February 10, 2026 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.
- Firefly successfully completes 20-second static fire of Alpha rocket first stage
The launch window opens no earlier than February 18, 2026, and will hopefully be the first successful Alpha launch since July 2024.
- The first Boeing 747-100 “Jumbo Jet” made its first flight near Seattle on this day in 1969
The link shows a picture of Boeing’s Seattle factory c1970 with 25 747s parked outside. Now most of Boeing’s facilities have left for other states (with more to follow) to avoid the increasingly oppressive leftist government of Washington, with its high taxes and regulations.
- On this day in 1971 Apollo 14 returned to Earth after a 9-day mission to the Moon
The crew was Al Shepard, Ed Mitchell, and Stu Roosa, with Shepard hitting a golf ball during the second EVA.
- On that Apollo 14 flight Roosa’s personal kit carried hundreds of tree seeds, part of a joint NASA/USFS project
Many became the “Moon trees” that were later planted across the nation.
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.
- Firefly successfully completes 20-second static fire of Alpha rocket first stage
The launch window opens no earlier than February 18, 2026, and will hopefully be the first successful Alpha launch since July 2024.
- The first Boeing 747-100 “Jumbo Jet” made its first flight near Seattle on this day in 1969
The link shows a picture of Boeing’s Seattle factory c1970 with 25 747s parked outside. Now most of Boeing’s facilities have left for other states (with more to follow) to avoid the increasingly oppressive leftist government of Washington, with its high taxes and regulations.
- On this day in 1971 Apollo 14 returned to Earth after a 9-day mission to the Moon
The crew was Al Shepard, Ed Mitchell, and Stu Roosa, with Shepard hitting a golf ball during the second EVA.
- On that Apollo 14 flight Roosa’s personal kit carried hundreds of tree seeds, part of a joint NASA/USFS project
Many became the “Moon trees” that were later planted across the nation.
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
It was a pretty informative answer by Steve Stich regarding Starliner’s status. But it’s really regrettable that it requires someone asking about it in a press conference in the first place. Why have there been no regular updates from NASA on Starliner’s investigation, testing, and planning?
Richard M,
It might well be nothing more complicated than the human tendency to ballyhoo things one is proud of and say nothing about things one is embarrassed by. Neither Boeing nor NASA are proud of Starliner and both are embarrassed by it.
This is interesting: AST SpaceMobile says that its BlueBird 6 array antenna has finally fully unfolded. At nearly 2,400 square feet, it’s the largest ever commercial communications array ever deployed in low Earth orbit. It’s honkin’ huge.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210108166/en/AST-SpaceMobile-Successfully-Completes-Unfolding-of-BlueBird-6-the-Largest-Commercial-Communications-Array-Antenna-Ever-Deployed-in-Low-Earth-Orbit
https://x.com/AbelAvellan/status/2021396405269430584
I would think direct-to-cell satellites would have to look like that.
I seem to remember a documentary series called “Beyond 2000” where an individual was speaking into a watch-like device—with art of what might have been Orbital Antenna Farms. The idea was that the bigger the sat–the smaller the consumer device would be.
”Now most of Boeing’s facilities have left for other states (with more to follow)…”
Not a lot of Boeing has left Seattle — just the 787. Most of Boeing was never in Seattle.
Boeing’s jet fighter production has always been in St. Louis (originally known as McDonnell Aircraft Company). Its combat helicopter production facility has always been in Mesa, AZ (Hughes Aircraft Co.) and its cargo helicopter production facility has always been in Philadelphia (Vertol). Its satellite production facility has always been in El Segundo, CA (Hughes Space). Other examples abound.
If you think of Boeing as a Seattle company then you don’t really understand Boeing.
New article called: “How charges invert a long standing empirical law in glass physics” at phys-
This involves “compleximers.”
Molten glass will conduct electricity. Perhaps in the future the greatest currents too strong for metals could make the jump.
mkent: so Boeing’s acquisitions were mostly outside of Seattle, versus Boeing itself. The core of the company, which is commercial airplanes, was born there, and is gradually leaving..
Jeff Wright. There are large numbers of D2C Starlinks in orbit that are far smaller than BlueBirds communicating with unmodified phones. Starlink has also taken all of the proposed niches for orbital antenna farms.
Sad but not really unexpected news: it looks like Orbex is going into receivership.
https://x.com/i/status/2021571572281057639
mkent,
Yes, production is in Everett, but everything on the west side is called Seattle to us east-side barbarians, and everyone outside of the state thinks everyone in the state lives in Seattle. Believe me, we dry-siders do not like to be associated with Seattle. The 777 and 767 tanker lines are still there, but the way things are going in the state it might be moving.
That income tax bill and the payroll tax bill for anyone that makes over $125k that is being voted on now will make Boeing want to move the production lines. I am not a millionaire, but I am considering moving to Idaho because I know the commissars in Olympia will lower that income tax on to everyone in a couple years.
”Yes, production is in Everett, but everything on the west side is called Seattle to us east-side barbarians, and everyone outside of the state thinks everyone in the state lives in Seattle. Believe me, we dry-siders do not like to be associated with Seattle.”
Aaaarrrrgggghhhh! Not to pick on you, but this attitude right here is the core of Boeing’s problems.
This is not a Seattle vs. Everett vs. Renton vs. Tukwila thing. It’s a western Washington vs. the rest of the company thing.
The part of Boeing in the Seattle region has never accepted the rest of Boeing as a legitimate part of the company. Because of that they have for the last 30 years blamed the rest of the company for Boeing-Seattle’s own problems. As a result they have never fixed their own problems, even after 30 years.
That would normally be just a weird internal problem for Boeing, but that attitude has somehow escaped the company and manifested itself throughout the aerospace commentariat. Not just there, but at the Pentagon too. That has led to some procurement decisions being made that are, shall we say, suboptimal.
In much the same way that you can’t understand NASA’s dysfunction without understanding the geographical and structural nature of its centers, so too you can’t understand Boeing’s dysfunction without understanding the geographical and structural nature of its divisions.
The first part of that understanding is understanding that most of Boeing was never in the Seattle region.