April 3, 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.
- Smallsat startup True Anomaly touts its new “Jackal spacecraft for GEO and Cislunar space”
The company is angling for defense work.
- Vast signs deal with NASA’s Glenn center to do environmental testing of its Haven-1 manned space station
This testing is set for early ’26, which makes for a very tight schedule to meet the present May ’26 launch date.
- SpaceX completes static fire test of Superheavy booster recovered from the seventh test flight
The tweet says this booster could very well be reused on test flight 9, the next planned test flight.
- Kongsberg to deliver 280 microsatellites to SpinLaunch’s LEO satellite communication constellation
My readers might remember SpinLaunch as the startup aiming to put payloads into orbit by spinning them to high speeds and then releasing them. They did some tests, got some investment capital, and then apparently switched focus to satellite communications.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
- Smallsat startup True Anomaly touts its new “Jackal spacecraft for GEO and Cislunar space”
The company is angling for defense work.
- Vast signs deal with NASA’s Glenn center to do environmental testing of its Haven-1 manned space station
This testing is set for early ’26, which makes for a very tight schedule to meet the present May ’26 launch date.
- SpaceX completes static fire test of Superheavy booster recovered from the seventh test flight
The tweet says this booster could very well be reused on test flight 9, the next planned test flight.
- Kongsberg to deliver 280 microsatellites to SpinLaunch’s LEO satellite communication constellation
My readers might remember SpinLaunch as the startup aiming to put payloads into orbit by spinning them to high speeds and then releasing them. They did some tests, got some investment capital, and then apparently switched focus to satellite communications.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I continue to be impressed by Rocket Lab’s willingness to diversify their portfolio rather than keep pushing all of their chips onto the hypercompetitive launch market. It’s why they’re finally in the black now.
Yes, Rocket Lab has done very well by, in essence, buying at estate sales. Most of its space components acquisitions have been of overextended startup companies circling the drain which it has then turned around. And in the particular case of Virgin Orbit, the “organ donor” had already died. This is exactly how the “creative destruction” of capitalism is supposed to work. More’s the pity Rocket Lab isn’t yet large enough to take over Boeing’s distressed space assets. Perhaps a few years down the road the story will be different.