Author: Robert Zimmerman

Two orbital launches today by China and SpaceX, plus a suborbital hypersonic launch by Rocket Lab

10:45 am

The beat goes on! Since last night both China and SpaceX successfully completed orbital launches.

First, China used its most powerful operating rocket, the Long March 5, to place what its state-run press called “a new communication technology test satellite” into orbit, the rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport. As the Long March 5 can haul very large payloads into orbit, it suggests this one satellite is unusually heavy.

Next, SpaceX successfully placed another 24 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage (B1071) successfully completed its 34th flight (38 days after its previous flight), landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. With this flight the stage moved past the space shuttle Atlantis, putting it in third place in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicle:

39 Discovery space shuttle
35 Falcon 9 booster B1067
34 Falcon 9 booster B1071
33 Atlantis space shuttle
32 Falcon 9 booster B1063
31 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle
28 Falcon 9 booster B1077
28 Falcon 9 booster B1078

Sources here and here.

Though it was not an orbital launch and thus isn’t added to my launch totals, Rocket Lab also launched last night, using its HASTE suborbital version of its Electron rocket to do a suborbital hypersonic test for the War Department, as part of its $190 million contract to do twenty such test flights. This appears to be the first of those launches.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

69 SpaceX
36 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 69 to 61.

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Evidence of supernova remnant near the center of the Milky Way?

10:21 am

Supernova remnant near the Milky Way's center
Click for original image.

Using two X-ray space telescopes, astronomers now think they have detected evidence of a supernova remnant very close to the center of the Milky Way.

You can read their paper here [pdf]. The image to the right is a composite of optical (the stars), radio (the red nebula), and Chanda’s X-ray data (the blue nebula). From the press release:

The evidence for the new supernova remnant, located about 26,000 light-years from Earth, comes from X-ray data from Chandra and XMM-Newton. The X-ray data reveals a “blob” of X-ray emission [indicated by blue] that may come from the remains of a massive star that self-destructed as a supernova, buried within the larger cloud of expanding gas.

The location of this suspected supernova remnant in the image is [that blue region]. It is in bubble of gas [the surrounding larger and smaller red objects] that has had electrons stripped away from hydrogen — called an “H II region” — surrounding a massive, young star. If this is indeed a supernova remnant, then it is expanding at about two million miles per hour and is at least about 1,700 years old.

,..The long filaments seen in the radio image are caused by energetic particles travelling along magnetic fields that are mostly directed perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy.

According to the paper, this supernova remnant is found on the western edge of a vast energized gas cloud called the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ), 1,600 to 1,900 light years across, that spans the Milky Way’s center. The features seen in the image above are part of a feature on the CMZ’s western edge called Sagittarius C, which apparently has not been studied as much as other parts of the CMZ.

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Another unsuccessful suborbital launch from proposed Nova Scotia spaceport

9:44 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

For the second time in less than seven months the Canadian startup company T-Minus unsuccessfully attempted a suborbital test launch from the proposed Spaceport Nova Scotia, owned and operated by the company Maritime Launch Services and funded mostly by a major $200 million lease by the Canadian government.

The launch was conducted from Spaceport Nova Scotia under approved regulatory and safety frameworks. The demonstration strengthened coordination among launch site teams and partners while refining launch operational procedures and the safety and security systems that govern all activities at the spaceport.

While two suborbital flights had been planned for today’s demonstration, the decision was made to conclude operations following the first flight in order to review mission data and incorporate lessons learned into future testing activities. The demonstration featured the launch of the Barracuda, a hypersonic, single-stage, solid-fuel suborbital vehicle capable of carrying payloads of up to 40 kilograms to altitudes of approximately 80 kilometres.

Full analysis of the flight data will continue over the coming weeks. However, initial data indicate that the vehicle operated nominally during the powered phase of flight before experiencing an anomaly late in the boost phase.

In other words, the first launch did not operate as expected, which forced the cancellation of the second launch. T-Minus had a similar result in its November 2025 test, making its record 2-for-2 in failures.

This launch was really designed as a PR event, not a space launch. Maritime invited numerous government officials and celebrities to watch, even as the leftist Carney government has tried to falsely sell its spaceport lease as a way to establish a sovereign launch capability for Canada.

Maritime itself has been trying to get this spaceport off the ground since 2016, with no success. Only in the last year it has come back to life due to that $200 million government lease. With that financing, Maritime has been able to sign up two different rocket startups to consider launching from Spaceport Nova Scotia, the German company Isar Aerospace and the South Korean company Innospace.

However, no orbital launches are presently scheduled, and it is likely none will occur before 2028. And when or if it happens, it will not be by a Canadian rocket company.

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Stoke Space successfully completes all tank tests for 1st stage of its Nova rocket

9:24 am

Stoke's Nova rocket
Stoke’s Nova rocket, designed to be
completely reusable.

The rocket startup Stoke Space announced earlier this week it has successfully completed all tank tests for 1st stage of its Nova rocket, thus increasing the odds that the rocket’s first launch will occur before the end of this year.

During this campaign, the team filled both tanks above their maximum expected pressure conditions, demonstrated automated pressure control across a range of fill levels, and operated the vehicle through challenging environmental conditions, including hurricane-force winds and a severe lightning storm. More than just a successful structural test campaign, the result was a broader demonstration that Nova’s hardware, software, ground systems, and operations approach are maturing together.

The company noted that it is not unusually for new rockets to experience explosions and other failures during this testing phase, thus making its complete success without a failure “a significant achievement.”

Stoke has consistently refused to set a launch date as it has been developing its rocket. It approach has been simply “We will launch when we are ready.” It has had this luxury in that it has successfully raised $1.34 billion in private investment capital, attracted to the company because of its rocket’s radical design that will allow both its first and second stages to be reusable. The first stage will land vertically, as does SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

The second stage uses a revolutionary nozzle design that makes its return possible. Instead of a single central nozzle, the engine has a ring of small nozzles on the outside edge of its heat shield. The stage will then return to Earth like a capsule, with those nozzles adding force to control and slow its descent.

The rocket itself has a smaller payload capacity than a Falcon 9, but its ability to be completely reusable means its second stage is far more capable. It can fly multiple times, thus lowering the launch costs for its customers. It can also provide an orbital manufacturing site, like a Varda capsule, which will attract a much larger customer base.

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Katalyst’s Link rescue spacecraft installed on Pegasus rocket

3:26 pm

Katalyst's proposed Swift rescue mission
Katalyst’s proposed Swift rescue mission.
Click for original image.

Katalyst’s Link rescue spacecraft that is going to try to raise the orbit of the Swift-Gehrels Space Telescope before it decays has now been installed on Northrop Grumman’s last Pegasus rocket, in preparation for a launch hopefully before the end of this month.

Engineers completed installation of Katalyst Space’s LINK robotic servicing spacecraft into a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket on Tuesday, June 9, at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Launch is anticipated later this month.

NASA contracted Katalyst to build and launch LINK to raise the altitude of the agency’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. Our planet’s atmosphere creates drag for spacecraft in low Earth orbit, gradually reducing their altitudes if they don’t have propulsion systems to counteract the effect. Recent solar activity magnified this effect on Swift, and its orbit decayed faster than anticipated.

This mission is one of the most daring ever financed by NASA and attempted by a private company. First, Gehrel-Swift has no attachment points. To grab it and then raise its orbit requires the robotic tentacles shown in the graphic to the right. Such a robotic grab in orbit has never been done before.

Second, Katalyst is a satellite servicing startup that has not yet serviced anything in orbit. The Link spacecraft was originally intended as a demo mission. When NASA put out a call for rescue proposals, the company decided to revise it to save Gehrels-Swift, because doing so was fast and made a rescue possible.

If Katalyst succeeds in this mission it will immediately leap to the top of the orbital servicing heap. Expect investment capital to quickly pour in afterward. And even if the mission fails but gets close, the company might still get a lot of investment capital, simply because it got so close.

Finally, this will be the final launch of the Pegasus rocket. After this flight Northrop Grumman has no more in stock, and it will retire it and its Stargazer L-1011 airplane that is used as its first stage.

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June 10, 2026 Quick space links

2:40 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.

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A look back at a significant moment in human history: the first picture of the Moon’s far side

12:14 pm

The first picture ever taken of the Moon's far side, by Luna-3
Click for original image.

Today’s cool image is being posted not because of its beauty or high resolution, but because it was a significant first that shined a light on a mystery that had baffled all humanity since the first time a human being in Africa looked up and observed the Moon.

The picture to the right, reduced slightly and smoothed to remove some camera artifacts, was the first picture ever taken of the hidden far side of the Moon, captured by the Soviet Union’s Luna-3 probe on October 7, 1959, one day after it had passed less than 3,900 miles above the surface. As it moved away, it looked back, and took this picture from a distance of about 40,000 miles.

The picture ain’t what we are used to nowadays from space, but you need to put yourself back in time to truly appreciate it. For literally the entire history of humanity, this view had been hidden. Dreamers, philosophers, scientists, and ordinary people would look at the near side of the Moon almost nightly, but no one knew what was on the other side. Whole religious myths grew up about this unknown. Some science fiction writers of the 19th century fantasized there was air and water there and thus housed an alien civilization, purposely positioned so we couldn’t see it.

Suddenly, with this picture, that side was no longer hidden. This one Luna-3 picture showed humanity that the Moon’s far side was not much different than the near side, though much more cratered with fewer dark mare regions. It had no air or water. Nor were there alien civilizations.

But that age-old mystery was now solved. For those living in the 1950s, it was something of a revelation to see this picture. For those who came after, it is important to try to imagine the significance of that revelation. Suddenly, the mysteries of the universe were no longer unsolvable. Suddenly, we had the ability to solve them.

This picture, like all new knowledge, also brought with it new mysteries, based not on a hidden view but on real data and real questions. Now the goal was understand that data in order to solve the history of the Moon’s geology and how it fit into the formation of the Earth and the entire solar system. That endeavor is still on-going, with its solution not yet entirely in sight.

One last point: Though this picture is woefully inadequate compared to modern planetary images, it also carries a remarkable amount of good information that has since been confirmed by other spacecraft. To get an idea, compare it with a similar global view produced using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)’s full dataset. The features match quite well, and a close look at the Luna 3 picture reveals many details not immediately evident that match well with the LRO image. The Russian engineers who made this happen should be rememberd and honored for their achievement.

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New Webb data suggests little red dots are supermassive black holes embedded in gas cloud

11:02 am

Little Red Dot GLIMPSE-17775
Little Red Dot GLIMPSE-17775

Using spectroscopic infrared data obtained by the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers now posit that the mysterious little red dots found by Webb in the very early universe are supermassive black holes embedded in a dense cloud of ionized gas.

The scientists focused Webb on the little red dot dubbed GLIMPSE-17775, shown to the right in a false color image produced by Webb’s near infrared camera. You can read their paper here [pdf].

The spectroscopic data collected by Webb contains multiple lines of evidence that support the interpretation that little red dot GLIMPSE-17775 is a black hole star: a rapidly accreting, or growing, black hole enveloped in a dense gas cocoon, which is reprocessing the light emitted from near the black hole and producing the features seen in the spectrum.

Among the 40-plus lines that the team detected in GLIMPSE-17775’s spectrum were various independent indicators that all align with the BH* scenario [the name the scientists use for this model]. For example, the team found that many of the spectral lines, such as hydrogen, oxygen, and helium, do not fit a simple model of a rotating gas cloud. Instead, the best fit model includes a broadening effect known as electron scattering, a telltale sign that a dense, layered gas cocoon is enshrouding this source.

The strength and ratios of certain lines to each other, most notably the 16 iron lines that compose what the team has dubbed an “iron forest” and certain oxygen lines, require a high-energy source to produce them, like a rapidly accreting black hole. Additionally, astronomers noted the fluorescence and absorption of helium in the spectrum, both of which individually suggest that there is a dense medium enveloping a powerful source.

The researchers claim this theory will work to explain all the other little red dots that Webb has detected in the early universe. They also claim it explains how the dots could be there so soon after the Big Bang, as they don’t have to be as supermassive as first believed. If very large, there wasn’t time for them to coalesce following the Big Bang. This model suggests instead that they can be much smaller black holes, thus allowing time for their formation without contradicting present Big Bang cosmology.

There is of course a lot of uncertainty here. For example, GLIMPSE-17775’s data is microlensed, which distorts it. While scientists think they understand the distortions fully, their inability to see this object and the foreground object doing the microlensing from multiple perspectives requires them to make many assumptions that cannot be proven, and could very well be wrong.

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Mitsubishi gets subsidy from Japan to develop its own orbital tug

9:52 am

The Japanese aerospace company Mitsubishi today announced that Japan’s Space Strategic Fund has awarded it a subsidy of an undisclosed amount to its develop its own orbital tug.

The goal is to develop an OTV [orbital transfer vehicle] that can respond flexibly to user needs, navigate between orbits, and load and release payloads in space without being limited to specific applications or transport routes. The company also aims to verify the feasibility of autonomous rendezvous, proximity operations and docking (RPOD) using physical AI and robotics for the safe and effective capture, handling and release of payloads in space.

The Space Strategic Fund was created by the Japanese government in 2023 as a ten year $6.6 billion program to encourage the growth of a private Japanese space sector, to essentially transition Japan from a government space program run and owned by its space agency JAXA to a independent and competing private sector, following the capitalism model.

That fund however was given to JAXA to manage, and so far it appears it has not moved aggressively to promote an independent sector. Inside, the awards it has given out so far have mostly been to either fund its own programs, or help its big space partners, such as Mitsubishi. This could change of course as privately-owned spacecraft begin garnering customers outside of JAXA. It is however taking a long time, and meanwhile Japan’s space industry continues to trail badly both China and India, and even South Korea. While these Asian companies are developing multiple rockets and spacecraft, Japan presently has no operational rockets, and its commercial space sector is barely alive.

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Alan Hale, the co-discoverer of Comet Hale-Bopp, passes away at 67

9:35 am

R.I.P.: Amateur astronomer Alan Hale, who co-discovered Comet Hale-Bopp, one of the brightest naked-eye comets in the past century, passed away on June 6, 2026 at his home in New Mexico. He was 67.

One fateful night in 1995, he had just finished observing Comet 71P/Clark and decided to glimpse a few globular clusters in Sagittarius while waiting for Comet 6P/d’Arrest to rise above the horizon. As he focused in on M70, he noticed a faint, diffuse object — a comet that would place his name in astronomical history books alongside Thomas Bopp’s.

Checking his star charts, his email, and the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT), Hale fully expected to find that someone else had already discovered the comet he’d spied. On finding all three databases devoid of any mention of a comet near M70, he sent an email to the CBAT team notifying them about his discovery.

At the same time, another amateur astronomer, Thomas Bopp, had spied the fuzzy smudge in his friend’s telescope, while observing from south of Pheonix, Arizona. According to Hale, spotty cell service forced Bopp to drive all the way home to send a telegram to the CBAT team — who were surprised to receive an actual telegram. So Hale’s email arrived first, receiving first billing on the comet, but it’s unclear who observed the comet first.

Comet Hale-Bopp turned out to be the most spectacular comet of the 20th century, easily visible to the naked eye, even in urban areas, and visible for many weeks in the evening sky in the northern hemisphere. All told, it was visible to ordinary people for more than 18 months, a record. Even now, more than a quarter of a century later, no comet has been as bright or as spectacular.

Hale subsequently used this discovery to build a career promoting astronomy to the general public.

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India takes first step to privatize its largest rocket, the LVM3 or Bahubali

9:21 am

LVM3 launching a set of OneWeb satellites in 2022
LVM3 about to launch a set of OneWeb satellites in 2022

IN-SPACe, the agency assigned the job for shifting India’s space effort away from its space agency ISRO and to the private sector, yesterday released an Expression of Interest (EOI), asking India’s private aerospace industry for bids to take over operations of ISRO’s LVM3 rocket (also called Bahubali), its most powerful rocket that ISRO plans to use for its future manned and interplanetary missions.

The invitation for EOI, released on Tuesday, invites eligible Indian private companies or industry consortia to acquire and operationalise LVM3 technology from ISRO. The LVM3, often referred to as ISRO’s ‘Baahubali’ rocket, is the agency’s heaviest operational launch vehicle and is behind key missions including Chandrayaan 2 and 3. The selected private entity will receive technology transfer and extensive support from ISRO to absorb the technology and begin manufacturing and launching LVM3 vehicles commercially.

The EOI invitation also lays down the eligibility criteria for the applicable private entities. ISRO’s handholding and infrastructure support is proposed for a defined period of 42 months or until the realisation and launch of two LVM3 vehicles by the selected entity, whichever comes earlier.

The eventual goal is for the private sector to market LVM3 for commercial purposes, outside of ISRO’s Gaganyaan and space station manned program. While ISRO will continue to operate the rocket to launch manned missions as well as the country’s proposed Bharatiya Antariksh Space Station (BAS), the private company that takes over LVM3 will sell it to the international market for profit. As this is a powerful rocket, it can compete directly with SpaceX’s Falcon 9, ULA’s Vulcan, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, and Arianespace’s Ariane-6.

IN-SPACe has already begun this process with ISRO’s smallsat SSLV rocket, transferring operations in June 2025 to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). There are also indications it is trying to do the same with ISRO’s mid-sized PSLV rocket. If all three transfers go through, almost all of ISRO’s rockets will be operated by the private sector.

Don’t expect this transition to the private sector to happen quickly. As we have seen in the U.S., the shift away from a government-run space program to a chaotic free capitalist space industry can take many years, decades even. And its eventual success is never guaranteed, as government agencies fight hard to protect their turf, and they have the power of government coercion to back them up.

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China picks four of its pseudo-companies to launch its new Qingzhou cargo freighter

8:54 am

China's Qingzhou unmanned cargo freighter
China’s Qingzhou unmanned cargo freighter

China’s government has now chosen four of its pseudo-companies to allow them to bid on launching its new smaller and less costly Qingzhou freighter to bring cargo its Tiangong-3 space station.

Launch firms Galactic Energy, CAS Space, OrienSpace and Landspace were shortlisted to launch the Qingzhou cargo spacecraft, following the launch of a prototype of the supply vessel March 30. The four were named in a public notice posted to China’s national tendering platform June 5, with the notice period closing June 9. The notice does not indicate the selection of a final provider.

The full scale Qingzhou cargo spacecraft is tentatively scheduled for launch in January 2027, subject to the final launch window, according to the tender information. The mission is intended to dock at Tiangong to provide supplies for the first time. Qingzhou is developed by the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IAMCAS), and is one of two low-cost space station resupply spacecraft being developed under a program initiated by China’s human spaceflight agency, CMSEO, to support Tiangong. The prototype completed rendezvous tests in April.

Of these four pseudo-companies, CAS Space and Landspace are most likely to get the first Qingzhou launch contracts. CAS Space is wholly-owned by a government agency, giving it a distinct political advantage. Its Kinetica-2 solid-fueled rocket has also flown a number of times successfully, including one mission that launched the first Qingzhou prototype in March 2026.

Landspace’s rocket, the Zhuque-2, has also flown successfully a number of times (with one failure). As an independent pseudo-company with no direct ownership by the government, its political connections are not as good. At the same time, all these pseudo-companies are essentially owned by the communist government, which recognizes private property only at its convenience.

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Science operations about to resume on Europe’s two-satellite Proba-3 space telescope

8:39 am

The Proba-3 mission
The Proba-3 mission. Click for original.

After months of trouble-shooting after losing contact with the coronagraph probe of Europe’s two-satellite Proba-3 solar space telesscope in February 2026, engineers have successfully resumed precise formation flying of the two spacecraft, and are about to resume full science observations of the Sun’s corona.

The mission is explained in the graph to the right. In February all contact with the coronagraph, which holds the mission’s science instruments, was lost. After a month of struggle, engineers regained contact, but it required another few months of trouble-shooting to pin down the cause of the problem and fix it. The press release provides almost no information about that cause, other than this one quote that hints it was software-based.

“One by one, we have checked the status of each of the spacecraft’s subsystems. We have also been able to successfully perform the operations that proved critical in February,” says Damien. “Back then, it triggered the unfortunate chain reaction that led to loss of connection with the spacecraft, but after patching the root cause in the software, we were confident that this activity will cause no further issues.”

With both spacecraft once again operating in tandem, the occulter can block the Sun’s light so the coronagraph can observe the Sun’s corona, its atmosphere. Essentially, Proba-3 creates an on-going artificial eclipse so as to make the corona visible for study.

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Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 – Goin Out of My Head

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Performed live 1966. I have started the embed at Herb Albert’s intro, cutting out the staged opening jokes, which some of you might find amusing.

Hat tip Rex Ridenoure.

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June 9, 2026 Quick space links

2:26 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, plus readers Tom Donahue and Chuck, who provided the first two links. 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.

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The rings of Saturn

1:29 pm

Saturn's rings in 2006
Click for original image.

Cool image time! Rather than post another Mars image, I decided today to dig back into the Cassini orbiter archives, which orbited Saturn for almost fourteen years, beginning in 2004.

The picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 6, 2006 from about 397,000 miles away. It has a resolution of about 22 miles per pixel, so no object smaller than that is resolved.

This wide and sweeping view of the sunlit rings of Saturn takes in the impressive variety in their structure — from the clumpy and perennially intriguing F ring to the many waves, ringlets and gaps in the A and B rings and the Cassini Division in between.

The F ring is the outermost thin clumpy ring. The B ring is the brighter set of rings inside the wide Cassini Division, with the A ring the darker set beyond. For a labeled map of all the rings and gaps go here. The seemingly incoherent naming sequence is because the rings are named alphabetically in their order of discovery. Thus, the A ring was first identified, followed by the inner B Ring. The F ring was discovered by the Pioneer 11 when it flew past Saturn in 1979.

While the many Cassini wide-view images of Saturn’s rings tend to look somewhat the same, they all remain breath-taking regardless. Imagine a hotel in orbit around Saturn, where you could look out your window and see this evolve over time as your spacecraft orbited the ringed planet.

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NASA announces crew and flight plan for Artemis-3 Earth orbit mission next year

12:22 pm

Artemis logo

NASA today unveiled both the four-person crew that will fly its Artemis-3 Earth orbit mission next year as well as the mission’s basic plan, assuming both SpaceX and Blue Origin can get their respective lunar landers ready in time.

Crew assignments are as follows:

  • NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, commander
  • ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, pilot
  • NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, mission specialist
  • NASA astronaut Andre Douglas, mission specialist

… NASA astronaut Bob Hines was named as a backup crew member.

Except for Douglas, all are veterans.

The mission details were also announced:

Artemis III includes launching the world’s most powerful rockets in short order. Blue Origin’s lander pathfinder, which is able to stay in orbit for multiple weeks, will launch first and await the crew. NASA will send the astronauts aboard Orion by SLS to orbit Earth, before rendezvousing in space with the company’s lander test article and spending about two days docked together for tests and technology demonstrations, including entering the lander.

After completing docked operations with Blue Origin, Orion will detach and await Starship. SpaceX’s Starship pathfinder will launch and meet up with Orion to spend about a day connected for checkouts and testing. After that, Orion and its crew will undock and return home, splashing safely down in the Pacific Ocean where a team from the U.S. Navy and NASA will recover the astronauts.

In total, the crew is expected to remain in space for about two weeks, with exact mission length to be determined in real-time based on launch, rendezvous, and docked operations.

All of this assumes that New Glenn has been fixed and is operational by late 2027 and can launch the Blue Moon Mark-2 manned lunar lander. It also assumes the lunar lander version of Starship is ready and operational and man-rated. It also assumes NASA can get SLS stacked and ready for launch much faster than previously expected.

All are big assumptions.

Other issues: Orion will be testing its docking system and its newly redesigned heat shield for the first time, with humans on board. As the return will be from low Earth orbit, the stress on the heat shield will be relatively light, reducing the risk considerably. Similarly, if the docking system fails they simply won’t dock, and can return to Earth instead. Both should work, however, as neither is cutting edge technology.

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Update on SpaceX preparations at Boca Chica for next Starship/Superheavy test flight

10:54 am

Link here. The key news is that SpaceX has moved Superheavy prototype #20 — the booster that will carry Starship prototype #40 on the 13th orbital test flight — to the test stand to begin tank and engine tests.

Cryogenic testing on B20 will focus on verifying the structural integrity of the liquid oxygen and methane tanks under extreme cold temperatures, while also checking the performance of internal systems, including COPVs, piping, valves, and sensors. This phase is critical for ensuring the booster can safely handle propellant loads before any engine firings.

Based on the article’s overall estimate of what still needs to be done, it is projecting a July-August time frame for the 13th flight. While that will be only two to three months after the 12th flight, significantly less than the seven months between the 11th and 12th flights, it still is longer than required. In order to get Starship certified for a manned Artemis-3 Earth orbit mission next year, a lot of test flights will have to occur in quick succession, on a monthly basis. For the lunar missions the company also has to start flying refueling missions in Earth orbit, which will require the launch of multiple Starships within several weeks.

SpaceX has indicated in intends to do that refueling mission before the end of the year. To do that however this 13th flight must fly in the summer and largely achieve most of its engineering goals.

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