April 10, 2026 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
A military pilot’s perspective on downed pilot rescue in Iran Easter weekend
An evening pause: The details of the amazing search & rescue effort to recover a downed American pilot in Iran last weekend has been covered quite thoroughly in the media, especially the alternative press. This video gives us the compelling perspective of the men and women who made that rescue happen. Even if you oppose Trump’s present actions against Iran, Steeve’s reveals a fundamental aspect of the American way of war that illustrates again the best part of America. The key quote, “Will you be worth the trip?”
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
Orion survives re-entry, crew splashes down safe
Orion just after main parachute deployment
Orion successfully survived re-entry tonight with its questionable heat shield, with the capsule splashing down off the coast of California at 8:07 pm (Eastern).
All four astronauts are healthy and safe. As of posting they were still in the capsule, floating on the ocean, with recovery crews on their way to it. [Update: those recovery crews, six boats with more than 40 people, are taking an ungodly amount of time to latch onto the capsule and begin recovery. Over an hour after splashdown the crew is still in the capsule.]
The Artemis-2 mission is now over, though the final condition of that heat shield still needs to be analyzed. In addition, engineers need figure out how to fix a bunch of other issues that took place during the mission:
- A leak in an internal helium tank on Europe’s service module
- Communication drop-outs several times
- the endless issues with Orion’s toilet
There were other minor issues that cropped up repeatedly, none significant but all of which should be fixed. And though it will be helpful to determine how this heat shield performed, it should be noted that the data is essentially irrelevant to future missions. The next mission, Artemis-3, will use a completely different design, and test it for the first time on a manned flight. That flight however will be in Earth orbit, so the stress on the shield will be far less than this return, even with the changed re-entry path.
Though many will call this lunar fly-by “historic,” it will likely be little remembered by future generations. It did little to move the settlement of the solar system forward. No truly useful engineering was tested. The rocket and capsule are engineering dead-ends. Neither will be of much use for establishing colonies on the Moon or Mars, as SLS is still too expensive and too difficult to stack and launch and Orion is too small for any interplanetary missions, being nothing more than an overweight and very expensive ascent/descent capsule.
The only plus of this mission is that it will likely give NASA’s administrator, Jared Isaacman, the political clout to institute major changes in the entire Artemis program, changes that could make the American colonization of the solar system more likely. There are strong indications that he wants to make better use of the private sector.
And that private sector is poised to bypass NASA, regardless of what NASA wants or tries to do, with capabilities far better then anything we have seen since the Apollo program.
April 10, 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.
- Roof and facility damage at Blue Origin’s Cape Canaveral test facility suggests it had a unintentional testing failure
The tweet says it is related to “a GS2 tank in the 2Cat test facility”.
- Blue Origin announces successful thermal vacuum chamber testing of its unmanned Blue Moon Mark-1 lunar lander
It is dubbed Endurance, and is now being shipped back to Florida. The company still plans to launch it to the Moon this year.
- Animation of Astrolab’s small Flip demo lunar rover, set to launch later this year on Astrobotic’s Griffin lander
Astrolab hopes the success of Flip will help it win a NASA contract to build its manned Flex rover.
- Images of Orion in space, taken by the Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory
Its nothing more than a dot, but it is still cool a ground-based telescope can track it.
Orion’s risky return-to-Earth happens tonight at 8:07 pm (Eastern)
The Earth and Moon during the lunar fly-by on April 6, 2026.
Click for original image.
After spending ten days in space, including a swing around the back of the Moon, the four-person Artemis-2 crew is now preparing for its return-to-Earth this evening, splashing down off the Pacific coast near San Diego.
At 10:53 p.m. EDT [last night], the Orion spacecraft ignited its thrusters for 9 seconds, producing an acceleration in velocity of 5.3 feet-per-second and pushing the Artemis II crew toward Earth. The crew is now more than halfway home.
About two hours before the burn, there was an unexpected return link loss of signal during a data rate change affecting the transmission of communications and telemetry from the spacecraft to the ground. Two-way communications were reestablished, and flight controllers resumed preparing for the upcoming burn with the crew shortly after.
…The third return trajectory correction burn is scheduled for April 10 at about 1:53 p.m. ahead of re-entry procedures.
This is I think the second time Orion has had a short loss of communications with ground control. In addition, the crew had to cancel a planned manual piloting demonstration of Orion while it flew past the Moon because of a leak in an internal helium tank, used to maintain pressure in the oxygen tank as the propellant is used. The leak was inside the European-built service module, which will be jettisoned before re-entry and burn up in the atmosphere.
Mission managers say this leak has not impacted any engine burns, but it will require attention before the next flight.
The return to Earth however carries the biggest risk of the entire mission. Orion’s heat shield is questionable. During its first use in the 2022 unmanned Artemis-1 flight around the Moon, it did not behave as expected, with large chunks breaking off instead of thin layers ablating away. Though mission engineers have adjusted the flight path through the atmosphere to mitigate stress, there is great uncertainty about that solution.
I have embedded NASA’s live stream of the return-to-Earth below. It begins at 6:30 pm (Eastern), though the first return event, jettison the service module, doesn’t occur until 7:33 pm (Eastern).
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Amazon to begin commercial availability of Leo internet service in mid-2026
In an annual letter [pdf] to shareholders, Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy announced the company plans on inaugurating its Leo internet constellation to customers in “mid-2026,” assuming the company can get a significant more satellites in orbit in the next few months.
Jassy’s wording was interestingly vague, however, suggesting this target date is very uncertain.
Over the last seven years, we’ve built a low Earth orbit satellite network (Amazon Leo) and put more than 200 satellites into space (which is the third-largest low Earth orbit network operating today). With a few thousand more satellites launching in the coming years, the constellation is expanding rapidly.
…While Amazon Leo is officially scheduled to launch in mid-2026, we already have meaningful revenue commitments from enterprises and governments.
To be precise, Amazon presently has launched 241 satellites, out of the 1,616 it needs to launch by July 2026 to meet its FCC license requirement. Because it is not expected to meet that requirement, the company has asked for a time extension, which the FCC is presently considering. The entire first generation constellation is supposed to have 3,232 satellites, so it seems unlikely Amazon will be able to provide internet service by mid-2026, as promised. It won’t have enough coverage with less than a fourth of its constellation in orbit.
India conducts another parachute drop test for its Gaganyaan manned capsule
Click to watch video of drop test.
India’s space agency ISRO today successfully completed its second helicopter drop test of a dummy capsule, testing the parachute release system that its Gaganyaan manned capsule will use on return to Earth.
In this test, a simulated Crew Module, weighing about 5.7 tonnes, that is equivalent to the mass of the Crew Module in the first uncrewed Gaganyaan mission (G1), was lifted by an Indian Air Force Chinook helicopter to an altitude of about 3km and released over a designated drop zone in sea, near to Sriharikota coast.
Ten parachutes of four types were deployed in a precise sequence during the descent of the Crew Module, gradually reducing the velocity for safe touchdown. Subsequently, the simulated Crew Module was successfully recovered in coordination with Indian Navy. The IADT-02 test validated the parachute-based deceleration systems in the Crew Module.
The manned mission is presently scheduled for early next year, after a series of unmanned orbital test flights are completed in ’26. This schedule is significantly later than ISRO’s original schedule. When the program was first proposed in 2018, ISRO said the manned mission would happen in 2022.
China launches another set of satellites for its Guowang internet constellation
China yesterday successfully completed the 21st launch for its Guowang (Satnet) internet satellite constellation, its Long March 6A rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China.
Though China’s state-run press provided no information on the number of satellites in the payload, all previous launches using the Long March 6A had carried five satellites. If so, that would mean the constellation now has 164 satellites in orbit, out of a planned 13,000. This fits with the information in the article at the link, which states the constellation now has “nearly 170 satellites” in orbit.
China’s state-controlled press also made no mention about where the rocket’s core stage (using very toxic hypergolic fuels) and its four solid-fueled strap-on boosters crashed inside China.
Another launch attempt today by the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace was scrubbed due to “a leak in a composite overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV).” COPV tanks are used inside the main tanks. As the propellant in that main tank is used, the COPV releases helium to maintain the tank’s pressure. No new launch date has been announced.
The leaders in the 2026 launch race:
42 SpaceX
18 China
5 Rocket Lab
4 Russia
For the third straight year SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, 42 to 32. It has another Starlink launch scheduled for this evening.
Now on Starlink!
My posting this afternoon today was interrupted because I was spending the day going up and down from my roof as I and friend Ken worked to install my new Starlink antenna.
As always with these kinds of jobs, there were moments that reminded me of a motto of mine when I used to assembly Ikea furniture as a part-time job: “It’s ‘Do everything twice day!'” In the end, the problems were minor and quickly solved, such as discovering that the Starlink ethernet cable from the power supply to the router could only be plugged in in one direction. The plugs on either end looked identical, but we struggled for almost twenty minutes trying to get the plug to click into the router, to no avail. Then a light bulb went off, and we decided to flip the cable. Lo and behold, both ends clicked in instantly.
Setting up the account and the Wi-Fi and the computers went very quickly, mostly thanks to my lovely wife Diane. Starlink only allows you to do this stuff on a smart phone, and I won’t touch one of those with a 200-foot pole. She got it all going within a very short time.
I had hesitated doing this for the past two years, mostly because it involved a lot of other non-Starlink-related time-consuming stuff too boring to describe but that we both wanted to avoid. We finally got that stuff taken care of in the past month and could make the switch.
The Zimmerman household is linked to the world, through space. Seems entirely appropriate.
Edgar Winter & Billy Strings – Fly Away
An evening pause: Performed live February 20, 2026.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
April 9, 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.
- Stoke Space shows off factory pictures of its almost complete Nova rocket
No launch date yet announced.
- Axiom celebrates the fourth anniversary of its first Axiom tourist mission to ISS
It was ISS’s first private tourist mission, as the early tourist flights were flown by the Russians.
- Images of the strongback rehearsal at the Long March 10B launchpad at China’s Wenchang spaceport
The tweet says the first launch may be noon April 28th, with an attempt to recover the first stage, captured horizontally by cables on a barge.
- Artemis II crew showcase the American flag that the canceled Apollo 18 mission would have planted on the Moon
Never flew because Congress cancelled all Apollo missions after Apollo 17. Flying it around the Moon now is a nice gesture.
Martian mountains on Mount Sharp
Click for larger full resolution image. For original images go here and here.
Click for interactive map.
Cool image time! The panorama above was created using two pictures taken by the high resolution camera on the rover Curiosity on Mars (here and here).
The overview map to the right gives the context. The blue dot marks Curiosity’s position on the day before these pictures were taken, climbing through the foothills on the flanks of Mount Sharp. I do not know if it traveled again before taking these two pictures above. The white dotted line its past travels, while the red dotted line its planned future route. At present Curiosity has climbed about 3,500 feet up the mountain. It is still about 15,000 feet below the peak, which is about 25 miles away and not visible from here.
The yellow lines indicate where I think the panorama is looking, though I admit that I am not sure. The view is distant, since this is high resolution camera. This panorama might actually be looking in a completely different direction, downhill at one of the hills that Curiosity previously drove past. The air is very dusty, which means if the rim of Gale Crater is in the background, 20-30 miles away, we can’t see it.
Regardless, the science team has finally finished its many nine-month-long survey of the boxwork geology, and has sent Curiosity climbing again. I think these pictures are part of their review of the future terrain, as they plan the rover’s route through the lighter-colored sulfate terrain higher on the mountain. If instead they are looking downhill, they were taken both to review previously viewed geology as well as to measure the dustiness of the atmosphere.