April 29, 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.
- Japanese rocket startup Interstellar gets another government grant
It appears the grant is to develop technology for flying many satellites in formation
- China touts a 10m diameter stainless steel tank prototype
Supposedly for a heavy lift rocket.
- Russia now says its Spectr-UV space telescope will launch in 2031
It was originally supposed to launch in 1997.
- Russia re-confirms its unmanned lunar program previously outlined in 2023, except now it gives few specific target dates
Expect Russia to miss even these dates.
- A picture of Russia’s version of its own “Starlink” satellite
Supposedly going to begin launches in 2026, but if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you cheap.
- New images of failed 1972 Soviet-era Venera lander whose Earth orbit is about to decay
The pictures don’t really show much, except that it appears smaller than a typical Starlink satellite (shown in comparison). Designed however to survive Venus’s thick and hot atmosphere, it will still likely hit the ground when its orbit decays in the second week of May.
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For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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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.
- Japanese rocket startup Interstellar gets another government grant
It appears the grant is to develop technology for flying many satellites in formation
- China touts a 10m diameter stainless steel tank prototype
Supposedly for a heavy lift rocket.
- Russia now says its Spectr-UV space telescope will launch in 2031
It was originally supposed to launch in 1997.
- Russia re-confirms its unmanned lunar program previously outlined in 2023, except now it gives few specific target dates
Expect Russia to miss even these dates.
- A picture of Russia’s version of its own “Starlink” satellite
Supposedly going to begin launches in 2026, but if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you cheap.
- New images of failed 1972 Soviet-era Venera lander whose Earth orbit is about to decay
The pictures don’t really show much, except that it appears smaller than a typical Starlink satellite (shown in comparison). Designed however to survive Venus’s thick and hot atmosphere, it will still likely hit the ground when its orbit decays in the second week of May.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Could you imagine how embarrassing it would be to Russia if one of the tug start ups was to retrieve it? It would be great PR and proof of concept.
There is Elon Time, and then there is….Roscosmos Time.
Max,
Fun idea. Pretty sure the orbital mechanics don’t work out though.
Richard M,
This edition of Quick space links has wound up being mostly Russian – an old Soviet failure coming back like Marley’s Ghost and three bits of end-stage braggadocio that might as well be counted as future Russian failures. As you accurately note, the one area in which the Russians clearly excel Elon Musk is in being late, though even that implicitly assumes eventual arrival. Roscosmos time, I think, actually falls somewhere between Real Soon Now and Waiting for Godot.
You’re right dick, it would’ve by necessity been a rendezvous during its last flyby for a success. Too late now.
There are plenty of other chunks of debris and old satcom‘s just waiting for a taxi. Someday, even a tesla car wandering around the solar system will be retrieved and placed in the orbital museum.
Hello Dick,
It’s a shame, really. Vile and monstrous as the Soviet regime was, one could not help a certain (grudging?) admiration for their space program, which accomplished some amazing things in the teeth of often very difficult circumstances.
They key was that the Soviet regime generally resourced the space program well. Post-Soviet Russia has never been in a position to do that. And that makes the endemic problems we all know about (rampant corruption, dysfunctional leadership, poor infrastructure, terrible demographics, decaying educational system) difficult if not impossible to overcome. The Ukraine War seems to be just the final blow to this once proud industry.
Nikita Khrushchev saw space as a way to not have to match America Blue Water Navy for Blue Water Navy.
So Korolev and Glushko were their LeMay and Rickover–for a bit.
When Korolev died and eyebrows took over–that’s when the free-fall began.
In America, we had the opposite trajectory–space advocates ranking below the janitor in the Pentagon until Space Force.
A couple of good articles today:
“Stronger and safer: New design strategy for aluminum combines strength with hydrogen embrittlement resistance.”
Professor Baptiste Gault: ” We no longer have to choose between high strength and hydrogen resistance–this alloy delivers both.”
Ubaid Manzoor Ph.D has looked into “Green Nickel” for stainless steel.
Both discoveries from the Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials (MPl-SusMat.)
The one good thing out of the environmental movement has been materials research.
Richard M,
Russia had centuries of ruthless expansion when it was largely rural and agricultural with peasant masses it could conscript and throw into wars of aggression. Once it industrialized and urbanized, it was steadily less able to rely on the previously endless supply of peasant children who could be “harvested” as soldiery. People who live in cities and work in factories simply don’t have as many children as farmers do. Drunkards and the chronically ill have still fewer.
The decline of Russia’s space efforts is simply a side effect of its now-terminal demographics. In a stupid and hopeless bid to restore the former defense perimeter of the dead Soviet Union, Russia is now burning through what few young men remain by sending them as cannon fodder to Ukraine. Even more young Russian men, looking to avoid the same fate, have expatriated themselves and will never come back. Young Russian women, increasingly unable to find suitable mates at home, are doing likewise. Russia is rapidly becoming a hospice nation, populated increasingly by only the middle-aged and elderly. In another generation, the latter will be dead and the former will have one foot in the grave.
Russia, in short, is a nation with a long past but no future. Its vast non-Russian East will soon begin to peel away. Continuing to burn what remains of the Russian military to cinders in Ukraine will simply advance the date at which this process begins and accelerate the pace at which it will be able to spread once started.
Decline may be a choice for some nations but, for Russia, it has been an inevitability since the Soviet collapse and the rise of Putin. The latter is busily doing what too many fuddled oldsters do when behind the wheel – mash the accelerator under the mistaken impression they are applying the brakes and run the vehicle into something immovable. Putin still imagines he can win his already-failed war of conquest and arrest the decline of Russia. All he is succeeding in doing is speeding up Russia’s course toward the abyss.
Russia’s space program is tied to its overall fortunes and those are dropping like a stone down a well. Pathetic PR about “future plans” combined with cutbacks to ISS missions and lengthening of future cosmonaut stays there show the trajectory of decline. When ISS ends in five years, so will the Russian manned space program – if it doesn’t falter even sooner. Russia also seems to be having increasing difficulty in maintaining its more and more threadbare constellation of military satellites. Russia is, in all likelihood, less than a decade away from becoming the world’s first ex-space power.
Max,
Tidying up all the junk we and others have launched into space will, indeed, be a sizable job and take awhile to accomplish. The most appropriate museum for that now probably formerly red Tesla has yet to be built as it will be on Mars.
Jeff Wright,
Thanks for the metallurgy info. Very informative.
I suspect the scandium precipitate thing will also prove useful in making other metals than aluminum more resistant to hydrogen embrittlement too.
The “Green Nickel” (and “Green Cobalt”) thing comes at a time when EV battery makers, in particular, are aggressively looking for ways to reduce or eliminate the need for nickel – and cobalt in their wares. Increasing the supply, reducing the cost and making lower-grade ores usable will have the effect of expanding the battery makers’ chemical and cost envelopes. This should also have a favorable impact on the cost of nickel-based superalloys.
To Mr. Eagleson,
There has been a study out of a University of Nevada, Reno led by Thomas White and Cameron Allen that means we may have to rethink heat transfer…from “Nature Communications.”
The claim is that they heated a tungsten wire to “180,000 degrees F” with a plastic coating “only reaching “20,000.”
Far beyond the melting point of either.
In “Simulations and diagnostics shed light on complex physics of hypersonic flight” Prashant Khare said “Friction creates the heat. Can we come up with new materials…”
I thought compression supplied the heat of re-entry?
Another paper of interest is called “Discovery of extended slip bands reshapes understanding of material deformation under stress.” out of UC Irvine.