Author: Robert Zimmerman

SpaceX launches Spanish communications satellite

7:06 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched the first satellite in a constellation of two Spanish communications satellites, the Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The first stage completed its 21st flight. Because of the fuel needed to get the satellite into its proper orbit, the stage was not recovered.

The 2025 launch race:

13 SpaceX
6 China
1 Blue Origin
1 India

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Astroforge names the target asteroid for its first commercial interplanetary mission

3:48 pm

The asteroid mining startup Astroforge today finally named the asteroid that its first commercial interplanetary mission will do a close fly-by, set to launch as a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 on February 26, 2025.

The mining startup is headed to asteroid 2022 OB5 as soon as Feb. 26, launching alongside Intuitive Machines’ second lunar mission. CEO Matt Gialich told Payload that they picked that asteroid for the initial mission for a few reasons:

  • It’s under a kilometer wide.
  • It could be a high-value, metal-filled M-type asteroid.
  • AstroForge’s spacecraft will fly by the asteroid when it’s close to Earth, so imagery can be sent back quickly.

This will be Astroforge’s second mission, the first being an Earth-orbit demo flight to prove out its systems. The spacecraft, dubbed Odin, was quickly prepped when the planned satellite satellite failed vibration testing. The company quickly replaced it with the cubesat intended for the third mission.

The company is also proud that the entire cost for this asteroid mission is just $6.5 million. “Hopefully we’re going to show the world that NASA doesn’t need to be funded for $5B missions when we can do it for much less,” said Gialich. The company also announced it has signed a multi-launch contract with the rocket startup Stoke Space, though no specifics were released.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.

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January 29, 2025 Quick space links

3:37 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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Apple joins T-Mobile’s project to use Starlink satellites as orbiting cell towers

12:52 pm

In releasing a new update on its Iphone operating system, Apple quietly revealed that it has joined T-Mobile’s partnership with SpaceX to use a subconstellation of Starlink satellites with direct-to-cellphone capability, thus acting as orbiting cell towers to fill in gaps in T-Mobile’s service.

Originally spotted by Bloomberg, it seems that Apple has secretly worked with SpaceX and T-Mobile U.S. to provide an alternative satellite service. This is quite a surprise, as T-Mobile had previously specified Starlink as an option for Samsung phones, like the Galaxy S25 Ultra and the Galaxy Z Fold 6. Meanwhile, Apple has an in-house Satellite connection service due to a partnership with Globalstar Inc.

However, the Bloomberg report states that a select number of iPhone users have been able to enable the Starlink beta through T-Mobile. While we don’t know which models will be compatible as of yet, T-Mobile told Bloomberg that the full release will support the vast majority of iPhones.

The system is being tested right now, but still requires FCC license approval.

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Musk posts a silly tweet saying Trump wants SpaceX to rescue the Starliner astronauts and the press goes stupid again

10:51 am

Yesterday Elon Musk posted what appeared to be a completely silly tweet stating that Trump “has asked SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”

Since a Dragon capsule for bringing these astronaut back to Earth is already docked to ISS and is scheduled to return in April, there is nothing really new about Musk’s tweet. Moreover, that April return was delayed an extra two months because of SpaceX, not Boeing or Biden. The company had requested that extra time to prepare the next crew capsule for launch, because it is a new capsule never used before.

It is of course possible that Trump requested SpaceX and NASA to reconsider this extra two month delay, and move the crew return back to February, but that change would either require SpaceX to find a different older capsule for the next crew, fly the new capsule sooner than planned, or have the total number of NASA astronauts on ISS reduced to just one until the new capsule launches with the new crew in March. None of these options seems wise.

I suspect nothing will change, and Musk was merely trolling the press. And the press mostly fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.

Most of these stories fail to outline the reasons for the most recent delays, having nothing to do with Biden. The last four especially make it sound as if SpaceX has suddenly been enlisted for a rescue mission, a claim that is utterly false.

None have been able to get any confirmation of any change of schedule from NASA or SpaceX, suggesting that Musk’s tweet was entirely blarney that a smart press would have ignored without that confirmation. Our stupid mainstream press however could not do that. It went whole hog based on nothing.

Until NASA announces a change in schedule there simply is no story here, and that’s what I am reporting.

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200-foot-wide asteroid has a 1-in-83 chance of hitting the Earth in 2032

10:12 am

New data that has refined the solar orbit of 200-foot-wide asteroid discovered in 2024, dubbed 2024 YR4, suggests it has a 1-in-83 chance of hitting the Earth on December 22, 2032.

“Odds have slightly increased to 1 in 83,” Catalina Sky Survey engineer and asteroid hunter David Rankin wrote on BlueSky. “This is one of the highest probabilities of an impact from a significantly sized rock ever.”

Amateur astronomer Tony Dunn shared a simulation of the asteroid approach on his X feed. “Recently-discovered #asteroid 2024 YR4 may make a very close approach to Earth in 8 years. It is thought to be 40-100 meters wide. Uncertainty is still high and more and more observations are needed confirm this.”

The asteroid is rated three on the Torino risk scale, which indicates a close encounter that warrants close attention from astronomers and an over 1% chance of impact.

Though most reports say the asteroid is about 200 feet across, there is great uncertainty in that number. It could also be as large as 320 feet, or as small as 130 feet.

At the moment the risk of impact is still small. If it does occur, there is a chance it could either cause a major airburst similar to the Chelyabinsk meteor impact in 2013 that injured more than 400 people, or even impact the ground or ocean. If it hits the ocean there is a considerable risk of tsunamis. At the moment it appears its path will cross from South America to Africa in the southern hemisphere, but this data remains very uncertain at this time.

Though there will be doom-sayers, overall this is not a world destroyer. It carries some risk, but we have eight years to refine our knowledge significantly, especially when it will make a close approach of five million miles in 2028. At that time scientists should be able to better measure its size as well as its future orbit, determining more precisely whether it will even hit the Earth in 2032.

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Juno detects the largest volcanic event on Io yet

9:51 am

Changes on Io since April 2024
Changes on Io since April 2024. Click for original image.

Infrared detection of volcanic hot spot
Infrared detection of volcanic hot spot.
Click for original image.

Using Juno’s Italian JIRAM infrared instrument image as well as its optical camera, scientists have detected what appears to be the largest volcanic event yet measured on the Jupiter moon Io, covering an area larger than Lake Superior,

Scientists with NASA’s Juno mission have discovered a volcanic hot spot in the southern hemisphere of Jupiter’s moon Io. The hot spot is not only larger than Earth’s Lake Superior, but it also belches out eruptions six times the total energy of all the world’s power plants.

…The JIRAM science team estimates the as-yet-unnamed feature spans 40,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometers). The previous record holder was Io’s Loki Patera, a lava lake of about 7,700 square miles (20,000 square kilometers). The total power value of the new hot spot’s radiance measured well above 80 trillion watts.

The pictures above were taken by Juno’s optical camera during the last three close flyby’s, looking down at the south pole, with the red arrows indicating the change to the pole’s right during each pass. The infrared image to the right shows a similar view during the fly-by, and shows that same hot spot as the bright area to the pole’s right.

Juno will do another fly-by of Io in March, though from a greater distance. Scientists plan to use both instruments to see how this hot spot has changed again since the end of December.

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United Kingdom awards rocket startup Orbex $25 million

9:29 am

The government of the United Kingdom has made a sudden and unexpected $25 million grant to the British rocket startup Orbex, which recently announced it was abandoning its launchpad at the Sutherland spaceport and switching to the Saxavord spaceport on the Shetland Islands.

While the UK Government has supported Orbex through grants awarded via the European Space Agency’s Boost! programme, the £20 million investment appears to represent the state acquiring a stake in the company and its future. This signals a significant show of support from the government as the company gears up to compete in the European Launcher Challenge.

Channeling former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, Technology Secretary Peter Kyle declared that the government’s backing of Orbex would enable the launch of “British rockets carrying British satellites from British soil.”

It seems to me that this cash award is less an investment in the company and more a kind of guilt payment by the United Kingdom government because the red tape of its bureaucracy, the Civil Aviation Authority, prevented Orbex from launching at Sutherland for almost three years, delays that eventually forced the switch to Saxavord, which after its own long red tape delays finally has its license approvals not yet issued to Sutherland.

Orbex has probably indicated to the government that these delays have caused it significant cash flow problems, similar to what happened to Virgin Orbit where red tape delays eventually drove it to bankruptcy. The company also probably told the government it needed extra cash to prepare the launchpad at Saxavord for its rocket, money it had already spent at Sutherland and no longer had.

Thus, this $25 million government grant. The UK government realized that if a second rocket company went belly-up due to its red tape, it would likely end forever any chance of getting any rocket company from considering launching from the United Kingdom.

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Blue Ghost makes second orbital burn, setting up transfer from Earth to lunar orbit

9:14 am

Blue Ghost's first view of the Moon
Blue Ghost’s first view of the Moon.
Click for original image.

Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander has successfully completed its second orbital burn, raising its Earth orbit in preparation for its shift into lunar orbit in the coming weeks.

Routine assessments while Blue Ghost is in transit show that all NASA payloads continue to be healthy. Firefly and NASA’s payload teams will continue to perform payload health checkouts and operations before reaching the Moon, including calibrating NASA’s Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI), continued transit operations of the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE), and analysis of radiation data collected from the Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC) technology demonstration.

The picture to the right looks across the top of Blue Ghost, with the small bright object beyond its first image of the Moon. The actual landing is at least four weeks away.

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