December 17, 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.
- Roskosmos promises it will have its Soyuz launch pad in Baikonur operational “by the end of winter”
It is claiming it will be ready for a Progress launch to ISS as early as March 11.
- Blue Origin touts testing of system for getting astronauts from its Blue Moon MK2 manned lunar lander to the ground
The tweet implies these tests included a Blue Origin pressurized spacesuit as well, but I can find no information elsewhere about such a thing. I suspect the tests used an engineering pressurized suit (attached to a NASA system to simulate lunar gravity) to simulate egress from the lander.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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.
- Roskosmos promises it will have its Soyuz launch pad in Baikonur operational “by the end of winter”
It is claiming it will be ready for a Progress launch to ISS as early as March 11.
- Blue Origin touts testing of system for getting astronauts from its Blue Moon MK2 manned lunar lander to the ground
The tweet implies these tests included a Blue Origin pressurized spacesuit as well, but I can find no information elsewhere about such a thing. I suspect the tests used an engineering pressurized suit (attached to a NASA system to simulate lunar gravity) to simulate egress from the lander.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
On fatigue
https://techxplore.com/news/2025-12-powerful-tool-fracture-fatigue.html
On rotors–implications for Sterling engines?
https://techxplore.com/news/2025-12-energy-loss-peaks-rotor-driven.html
“Roskosmos promises it will have its Soyuz launch pad in Baikonur operational “by the end of winter””
Yes, but did they say which winter?
By the way, it looks like SpaceX is going easy on its launch teams for the holidays, Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX VP of launch, just posted this:
Of course, Kiko is only counting Falcon launches in his tally, not Starship launches (which his team is not responsible for. Yet.)
So 167 Falcon launches for 2025. Not too shabby.
And speaking of the Falcon 9….it is hard to believe, but it will be ten (10) years ago on this Sunday that SpaceX landed its first booster stage. I mean, landed in one piece. Ten years! They’ve now landed 552 boosters successfully, if Wikipedia is properly updated, and that is even more amazing to think about.
For those who still haven’t bought Eric Berger’s book REENTRY, he has a slightly edited version of the chapter dealing with that landing out today, and it’s worth a read:https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/12/ten-years-ago-spacex-turned-tragedy-into-triumph-with-a-historic-rocket-landing/
Elon reacted with a tweet: “Mostly accurate.”
Since folks here are bullish on the subject of privatization
https://phys.org/news/2025-12-private-donors-pledge-bn-cern.html
“Europe’s physics lab CERN on Thursday said private donors had pledged $1 billion toward the construction of a new particle accelerator that would be by far the world’s biggest.”
“The donors include the Breakthrough Prize Foundation of billionaire Silicon Valley investor Yuri Milner; the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fund for Strategic Innovation of former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt; plus Italian Agnelli family heir John Elkann, and French telecoms tycoon Xavier Niel.”
“‘It’s the first time in history that private donors wish to partner with CERN to build an extraordinary research instrument that will allow humanity to take major steps forward in our understanding of fundamental physics,'” said CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti.”
With Breakthrough Starshot dead—might an accelerator be able to push a starwisp?
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2008/10/21/remembering-starwisp/
If space advocates have money—they could have a seat at the table with CERN, since both require high energies to do things.
I am always looking for an “in.”
Jeff Wright wrote: “‘It’s the first time in history that private donors wish to partner with CERN to build an extraordinary research instrument that will allow humanity to take major steps forward in our understanding of fundamental physics,’ said CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti.”
Before CERN, and before WWII, a lot of our science had been financed by wealthy civilians. It was around WWII that the U.S. government decided that science was its purview, not for civilians to lead. Thus, we soon found ourselves with few useful advancements in science, since then there were pretty much only three real major advancements that were not combinations or variations of previous advancements, two of them were the laser and the integrated circuit. All we were getting were things that government wanted, but before WWII we were getting things that We the People wanted and used.
Lately, some civilian came up with 3-D printing, which quickly translated into additive manufacturing and a more efficient way to manufacture several products, such as rocket engines, reducing weight, increasing performance, and reducing cost. It is when we civilians innovate and develop what we want that we get what we want.
“If space advocates have money—they could have a seat at the table with CERN, since both require high energies to do things.”
Except that the space version of high energy has to do with massive things going into orbit, and CERN’s version has to do with subatomic particles going into relativistic speeds. The desires and the results are different. Space advocates are better off advocating for space, not particle physics or high-energy physics.
_____________
From Richard M‘s linked Ars Techchnica article:
No doubt these critics were muffled by the loss of a couple of government cargo missions at around the same time. It wasn’t just the upstart startup commercial companies that were not yet perfect, the stalwart government-controlled cargo suppliers were also still not perfect, despite their more advanced experiences. Supplies aboard the ISS were getting relatively low, but they had kept enough surplus aboard to keep the crews going even through the lean times of that year.
It wasn’t just SpaceX that was innovating ways of spaceflight that only national space programs had done before, it was Blue Origin, which had landed a suborbital booster successfully, and it was Orbital Sciences (now part of Northrup Grumman) that, along with SpaceX, was lofting cargo missions to the ISS, and it was Scaled Composites that had done a manned suborbital flight in an innovative and inexpensive way. I like the way Eric Berger says that commercial space had taken the lead in space development and innovation.
And now that rocket boosters are being reused, the launch cadence is able to rise to a level never before seen. I’m not sure whether the limit is due to the pace that the upper stages are made, the time it takes for a drone ship to return a booster to port, or the time it takes to recycle a pad for the next launch, but the commercial space companies are picking up the pace in rocket launches, showing that the government space programs left much to be desired.
Startup commercial satellite operators were also innovating various missions in more cost efficient ways, missions such as Earth observation. Commercial space companies are innovating efficiencies that we never got from national space programs, and we earthlings are finally benefitting in the ways that the Outer Space Treaty had promised.
Richard, thank you for the link.
It isn’t just that commercial space companies are doing what only governments have done and are doing more than governments have done, they are making progress, which goes beyond what the governments have done.
How wonderful is it that Amazon LEO (nee Kuiper) was sued by its stockholders because it didn’t choose the low-cost launch vehicle? Not the lawsuit that is wonderful, but the fact that there is a low cost vendor.
Then there are the actual benefits that we are getting from commercial space companies but not getting from government projects. SLS is only a jobs program, which is why government is not dissatisfied that it takes so long, costs so much, and does so little. It is similar to California’s High Speed Rail project, which has also cost much, has taken a long time, yet still has no operational rail laid (there are a few miles of test track being laid). That rail project takes place in a world where actual progress for lower cost is not only possible but happens everywhere else. SLS is a project that does less than commercial space knows how to do for much less cost and in less time.
What a wonderful world we live in where private companies are so willing to do what we want done, because in the world where government is in charge, nothing gets done, and it costs a lot of money to not do it.
Then there are the public-private partnerships that give us the best of both worlds: something that the government wants while distracting the privately owned commercial space companies from giving us what we want.
Stockholder lawsuits are to be avoided.
Yes, one helped SpaceX, but I can easily see dullard suits questioning Musk’s Mars ambitions.
More on rotary engines—the Birotary
Not a pronoun:
https://hackaday.com/2025/12/28/the-birotary-engine-explained/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lKM76zxCfiU
Jeff Wright wrote: “Stockholder lawsuits are to be avoided. Yes, one helped SpaceX, but I can easily see dullard suits questioning Musk’s Mars ambitions.”
Which is a good reason for SpaceX to not sell stock to the general public. As long as the private investors are interested in SpaceX’s ambitious plans for Mars, there are no stockholder lawsuits. The private investors know and agree to the plans and their potential costs and risks when they invest.