Author: Robert Zimmerman

South Korean rocket startup Innospace wins launch and marketing contract with German broadcast company

9:31 am

The South Korean rocket startup Innospace announced last week that it has signed a $5.8 million launch with the German broadcast company Media Broadcast Satellites (MBS) to not only launch two MBS satellites in 2026 and 2028 using its Hanbit rocket, but to have MBS market the rocket in Germany.

Under the agreement, INNOSPACE will carry out two HANBIT launch missions to deploy MBS satellites into Low Earth orbit (LEO), with one launch in 2026 and the other planned by 2028. In both launch missions, MBS satellites will serve as the primary payloads, with priority in launch scheduling and orbit determination.

INNOSPACE also signed a separate contract on the same day, officially appointing MBS as its exclusive agent for launch service sales and marketing within Germany, marking the company’s entry into the European space launch market. Following the contract, MBS will exclusively distribute launch services based on the HANBIT series to satellite customers in Germany.

Innospace has not yet launched Hanbit. It had hoped to attempt the first launch in July, but in May it delayed it to the end of 2025 due to issues found in a first stage pump. The launch itself will take place at Brazil’s long abandoned Alcântara spaceport on that nation’s northeast coast.

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Avio wins U.S. launch contract for its Vega-C rocket

9:19 am

Capitalism in space: In what I think is a first, the Italian rocket company Avio has won a Vega-C launch contract without any participation from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) commercial division Arianespace.

The contract is also with an American company, SpaceLaunch, to put an “institutional Earth observation satellite” in orbit in 2027.

The significance of the deal is that Avio is now successfully marketing and selling its Vega-C rocket, without the middleman Arianespace taking a cut. As part of the shift of ESA and Europe to the capitalism model, whereby it no longer runs things but acts merely as a customer, it also freed Avio from the clutches of Arianespace. Previously, Avio built the rocket for that government agency, which then marketed and sold it to satellite companies. Avio had no control over profit or price. In fact, it didn’t really own its own rocket.

This absurd situation is now ending. There are still a handful of Vega-C launches that were contracted for under Arianespace, but after these Avio will be completely in charge. This deal, announced yesterday, is the beginning of that process.

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SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites

9:08 am

The beat goes on. SpaceX early this morning successfully placed another 28 Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its eleventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

121 SpaceX
54 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 121 to 93.

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Blue Origin wins contract to bring NASA’s Viper rover to the Moon

9:12 am

NASA yesterday awarded Blue Origin a contract to use its Blue Moon lunar lander to transport the agency’s troubled Viper rover to the Moon’s south pole region.

The CLPS task order has a total potential value of $190 million. This is the second CLPS lunar delivery awarded to Blue Origin. Their first delivery – using their Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) robotic lander – is targeted for launch later this year to deliver NASA’s Stereo Cameras for Lunar-Plume Surface Studies and Laser Retroreflective Array payloads to the Moon’s South Pole region.

With this new award, Blue Origin will deliver VIPER to the lunar surface in late 2027, using a second Blue Moon MK1 lander, which is in production. NASA previously canceled the VIPER project and has since explored alternative approaches to achieve the agency’s goals of mapping potential off-planet resources, like water.

The contract does not guarantee this mission. NASA has several options along the way to shut things down, depending on the milestones Blue Origin achieves. The first of course is the success of that first lunar lander.

The announcement does not make clear how NASA is going to pay for the work needed to finish Viper. VIPER was originally budgeted at $250 million. When cancelled in 2024 its budget had ballooned to over $600 million, and that wasn’t enough to complete the rover for launch. Moreover, after getting eleven proposals from the private sector companies to finish and launch Viper, in May 2025 NASA canceled that solicitation.

It is very likely Blue Origin is picking up the tab, but if so the press release does not say so.

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September 19, 2025 Quick space links

3:10 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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FAA releases proposed revisions to environmental assessment at Boca Chica to accomodate full orbital testing and return of both Superheavy and Starship

12:33 pm

The planned return trajectories for both Superheavy and Starship
The planned return trajectories for both
Superheavy and Starship

The FAA today released [pdf] a new draft of the environmental assessment of SpaceX’s Superheavy/Starship operations at Boca Chica that will allow for full orbital flights as well as for both to return to that launchpad.

The two maps to the right show the two planned return paths for Superheavy (top) and Starship (bottom) as it comes back from orbit. In both cases the ships will return to Boca Chica to be caught by tower chopsticks. The reassessment analyzed the impacts of these trajectories, including its impact on aviation traffic, and concluded the proposal was acceptable. From its conclusion:

The 2022 PEA [Programmatic Environmental Assessment] and April 2025 Tiered EA [environmental assessment] examined the potential for significant environmental impacts from Starship-Super Heavy launch operations at the Boca Chica Launch Site and defined the regulatory setting for impacts associated with Starship-Super Heavy. The areas evaluated for environmental impacts in this Tiered EA include aviation emissions and air quality; noise and noise-compatible land use; hazardous materials; and socioeconomics. In each of these areas, the FAA has concluded that no significant impacts would occur as a result of the Proposed Action. [emphasis mine]

This approval is still only a draft. It must go through a public comment period, ending October 20, 2025. There will also be a virtual public meeting on October 7, 2025. Information about submitting comments or participating in that virtual meeting can be found here.

Such meetings are likely to see the leftist anti-Musk crowd come out in droves, screeching how we are all gonna die if these launches are allowed. The FAA will nod its head, and then ignore the Chicken Littles and approve this plan.

The plan itself tells us that SpaceX is definitely gearing up the first orbital flights of Starship next year, along with the first attempts to catch it with the tower chopsticks.

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Inexplicable very large patterns found in Saturn’s upper atmosphere

9:40 am

Beads and arms in Saturn's upper atmosphere
Click for original image.

Using the Webb Space Telescope’s infrared capabilities, scientists have detected several different and inexplicable large atmospheric structures linked somehow to the gas giant’s north pole aurora.

The two images to the right, cropped, reduced, and annotated to post here, show both types of newly discovered features.

The international team of researchers, comprising 23 scientists from institutions across the UK, US and France, made the discoveries during a continuous 10-hour observation period on 29 November 2024, as Saturn rotated beneath JWST’s view. The team focused on detecting infrared emissions by a positively charged molecular form of hydrogen, H3+, which plays a key role in reactions in Saturn’s atmosphere and so can provide valuable insights into the chemical and physical processes at work. JWST’s Near Infrared Spectrograph allowed the team to simultaneously observe H₃⁺ ions from the ionosphere, 1,100 kilometres above Saturn’s nominal surface, and methane molecules in the underlying stratosphere, at an altitude of 600 kilometres.

In the electrically-charged plasma of the ionosphere, the team observed a series of dark, bead-like features embedded in bright auroral halos. [top picture] These structures remained stable over hours but appeared to drift slowly over longer periods.

Around 500 kilometres lower, in Saturn’s stratosphere, the team discovered an asymmetric star-shaped feature [bottom picture]. This unusual structure extended out from Saturn’s north pole towards the equator. Only four of the star’s six arms were visible, with two mysteriously missing, creating a lopsided pattern.

A more accurate word for the “beads” I think would be “patches”, as they are not small but major dark regions that appear to rotate with the planet, as do the arms. Both also seem to be related to each other as their rotations match, though one sits about 300 miles lower in the atmosphere. As noted in the press release, “the processes that are driving the patterns may influence a column stretching right through Saturn’s atmosphere.”

All guesses. All we have at this point is a truly intriguing observation.

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Luxembourg cargo capsule startup Space Cargo raises $32 million in private investment capital

9:14 am

The Luxembourg cargo capsule startup Space Cargo has now raised $32 million in private investment capital in a new funding round focused on developing its BentoBox platform for in-space manufacturing and experimentation.

On 15 September, the company announced that it had closed a €27.5 million Series A funding round led by Expansion Ventures and supported by Eurazeo. The round included participation from the European Innovation Council, the European Investment Bank, and the Luxembourg Future Fund II, which is managed by Société Nationale de Crédit et d’Investissement and the European Investment Fund. It also included contributions from numerous private investors who participated through the crowd-equity platform Tudigo.

Unlike Varda’s returnable capsule, BentoBox is smaller and not designed to return to Earth. Instead it gets launched incorporated on orbital spacecraft built by others, such as Thales Alenia’s REV-1 tug and Atmos’s Phoenix returnable capsule.

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Astra is now targeting mid-’26 for first launch of its new Rocket-4 rocket

9:00 am

According to a presentation by Astra officials this week, the company now plans the first launch of its larger Rocket-4 rocket in the summer of 2026, followed by a second launch in the fall for the Pentagon.

The summer 2026 inaugural launch will be a test flight, Kemp said, followed by one in October or November for the Defense Department’s Space Test Program. Astra plans quarterly launches of Rocket 4 in 2027, with long-term goals for much higher launch rates. Astra has maintained plans to make Rocket 4 a transportable launch system using standard shipping containers, allowing it to operate from sites with little more than a concrete pad.

This company has had a checkered history. It built and launched its smaller Rocket-3 rocket several times back in 2021 and 2022, with mixed results. After those launch failures it then decided to retire that smaller rocket for Rocket-4, only to run out of cash in 2023-2024. In 2024 its founders put together the cash to buy up the company’s stock to go private, and since then it has made most of its money from that one military test contract as well as selling its electrical propulsion systems to satellite companies.

If it gets Rocket-4 off the ground and begins regularly launches it will be an amazing recovery.

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Japan closes down its Akatsuki Venus orbiter mission

8:50 am

japan’s space agency JAXA today announced that it has shut down down operations on its Akatsuki orbiter, in orbit around Venus since 2015.

Communication with “Akatsuki” was lost during operations near the end of April 2024, triggered by an incident in a control mode of lower-precision attitude maintenance for a prolonged period. Although recovery operations were conducted to restore communication, there has been no luck so far. Considering the fact that the spacecraft has aged, well exceeding its designed lifetime, and was already in the late-stage operation phase, it has been decided to terminate operations.

Akatsuki has a interesting history. Launched in 2010, it failed to enter Venus orbit as planned in two attempts in 2010 and 2011 because of a failure in its main engine. Engineers then improvised and — after orbiting the Sun for several years — were able to get it into Venus orbit in 2015 using only its attitude thrusters. Its primary mission ended in 2018, but it continued to study Venus’ atmosphere since.

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Russia’s Bion-2 capsule returns to Earth after a month in space

8:44 am

After a month in space carrying a cargo of biological samples, including 1,500 fruit flies and 75 mice, Russia’s Bion-2 capsule was successfully recovered today after landing in southern Russia.

Following the landing, some mice was [sic] to be dissected at the site, followed by further dissections on the 1st, 5th, 15th and 30th days after landing to study the effects of space conditions on live organisms.

While resembling the commercial private returnable capsules, such as Varda’s, that are being developed, the difference is significant. Russia has been flying these capsules for decades, which is actually an upgrade from the very first Vostok capsule which it flew Yuri Gagarin in 1961. However, the research has always been focused not on producing a product for sale on Earth but related to Russia’s manned program. Thus, the results has always been somewhat dead end. Expect the same here.

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September 18, 2025 Quick space links

3:04 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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At last some real pushback against the left’s slander culture

12:04 pm

For years I have been writing about the slander culture of the left, whereby they can say any lie about anyone who disagrees with them without any consequence. These lies are often pure slander and defamation, based on no facts. Often they grow to a point that anyone attacked in this manner becomes a persona non grata, ostracized by all society out of fear.

Here are some recent examples of this kind of slander:

This is what destroyed the Proud Boys organization. The left — and the propaganda press that works for it — labeled it as “racist”, “white supremacist”, and “neo-fascist” based on no evidence, so that soon it collapsed because ordinary people were afraid to associate with it. And in describing this slander campaign back in 2019, I correctly predicted even worse:

I fully expect the rhetoric against Trump supporters in the coming election to spread and get more vicious. This in turn will act to encourage more extreme actions, including violence comparable to what Antifa now does with impunity in Portland. Be prepared. When people abandon the truth for emotional labels inspired by hate, they are liable to do anything.

Meanwhile, this lying name-calling never seemed to carry any consequences. Big name Democratic Party politicians, celebrities, and leftist pundits could defame conservatives routinely in the same manner and get away with it. The only ones who would suffer would be the unjustly accused.

The events in the past two days in connection with former host Jimmy Kimmel of Jimmy Kimmel Live! however tells me that the murder of Charlie Kirk has truly changed things.
» Read more

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Astronomers refine the spin and size of Hayabusa-2’s next target asteroid

10:15 am

Using a number of ground-based telescopes, astronomers have determined that asteroid 1998 KY26, which Japan’s Hayabusa-2 probe will visit in 2031, spins much faster and is much smaller than previously estimated.

The new observations, combined with previous radar data, have revealed that the asteroid, 1998 KY26, is just 11 meters wide. It is also spinning about twice as fast as previously thought: “One day on this asteroid lasts only five minutes!” he says. Previous data indicated that the asteroid was around 30 meters in diameter and completed a rotation in approximately 10 minutes. The smaller size and faster rotation will make the spacecraft’s touchdown maneuver more difficult to perform than anticipated.

The observations also found that 1998 KY26 is bright, suggesting it is a solid object, not a rubble pile. Its fast rotation adds weight to this conclusion.

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Perseverance data suggests multiple past wet periods occurred in Jezero Crater

9:24 am

Perseverance's travels inside Jezero Crater
Figure 1 of the paper, showing Perseverance’s travels inside Jezero Crater. PIXL is an instrument on the rover. The numbers indicate the Martian days since landing. The Three Forks Depot is where Perseverance placed its first cache of sample cores. Click for original.

Scientists analyzing data taken by the Mars rover Perseverance while it traversed the floor and delta inside Jezero Crater strongly suggests that the landscape there experienced multiple past wet periods.

In Jezero, the 24 mineral species reveal the volcanic nature of Mars’ surface and its interactions with water over time. The water chemically weathers the rocks and creates salts or clay minerals, and the specific minerals that form depend on environmental conditions. The identified minerals in Jezero reveal three types of fluid interactions, each with different implications for habitability.

The first suite of minerals — including greenalite, hisingerite and ferroaluminoceladonite — indicate localized high-temperature acidic fluids that were only found in rocks on the crater floor, which are interpreted as some of the oldest rocks included in this study. The water involved in this episode is considered the least habitable for life, since research on Earth has shown high temperatures and low pH can damage biological structures.

…The second suite of minerals reflects moderate, neutral fluids that support more favorable conditions for life and were present over a larger area. Minerals like minnesotaite and clinoptilolite formed at lower temperatures and neutral pH with minnesotaite detected in both the crater floor and the upper fan region, while clinoptilolite was restricted to the crater floor.

Finally, the third category represents low-temperature, alkaline fluids and is considered quite habitable from our modern Earth perspective. Sepiolite, a common alteration mineral on Earth, formed under moderate temperatures and alkaline conditions and was found widely distributed across all units the rover has explored. The presence of sepiolite in all of these units reveals a widespread episode of liquid water creating habitable conditions in Jezero crater and infilling sediments.

You can read the peer-reviewed paper here. The uncertainty of these results is important to note. The analysis did not actually look at real samples. It took data obtained by Perseverance and used computer models and AI to analyze it. The research also assumes the minerals formed based on our understanding of such geological processes on Earth. On Mars conditions are very alien, and could result from chemistry we as yet do not understand, or are unaware even exists.

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ISS research suggests weightlessness accelerates aging in stem cells

8:58 am

According to a study that flew stem cells on four separate missions to ISS ranging in length from 32 to 45 days, weightlessness appears to age stem cells significantly.

Researchers from University of California San Diego Sanford Stem Cell Institute have discovered that spaceflight accelerates the aging of human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs), which are vital for blood and immune system health. In a study published in Cell Stem Cell, the team used automated artificial intelligence (AI)-driven stem cell-tracking nanobioreactor systems in four SpaceX Commercial Resupply Services missions to the International Space Station (ISS) to track stem cell changes in real time. The findings show that the cells lost some of their ability to make healthy new cells, became more prone to DNA damage and showed signs of faster aging at the ends of their chromosomes after spaceflight — all signs of accelerated aging.

Upon return to Earth the study also found the cells recovered somewhat.

You can read the peer-reviewed paper here.

In a sense, this study confirms what numerous other research has found, that weightlessness mimics the conditions of old age, and causes the same physical decline seen in the elderly. It also shows that much of that damage in weightlessness is transient, recovering upon return to Earth.

This research once again highlights the imperative need to study the impact on various levels of artificial gravity on the human body. Will producing a 10% g environment — using centrifugal force — mitigate these negative impacts? Or will we have to simulate a full 1 g environment? Or something in between?

The first option is much easier in terms of engineering. The last will be complex and take time to develop.

At the moment almost no research has been done in this area. And it needs to happen soon, if people intend to go to Mars in the near future. Such journeys, six months minimum in weightlessness, are likely to leave the passengers somewhat debilitated upon arrival, no matter how much they exercise along the way. And being debilitated is not a good condition for a pioneer trying to build a new civilization on an alien world.

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NASA and Northrop Grumman work out rendezvous plan to get Cygnus to ISS

11:08 pm

UPDATE: The plan worked and Cygnus is safely berthed at ISS.

According to a press release tonight, NASA and Northrop Grumman have figured out a new rendezvous plan to get Cygnus to ISS after its previous engine burns yesterday cut off prematurely and left it in the wrong orbit.

NASA and Northrop Grumman are targeting the safe arrival of the company’s Cygnus XL at approximately 7:18 a.m. EDT Thursday, Sept. 18, to the International Space Station. The Cygnus XL now will conduct a series of burns to bring the spacecraft to the space station for its robotic capture and installation.

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim is scheduled to capture Cygnus XL using the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm with backup support from NASA astronaut Zena Cardman. After capture, the spacecraft will be installed on the Unity module’s Earth-facing port and will remain at the space station until March 2026.

The release also added this detail about why that engine burn ended too soon:

Data shared by the spacecraft confirmed that Cygnus XL operated as intended during two planned maneuvers when an early warning system initiated a shutdown command and ended the main engine burn because of a conservative safeguard in the software settings.

Apparently this cause has reassured them that the engine is in good shape for the final rendezvous burns.

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September 17, 2025 Quick space links

3:01 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.

  • ESA delivers to NASA the third service module for Orion
    The first was used on the Artemis-1, that went around the Moon unmanned in 2022. The second will be used on the first manned mission, presently scheduled for April 2026 to also fly around the Moon. This third service module will be used on the planned landing mission, Artemis-3, scheduled for 2027 (very unlikely).
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Monitoring the largest recent impact detected by InSight’s seismometer

11:51 am

Overview

Cool image time! On December 24, 2021 the seismometer of the Mars lander InSight detected a four magnitude earthquake, the largest detected up until then. Because its nature suggested that it had been caused by an impact, not an internal shifting, the science team for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) immediately started searching for new impact craters in the area of Mars where the data suggested the quake came from.

Two months later they found it, in the northern lowland plains just south of the prime landing zone chosen by SpaceX for its Starship spacecraft. The black cross on the overview map to the right indicates the position. The four red spots are the prime Starship landing sites. The white dots indicate other locations considered. The black dots were images taken for a proposed Dragon landing. This impact is thus only about 100 miles away from the nearest possible Starship landing spot.
» Read more

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Premature engine cutoff forces postponement of Cygnus berthing to ISS

11:16 pm

During the second of two engine burns today, designed to raise the orbit of Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus freighter to match ISS’s, the burn ended prematurely, placing the capsule in the wrong orbit.

Early Tuesday morning, Cygnus XL’s main engine stopped earlier than planned during two burns designed to raise the orbit of the spacecraft for rendezvous with the space station, where it will deliver 11,000 pounds of scientific investigations and cargo to the orbiting laboratory for NASA. All other Cygnus XL systems are performing normally.

The berthing, using one of the robot arms on ISS, had been planned for early tomorrow, Wednesday, but will not occur until both NASA and Northrop Grumman engineers have analyzed the issues and come up with “an alternate burn plan”.

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September 16, 2025 Quick space links

3:10 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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Strange unexplained polarization shifts in M87’s supermassive black hole

12:25 pm

The changing magnetic field of M87
Click for original image.

Using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), astronomers have detected unexpected and so far unexplained polarization shifts in the supermassive black hole that resides at the center of the galaxy M87, located 55 million light years away.

That black hole is estimated to have a mass six billion times that of our Sun, and was the first ever imaged by EHT. By using observations made in 2017, 2018, and 2021, as shown in the images to the right, found its magnetic field changing in unexpected ways.

Between 2017 and 2021, the polarization pattern flipped direction. In 2017, the magnetic fields appeared to spiral one way; by 2018, they settled; and in 2021, they reversed, spiraling the opposite direction. Some of these apparent changes in the polarization’s rotational direction may be influenced by a combination of internal magnetic structure and external effects, such as a Faraday screen. The cumulative effects of how this polarization changes over time suggests an evolving, turbulent environment where magnetic fields play a vital role in governing how matter falls into the black hole and how energy is launched outward.

The changes were more puzzling in that the size of the black hole’s event horizon, the ring surrounding it, did not change. According to the scientists, this suggests “magnetized plasma swirling near the event horizon is far from static; it’s dynamic and complex, pushing our theoretical models to the limit.”

That the magnetic field flipped polarity however should not be surprising to scientists. Consider the same polarity flips we see in our own Sun every eleven years. It should be expected that the magnetic field around a super massive black hole would be equally variable, if not more so.

The problem is that there remains no understanding about why such changes happen. We know the magnetic field exists. We know it flips polarity. With the Sun we know it does so regularly every eleven years. Why it does so however remains unknown, though there are theories. With M87 the data is far less certain.

Tracking the changes at M87 however should help us build our knowledge base so that someday we might finally grasp those fundamentals.

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