May 28, 2025 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
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Author: Robert Zimmerman
Katica Illényi – Bubamara
An evening pause: Performed live 2016. It ain’t some long-haired guy twiddling on a bass guitar, but her fingers as a nimble and as creative.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
To all: I am in need of more evening pause suggestions. If you have suggested before, you know the rules and the way to do it. Please send me stuff. If you haven’t suggested anything previously and have something you think would work, say so in a comment here — but don’t tell us what your suggestion is. I will email you to get it. The guidelines:
1. The subject line should say “evening pause.”
2. Please send only one suggestion per email.
3. Variety! Don’t send me five from the same artist. I can only use one. Pick your favorite and send that.
4. Live performance preferred.
5. Quirky technology, humor, and short entertaining films also work.
6. Suggestions should generally be short, less than 10 minutes, preferable under 5 minutes
7. Search BtB first to make sure your suggestion hasn’t already been posted.
8. I might not respond immediately, as I schedule these in a bunch.
9. Avoid the politics of the day. The pause is a break from such discussion.
May 28, 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 acquires Geost, a payload provider for the military
The company continues to diversify across the entire commercial space landscape.
- Sierra Space wins NASA contract to study using its LIFE inflatable modules on the Moon
The modules were originally conceived to fly on Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef commercial space station. NASA now wants to see if they can be adapted for planetary colonies.
- Starship in orbit yesterday, as photographed from Namibia in Africa
As noted at the link, a substantial tail had already formed as the spacecraft dropped into the atmosphere uncontrolled.
- This week in 2012 the first SpaceX cargo Dragon was berthed at ISS
And at that moment capitalism, freedom, and competition took over.
- On this day in 2002 NASA announced that Mars Odyssey had discovered enormous amounts of near surface ice on Mars
And yet, almost a quarter of a century later news organizations (excluding Behind the Black) still think Mars lacks water and is nothing but a dry desert.
A positive endgame in Gaza begins to loom
Israel food products, provided directly to Gazans.
Click for video.
Several news stories in the past few weeks suggest to me that we are beginning to see the first signs of the end game that will bring about the defeat of Hamas and the establishment of a sane society within the Gaza strip.
First, it appears that Hamas is short of cash, according to a news report from a Saudi newspaper and then re-reported by an Israeli news outlet.
Sources within the terror group revealed that Hamas is struggling to pay salaries — not only to government employees, but also to members of its military wing and staff in other affiliated bodies at all levels.
The sources added that the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, have not paid salaries to terrorists for approximately three months and are facing serious financial difficulties in acquiring essential equipment for their military operations.
One of the things that has propped Hamas up for decades has been its control of foreign aid. The money comes in and Hamas doles it out while keeping large portions for its own use. The distribution of money gives Hamas leverage, while the money it keeps reinforces its power. Under Trump that foreign aid spigot has been largely shut down, and this story suggests we are now seeing the first results of this policy.
Second, Israel is now taking over the direct distribution of humanitarian aid. In the past Hamas maintained its power over its citizens by acting as the go-between of food and medicine. Nothing would go to anyone unless Hamas got its dirty hands on it first. Often no aid at all would reach Gazans. Hamas would keep it all, shipping it underground to its tunnels for use later during siege. Or it would sell that aid on the black market, raising money to fund its terrorist operations.
Israel, in partnership with the United States, is now ending that vile practice.
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China launches its first asteroid sample return mission
China today successfully launched Tianwen-2, its first mission attempting to return a sample from a near Earth asteroid, its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China.
Video of the launch can be found here. The probe will take about a year to reach asteroid Kamo’oalewa, where it will fly in formation studying it for another year, during which time it will attempt to grab samples by two methods. One method is a copy of the touch-and-go technique used by OSIRIS-REx on Bennu. The second method, dubbed “anchor and attach,” is untried, and involves using four robot arms, each with their own drill.
Some data suggests Kamo’oalewa is possibly a fragment from the Moon, but that is not confirmed.
After a year studying Kamo-oalewa, Tienwen-2 will then return past the Earth where it will release its sample capsule. The spacecraft will then travel to Comet 311P/PANSTARRS, reaching it in 2034. This comet is puzzling because it has an asteroid-like orbit but exhibits activity similar to a comet.
As for the launch, there is no word where the Long March 3B’s lower stages and four strap-on boosters, all using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China. It should be noted that the video I link to above was taken by an ordinary citizen watching from a hill nearby, bringing with him a group of children as well. Considering the nature of the rocket’s fuel (which can dissolve your skin if it touches you), China’s attitude is remarkably sanguine to not only drop these stages on its people, but to allow tourists to get so close to launches.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
65 SpaceX
31 China (with one more launch scheduled later today)
6 Rocket Lab (with one launch scheduled for today SCRUBBED)
6 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 65 to 50.
The canyon that Curiosity will eventually climb
Click for full resolution. For original images go here and here.
Click for interactive map.
Cool image time! The panorama above, created from two photographs taken on May 23, 2025 by the left navigation camera (here and here) on the Mars rover Curiosity, looks south uphill into the canyon that Curiosity is eventually going to climb.
The overview map to the right provides the context. The blue dot marks Curiosity’s present position, the white dotted line its past travels, the red dotted line its initial planned route, and the green dotted line its future route. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area seen in the panorama above.
If you look on the horizon to the left, you can see very bright terrain higher up the mountain. This is the pure sulfate-bearing unit that is Curiosity’s next major geological goal. It won’t reach that terrain for quite some time however because first the scientists want to spend some time studying the boxwork geology that Curiosity is now approaching. That boxwork suggests two past geological processes, as yet unconfirmed. First it suggests the ground dried like mud, forming a polygon pattern of cracks that then hardened into rock. Second, lava seeped up from below and filled those cracks. The lava, being more resistant to erosion, ended up becoming the boxwork of ridges as the material around eroded away.
This proposed history however is not proven. They hope to find out when Curiosity gets there.
Meanwhile, despite having traveled almost 22 miles, the rover is more than 25 miles from the peak of Mount Sharp, which remains out of sight. That peak is also about 15,000 feet higher.
Scientists: Jezero Crater’s theorized lake overflowed intermittently four times in the past
Click for original image.
Scientists analyzing the Martian geology of the meandering outflow canyon from Jezero Crater, now think it was formed by four different very short-lived events when the theorized lake inside the crater overflowed the crater rim.
The map to the right, figure 1 of the paper (cropped and annotated to post here), provides the context. Two canyons, Sava Vallis and Neretva Vallis feed into Jezero Crater, and one canyon, Pliva Vallis, flows out. From the abstract:
By examining the shape of the valley, we noticed that Pliva Vallis was not like valleys carved by continuous rivers on Earth and propose instead that the valley was carved by at least four episodes of lake overflow. To give a minimum estimate of the duration of these events, we use a numerical model to simulate the overflow of a lake and the incision of a valley. Modeling suggests that the four (or more) episodes identified each incised part of the valley and that each episode lasted a few weeks at maximum.
The researchers also considered whether Pliva Vallis could have been carved by glacial flows, but rejected that possibility partly because “the general morphology of the valley shows a decrease in depth and width downstream, while subglacial channels [on Earth] tend to remain of similar width or become larger, as the flow regime does not decrease downstream.”
These conclusions of course carry a great deal of uncertainty. For one, they are based solely on orbital data. No ground truth exists as yet. Secondly, they assume the geology on Mars behaves in the same manner as on Earth. It could very well be for example that the reason the valley shrinks in size is because its Martian glacier sublimated away as flowed downhill, something that doesn’t happen on Earth.
Regardless, the data strongly suggests that water shaped Jezero in some manner.
Astronomers discover a star radiating in X-rays and radio in ways that fit no known explanation
ASKAP J1832 circled. Note the red arc denoting
the supernovae remnant. Click for original image.
Using both the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Square Kilometer Array in Australia, astronomers have discovered a star that pulses in both X-rays and and radio frequencies in a manner previously unseen and that fit no known theory.
ASKAP J1832 belongs to a class of objects called “long period radio transients,” discovered in 2022, that vary in radio wave intensity in a regular way over tens of minutes. This is thousands of times longer than the length of the repeated variations seen in pulsars, which are rapidly spinning neutron stars that have repeated variations multiple times a second. ASKAP J1832 cycles in radio wave intensity every 44 minutes, placing it into this category of long period radio transients.
Using Chandra, the team discovered that ASKAP J1832 is also regularly varying in X-rays every 44 minutes. This is the first time that such an X-ray signal has been found in a long period radio transient.
…However, that is not all ASKAP J1832 does. Using Chandra and the SKA Pathfinder, the team found that ASKAP J1832 also dropped off in X-rays and radio waves dramatically over the course of six months. This combination of the 44-minute cycle in X-rays and radio waves in addition to the months-long changes is unlike anything astronomers have seen in the Milky Way galaxy.
The false-color X-ray/radio image to the right shows the star (circled). Based on the data, it is unlikely that the star is a neutron star or a pulsar. Its properties also do not fit with a magnetar (a pulsar with a very strong magnetic field). Though located within a supernova remnant, the astronomers determined this to be a coincidence, the star unrelated to the remnant.
The best explanation so far is that this is a white dwarf with a companion and the strongest magnetic field ever conceived. The astronomers however do not appear enthused by that explanation either.
Engineers pinpoint and bypass fuel line problem on Psyche
Psyche’s flight path to the asteroid Psyche.
Click for original image.
In troubleshooting a significant drop in pressure in the xenon gas fuel lines to the ion engines of the Psyche asteroid probe, engineers have now pinpointed the problem to a failed valve and have switched to a back-up fuel line.
Powered by two large solar arrays, Psyche’s thrusters ionize and expel xenon gas to gently propel the spacecraft, which gradually picks up speed during its journey. The team paused the four electric thrusters in early April to investigate an unexpected drop in pressure. They determined that a mechanical issue in one of the valves, which open and close to manage the flow of propellant, caused the decrease. Through extensive testing and diagnostic work, the team concluded that a part inside one of the valves is no longer functioning as expected and is obstructing the flow of xenon to the thrusters.
Now that the swap to the backup fuel line is completed, engineers will command the spacecraft’s thrusters to resume firing by mid-June.
This issue had to be resolved before that scheduled firing in June or else Psyche would have fallen off its course to reach the metal asteroid Psyche by August 2029.
SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites
The beat goes on! SpaceX this morning successfully placed another 27 Starlink satellites into orbit (including 13 with cell-to-satellite capabilities), its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The first stage completed its nineteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
65 SpaceX
30 China (with two launches scheduled later today)
6 Rocket Lab (with one launch scheduled for today SCRUBBED)
6 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 65 to 49.
Falco – Rock Me Amadeus
SpaceX launches Starship/Superheavy on ninth test flight, but experiences issues in orbit
Starship in orbit before losing its attitude control
SpaceX today was able to successfully launch Starship and Superheavy on its ninth test flight, lifting off from SpaceX’s Starbase spaceport at Boca Chica.
The Superheavy booster completed its second flight, with one of its Raptor engines actually flying for the third time. Rather than recapture it with the launchpad chopsticks, engineers instead decided to push its re-entry capabilities to their limit. The booster operated successfully until it was to make its landing burn over the Gulf of Mexico, but when the engines ignited all telemetry was lost. Apparently that hard re-entry path was finally too much for the booster.
Starship reached orbit and functioned successfully for the first twenty minutes or so. When engineers attempted a test deployment of some dummy Starlink satellites, the payload door would not open properly. The engineers then closed the door and canceled the deployment.
Subsequently leaks inside the spacecraft with its attitude thrusters caused the attitude system to shut down and Starship started to spin in orbit. At that point the engineers cancelled the Raptor engine relight burn. The spacecraft then descended over the Indian Ocean as planned, but in an uncontrolled manner. Mission control then vented its fuel to reduce its weight and explosive condition. It essentially broke up over the ocean, with data was gathered on the thermal system until all telemetry was lost.
Though overall this was a much more successful flight than the previous two, both of which failed just before or as Starship reached orbit, the test flight once again was unable to do any of its objectives in orbit. It did no deployment test, no orbital Raptor engine burn test, and no the re-entry tests of Starship’s thermal protection system. Obviously the engineers gathered a great deal of data during the flight, but far less than hoped for.
SpaceX has a lot of Superheavy and Starship prototypes sitting in the wings. I expect it will attempt its next flight test, the tenth, relatively quickly, by July at the very latest. I also do not expect the FAA to stand in the way. It will once again accept SpaceX’s investigative conclusions instantly and issue a launch license, when SpaceX stays it is ready to launch.
As Starship reached orbit as planned, I am counting this as a successfully launch. The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
64 SpaceX
30 China
6 Rocket Lab
6 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 64 to 49.