Author: Robert Zimmerman

Serbia to sign Artemis Accords

10:24 am

European members of Artemis Accords

NASA today announced that Serbia tomorrow will become the 69th nation to sign the Artemis Accords.

With this signing, almost every European nation has now joined this American alliance, as shown in blue on the map to the right. Russia is indicated by red, illustrating also how its former Soviet bloc has almost completed joined this American space alliance. The only remaining exceptions are Belarus, the Ukraine, Moldova, and several nations formed out of Yugoslavia. The signing of Serbia tomorrow, which joins Slovenia as two former Yugoslavia regions now part of the accords, suggests those other regions will soon sign on as well.

The full list of nations in this American space alliance is as follows:

Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Botswana, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

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Russia agrees to extend ISS partnership through 2030

9:32 am

Russia today announced that it will extend its operations at ISS through 2030, including agreeing to continue the barter exchange of astronaut flights as long as the station is operational.

Russian-American crews will continue conducting seat-swap flights to the International Space Station (ISS) as long as the orbital outpost remains operational, Russian State Space Corporation (Roscosmos) Director General Dmitry Bakanov said. “We have agreed in principle on extending the terms (for the ISS – TASS) until 2030, and of course, since the ISS has a Russian and an American segment, seat-swap flights involving Russian cosmonauts and NASA astronauts will also continue,” he said at a press conference following the Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft’s docking with the ISS.

Bakanov added, however, that it was too early to say when a formal legal agreement would be signed.

The present Russian plans to transition from ISS to its Russian Orbital Station
Russia’s plan for launching its new station.
Click for full resolution image.

These agreements come from meetings betweent Bakanov and NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in Russia this week. Isaacman’s visit is the first by a NASA administrator in about eight years. As part of the discussions, Russia also agreed to “begin more detailed coordination of satellite operations to prevent collisions.”

Isaacman likely had a very easy time getting Russia to agree to these items, as Russia’s ability to launch its own planned new Russian Orbital Station (ROS) is becoming increasingly difficult due to the war in the Ukraine and the overall decline in its industrial capabilities in the past two decades. Bakanov knows ROS will almost certain not launch on time. The present public plan — as shown in the graphic to the right — says its first module will launch sometime in the next four years, but don’t bet on it.

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July 14, 2026 Quick space links

2:48 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.

Note: X now requires log in to view videos. You can get around this by clicking on the three dots at the top right to get the embed code. Ask for the code for an “embedded video.” The video will then be available for watching.

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Hiking into the solar system’s biggest canyon

12:09 pm

Overview map

The canyon walls in one spot in Valles Marineris
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on June 3, 2026 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The white dot on the overview map shows the location, on the northern interior wall of Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the solar system. The scientists took this image to get a good look at those canyon walls. I am highlighting the image because it provides a good way to illustrate the monumental scale of this vast canyon.

The inset on the overview map includes an orange dotted line, following the likely route for a trail along the nose of this ridge, going from the rim to the canyon floor. The picture to the right shows only one small section of that ridge trail, near the top. And yet, from the upper left to the lower right of the photograph a hike along that ridgeline would cover 2.2 miles and descend about 4,500 feet, a descent somewhat comparable to hiking into the Grand Canyon though dropping much more steeply. On either side of you the slopes would drop off from 1,600 to 2,000 feet.

To hike from the top of the rim to the canyon floor however would be far more challenging and be even more spectacular. The length of that orange dotted line is about 17.3 miles, with the total elevation drop about 23,000 feet — 3,000 feet greater than climbing the highest mountain in the U.S., Mount McKinley in Alaska.

Think about it. Along this part of Valles Marineris the elevation difference between the canyon floor and the rim is routinely much greater than the height of America’s tallest mountain. Every hike down into that canyon along the north wall would present a similar challenge. And from this point that northern canyon wall extends more than 650 miles westward and about 250 miles eastward. That’s a lot of Mount McKinley’s lined up in a row!

With these scales, it is at present difficult to imagine what the view from that rim would be like. You would see farther and deeper than most places on Earth, on a planet with a far thinner but more dusty atmosphere.

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Astronomers detect a sugar molecule when looking towards the galactic center

9:44 am

The erythrulose sugar molecule
From Figure 1 of the paper.

Astronomers have detected for the first time a sugar molecule in interstellar space, based on data obtained when looking at a molecular cloud near the galactic center.

You can read the paper here. From the press release:

An international team led by CAB researcher Izaskun Jiménez-Serra has now identified the first sugar in interstellar space: erythrulose. This molecule is the only possible four-carbon ketose, and on Earth it is commonly found in raspberries and sunless tanning products. Erythrulose was detected toward the molecular cloud G+0.693−0.027, located near the centre of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. The discovery was made possible by ultra-sensitive, broadband spectroscopic surveys carried out with the 40-m Yebes radio telescope and the 30-m telescope of the Institute for Radio Astronomy in the Millimeter Range (IRAM).

The team identified 12 spectral lines matching the laboratory spectrum of erythrulose measured at the University of the Basque Country. The study also shows that this sugar is at least eight times more abundant than similar three-carbon sugars, none of which were detected in the same region.

Extrapolating from this data the astronomers speculate that “between 0.5 and 50 million tonnes of this sugar could have reached Earth’s surface during the Late Heavy Bombardment, which occurred approximately 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago.” They base this conclusion on the nature of the molecule. If it could form in interstellar space, it is even more likely to have formed in the early solar system.

To put it mildly, that speculation is quite uncertain.

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Another recoverable capsule company enters the competition

9:28 am

Artist rendering of Enos in orbit
Artist rendering of Enos in orbit. Click for original animation.

A new recoverable capsule company, dubbed Reditus, says it has completed construction on its own small recoverable capsule — similar to Varda’s — and is now searching for either commercial or military customers.

Stef Crum, the company’s co-founder and CEO, told Breaking Defense that the spacecraft, called ENOS, can carry payloads for military testers wanting to evaluate how a specific system or technology functions in a hypersonic environment — or instead serve as a Mach 25+ target vehicle for interceptors both above and within the atmosphere.

The spacecraft is “designed to be launched and operate on-orbit like a satellite, leveraging the existing, and increasingly expanding launch-infrastructure. ENOS is capable of maintaining operations on-orbit, for days, months or years, providing operators with maximum mission flexibility. Then, ENOS can initiate its own reentry, and be recovered under parachute,” the Reditus announcement explained.

Reditus is only two years old and has raised $7.85 million in seed money. It plans to launch its first Enos demo mission on a Falcon 9 rocket, but apparently hopes to get a customer as well for that mission.

The recoverable capsule competition is sure getting crowded. In the U.S. Reditus joins Varda, SpaceX, Inversion Space, and Sierra Space, all of whom have raised money or won contracts for doing such orbital work. In Europe, The Exploration Company in France, Atmos in Germany, PLD in Spain, Genesis in Croatia, and Space Cargo in Luxembourg have also raised capital. So far, however, Varda is the only company to successfully fly capsules operationally, for a variety of customers.

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Thailand proceeding with plan to establish its own commercial spaceport

9:07 am

Thailand
Click for source.

In a follow-up to a 2025 proposal, the Thailand government is now putting together a plan to build a commercial spaceport for use by international rocket companies.

The Thai government is preparing to anchor itself in the global space race with a blueprint to develop a domestic spaceport. By deploying a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) framework, the state aims to attract international investment and ease the burden on the national budget.

The article claims Thailand’s location gives it a natural launch advantage, but the map to the right says otherwise. It has no easy clear launch path to the east (for equatorial launches) or south (for polar launches). Unless the rocket 1st stages are reusable, launches from Thailand will risk dropping stages on Indonesia, the Philippines, Laos, or Vietnam.

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NASA switches launch provider from ULA to SpaceX for its SunRise solar mission

8:39 am

NASA yesterday announced that it has switched the rocket it will use to launch its SunRise six-cubesat mission to study the Sun’s corona, from ULA’s Vulcan rocket to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, becoming a secondary payload on a Space Force launch.

NASA’s SunRISE (Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment) mission will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, shifting from its original ride into space aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur vehicle. NASA will share updated launch timing in the near future. The heliophysics mission will fly as a rideshare sponsored by the United States Space Force’s Space Systems Command.

The launch was originally supposed to take place now, in the summer of 2026, but at present the Vulcan rocket is grounded due to problems with its solid-fueled strap-on boosters. NASA apparently decided it would be better to switch to the Falcon Heavy launch, even though as a secondary payload it loses control over exactly when it can launch, and at present the Space Force’s next Falcon Heavy launch is scheduled for 2027.

The switch means a loss of more income for ULA due to its inability to get Vulcan launching regularly and reliably. It also suggests Vulcan repairs remains stalled, and that it will not resume regular launches until next year.

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Three launches, two by SpaceX and one by Russia

8:24 am

The global rocket industry completed three launches since last night.

First, SpaceX placed 27 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 lifting off last night from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage (B1093) completed its 15th flight (29 days after its previous mission), landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

SpaceX then followed up with a morning launch, placing 29 more Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The first stage (B1080) completed its 28th flight (32 days after its previous mission), landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. This launch tied this booster for ninth place with the space shuttle Columbia in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicles.

Finally, Russia successfully placed one American and two Russian astronauts into orbit, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from Russia’s Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan. Their Soyuz capsule docked with the Prichal module on the Russian half of ISS several hours later, beginning an eight month mission for this crew.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

85 SpaceX
45 China
10 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
9 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 85 to 78.

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FAA seeking comments on SpaceX’s request to expand Starship’s landing zones

4:43 pm

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today released its draft environmental reassessment [pdf] that would allow SpaceX to both expand add landing zones for bringing its Starship spacecraft back from orbit.

From the introduction:

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is seeking to obtain a modification of its existing vehicle operator license from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to account for Starship reentry contingency operations in the Pacific Ocean as well as an additional Starship reentry trajectory for landing at the Boca Chica Launch Site in Starbase, Texas (TX). SpaceX must obtain a license modification from FAA to land the Starship vehicle in the Northern Pacific Basin (south of the Aleutian Islands), as well as information for airspace closures for an additional trajectory which includes landing at the Boca Chica Launch Site in Starbase, TX. SpaceX also intends to expand the previously evaluated landing areas in the Hawaii and Central Pacific Basin (southwest of the Hawaiian Islands) and the Southeast (SE) Pacific (off the coast of Chile) as additional contingency landing locations for Starship.

Starship flight path over the Pacific for landing at Boca Chica
Starship flight path over the Pacific for landing at Boca Chica

The map to the right shows Starship’s proposed flight path for returning to Boca Chica.

The key quote however is in the FAA’s conclusion, after reviewing all the typical potential issues:

FAA has concluded that no significant impacts would occur as a result of SpaceX’s Proposed Action.

At this stage of the reassessment the FAA is seeking public comment through July 26, 2026. Expect the typical protests from the left, hostile to anything new (especially if Elon Musk is involved). Based on past rulings in these matters by the FAA (even when Biden was president), expect this expansion of landing sites to be approved. Under Trump expect the decision to be made more quickly, especially because this landing site expansion is crucial for allowing the company to begin routine orbital flights of Starship in preparation for NASA’s Artemis lunar landing.

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July 13, 2026 Quick space links

2:50 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.

Note: X now requires log in to view videos. You can get around this by clicking on the three dots at the top right to get the embed code. Ask for the code for an “embedded video.” The video will then be available for watching.

  • A tour of Varda’s factory
    Reader Cotour already linked to this in an earlier comment. I want to make sure all my readers see it. It is excellent.
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Astronomers think they have identified the 1st black hole inside the Milky Way’s largest globular cluster

11:08 am

Omega Centauri
Click for original image.

Using both archival data from the Hubble Space Telescope and infrared data from the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers think they have identified the first black hole ever found inside the globular cluster Omega Centauri.

The image to the right, reduced to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and shows the globular cluster, the largest such object in the Milky Way, with an estimated 10 million stars packed into a space only 150 light years across. It is located about 17,000 light years away. Previous research had suggested it held at least one intermediate-sized black hole within it, with models suggesting another 10,000 stellar-mass black holes. Now scientists think they have found the first of the latter group, indicated by the red circle in the inset.

By sifting through more than 20 years of Hubble archival data and pulling in recent Webb data to further refine their astrometric measurements, the team located a star orbiting an invisible object so hefty that it has to be a black hole. Dubbed oMEGACat BH-2, it is the first stellar-mass black hole detected in Omega Centauri, and it has some surprising qualities. oMEGACat BH-2 has a lower-than-expected mass and, with its visible star companion, the black hole-star duo has the longest orbital period of any black hole binary system known to date.

The star orbits the black hole every 94 years. The long orbit suggests to the scientists that these objects did not form together but were captured because of the crowded nature of Omega Centauri. The scientists also believe that crowded nature will likely cause them to break free of each other, sometime in the future.

There are innumerable uncertainties and questions remaining. First, the detection needs confirmation. Second, where are the thousands of other expected stellar-mass black holes? And where is that predicted intermediate-sized one? Moreover, though astronomers believe the halo of the Milky Way’s 158 known globular clusters mark the very early history of the galaxy, much of that history remains unsettled.

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FAA clears SpaceX to launch Starshp/Superheavy; 13th test flight set for July 16th

9:44 am

Starship/Superheavy on the launchpad prior to 12th test flight in May
Starship/Superheavy on the launchpad prior to 12th test flight in May

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today closed out its investigation of the 12th orbital test flight of Starship/Superheavy and cleared SpaceX to go ahead with the 13th test flight.

In truth what the FAA did was rubberstamp SpaceX’s own investigation into that flight, almost immediately after the company announced on July 11, 2026 that it was targeting July 16, 2026 for launch. The company has now posted a complete description of that investigation and the flight plan for the 13th flight.

First the cause of the failure of Superheavy to successfully return as planned:

At stage separation on Flight 12, slight differences in engine startup on the ship [Starship] caused the directional flip of the booster to be off by approximately 90 degrees. The startup sequence has been modified to be more robust to timing variability and more reliably flip in the desired direction, which is done to increase overall performance.

After stage separation and the flip, the Super Heavy booster attempted its boostback burn. Five of its 33 engines experienced issues when attempting to re-light causing the boostback burn to end early. The Super Heavy on this upcoming flight has hardware modifications to improve re-light reliability along with updates to engine alarms and aborts to match the conditions seen in the multi-engine flight environment.

In addition, hardware changes were made to the engines on Starship, addressing the failure of several to light during flight 12.

The 13th test flight will once again follow the low orbital path used in the past few flights that will bring it down in the Indian Ocean. A relight of a Raptor-3 engine in orbit will once again be on the schedule. Starship will also deploy for the first time 20 actual Starlink satellites, rather than dummy prototypes. Six will be outfitted with cameras to observe Starship’s heat shield as it and the satellites de-orbit.

Finally, the ship will do more tests of its heat shield and tiles during re-entry.

If all goes well, this will lay the groundwork for the first full orbital flight on the next launch, likely to occur about a month or so later.

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Voyager completes purchase of Astrobotic; obtains $250 million credit line

9:15 am

Starlab design as of December 2025
Starlab design as of December 2025

The space station startup Voyager Technologies — the lead company in the consortium building the Starlab space station — has in the past week made major moves to solidify its financial situation as well as diversify its holdings.

First, it announced it had “closed a $250 million credit facility led by J.P. Morgan.”

The upsized facility expands Voyager’s financial flexibility, providing liquidity at scale to support accelerating customer demand across the company’s space, defense and national security portfolio.

I don’t claim to understand the jargon of the banking business, but I think this translates into a $250 million credit line with J.P. Morgan, giving Voyager access to cash when it needs it. The collateral for this credit line is probably based on the undisclosed capital investment the company obtained in January and May 2026. It also provides us a good indication of the amount of capital obtained in those earlier announcements.

Next, Voyager announced today that it has completed its acquisition of the lunar lander startup Astrobotic, first revealed in early June. In doing so, it also noted the new $298 million contracts NASA had issued to Astrobotic on June 30, 2026 for two more Peregrine lunar landers.

The Astrobotic subsidiary will now operate under the name Voyager Lunar Systems.

These announcements once again strengthen the position of Voyager and its Starlab station in the competition to win a construction contract under NASA’s station program.

My updated ranking of the five American space stations presently under development:
» Read more

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ISRO completes more ground tests of its Gaganyaan capsule, confirming launch delay

8:47 am

Artist rendering of India's Gaganyaan capsule
Artist rendering of India’s Gaganyaan capsule

India’s space agency ISRO yesterday announced it has successfully completed three qualification tests of engineering required by its manned Gaganyaan capsule during re-entry and splashdown.

First, it successfully tested the system that will disconnect the electrical and fuel lines between the crew module and its service module just before re-entry. Next it tested the structural integrity of the capsule during the release of its parachute cover and deployment of the parachutes during descent. Finally, it tested the balloon system that will inflate upon splashdown to make sure the capsule stays upright.

That ISRO is only testing these items now confirms what was rumored in December 2025 and in February 2026. Though government officials in January 2026 claimed the first unmanned test flight of Gaganyaan would take place in March 2026, apparently the agency’s management had already decided further testing and redesign was necessary after drop tests in late 2025, and that such unmanned test flights would be delayed at least a year, with the manned flight probably pushed back to 2028.

Once again, the problem here is not the required redesign and new testing. It is good they are doing the right due diligence to make sure everything works. The problem is the lack of transparency and the refusal to say honestly the present state of the schedule. All we get are contradictory hints that only serve to cause distrust, which in turn serve to discredit the agency.

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Update on Starship/Superheavy flight 13 schedule

11:26 am

Link here. The article has a nice video of the longest static full engine static fire test — 24 seconds — of Superheavy prototype #20, as it is being prepared for the thirteenth orbital test flight.

The key quote in the article however is this:

Ship 40 is still in Mega Bay 2, getting some final touches before getting its payload and rolling out to the launch site. Assuming Ship 40 does not need any further engine testing, it just needs to get its payload and roll out to the launch site. Once there, it will get stacked on Booster 20, where SpaceX will likely perform either a tanking test or a full Wet Dress Rehearsal due to changes to the tank farm.

Once all preflight testing and checkouts are complete, the stack will be ready for launch, which, based on notices from the Federal Aviation Administration, marine safety notices, navigational hazard warnings, and airspace closures, is currently targeted between July 15 and July 21.

The article adds that FAA approvals are still needed, though based on its behavior since Trump took office this should cause no delays.

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SpaceX officials attend Louisiana government event outlining its effort to reduce red tape

10:53 am

Pecan Island SpaceX facility?

Though everyone continues to say “No comment” when asked about the rumors that SpaceX is about to buy a 200+square-mile parcel of land on the Louisiana coast near the unincorporated village of Pecan Island (see map to the right), two SpaceX officials attended in late June a Louisiana government event outlining its effort to reduce red tape in coastal areas.

The meeting on June 26 was primarily aimed at discussing ways to speed permitting and other regulatory steps for projects, which often require [Army Corps of Engineers] involvement and approval. The meeting included a broad range of attendees from government agencies, ports, contractors, industry associations and relevant nonprofits.

Two SpaceX representatives involved in governmental and regulatory matters participated, including one, Owen McDonough, who specialized in water and wetlands issues for the Environmental Protection Agency during President Donald Trump’s first term.

Michael Hare, executive director of the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said he invited McDonough because he knew him from previous work and believed he could provide valuable insight into regulations surrounding water and wetlands issues. The other SpaceX representative, Brandon Conroy, was involved in required environmental mitigation efforts related to the company’s “Starbase” industrial and launch facility near Brownsville, Texas.

It sure appears as if the Louisianan government knows something about SpaceX’s intentions and is working hard to get it to sign on the dotted line. In May the Louisiana state legislature passed laws expressly designed to encourage SpaceX to come to the state, limiting the ability of activists to file frivolous lawsuits while providing tax breaks for “aerospace flight entities”.

At the same time, nothing concrete has come from SpaceX. It has submitted no permit applications with the Corp of Engineers, and its only comment about the rumors was vague and non-committal, saying merely that it is continuously exploring potential new launch sites for Starship.

Regardless of whether SpaceX actually buys this land, the effort by the Republican Louisianan government to encourage new industry in its state contrasts quite sharply with that of Democrats nationwide, who are routinely opposed to any new or old industry, seeing it as evil that must be shut down as quickly as possible.

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