose post on X was what CAS Space was replying to — replied a few hours ago to CAS Space:

    “We appreciate the responsiveness and look forward to engaging in coordination for future launches. Establishing data sharing between all satellite operators is critical.”

    https://x.com/michaelnicollsx/status/1999831980318609642

    A dubious buck-passing effort by CAS. but SpaceX seems to be trying to play nice.

  • Jeff Wright

    I wouldn’t question their passion
    https://spacenews.com/u-s-air-force-secretary-warns-chinas-space-gains-are-driven-by-more-than-copying/

    China still has a greater commitment to space than Europe–despite their modest bump.

  • Edward

    China has plans for an even larger constellation than SpaceX has now. China needs to get its act together or it will have this same problem launching into its own constellation. I notice that there were no other reports that other launchers had similar problems with the Starlink constellation. Obviously, it is possible to avoid these situations.

    The smart person learns from his own mistakes. The wise person learns from other people’s mistakes. China has not learned from other countries’ mistakes, nor does it learn from its own mistakes and still drops boosters on its own citizens’ heads.

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