March 18, 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.
- Picture looking out from the new service platform for the Soyuz-2 launchpad at Baikonur
You can see a Soyuz-2 rocket on its side, approaching on the right.
- Blue Origin’s CEO touts the work at its BE-4 engine shop
He notes they are ready to install the BE-4 engines on the next New Glenn first stage for launch.
- Chinese official describes China’s 1st planetary defense test mission at a conference
Launch is scheduled for December 2027 on a Long March-3B, and will include an “impactor” and observer spacecraft. The target is unclear, as well as their specific plans. Based on this vague description, it sounds like a copy of the Dart mission.
- On this day in 1965 the Soviet Union launched Voskhod-2, carrying Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov
Leonov would use an inflatable airlock to do the first spacewalk. When his own suit expanded, he could not squeeze back in. After eight minutes of fruitless struggle, he only managed to re-enter the capsule by expelling air from his own suit.
- This week in 2011 Messenger entired orbit around Mercury after a seven year journey
It operated for more than four years, mapping the planet’s surface while discovering there might be water ice in its polar craters.
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.
- Picture looking out from the new service platform for the Soyuz-2 launchpad at Baikonur
You can see a Soyuz-2 rocket on its side, approaching on the right.
- Blue Origin’s CEO touts the work at its BE-4 engine shop
He notes they are ready to install the BE-4 engines on the next New Glenn first stage for launch.
- Chinese official describes China’s 1st planetary defense test mission at a conference
Launch is scheduled for December 2027 on a Long March-3B, and will include an “impactor” and observer spacecraft. The target is unclear, as well as their specific plans. Based on this vague description, it sounds like a copy of the Dart mission.
- On this day in 1965 the Soviet Union launched Voskhod-2, carrying Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov
Leonov would use an inflatable airlock to do the first spacewalk. When his own suit expanded, he could not squeeze back in. After eight minutes of fruitless struggle, he only managed to re-enter the capsule by expelling air from his own suit.
- This week in 2011 Messenger entired orbit around Mercury after a seven year journey
It operated for more than four years, mapping the planet’s surface while discovering there might be water ice in its polar craters.
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