February 21, 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.
- China to use AI in its future interplanetary missions
Jay sums things up quite succinctly: “I hear people, companies, and countries throw that term around. I don’t think they know what that means.”
- BAE wins $230.6 million satellite contract from NOAA
The company will build NOAA’s next generation solar satellites for monitoring space weather, with launches scheduled in ’29 and ’32.
- On this day in 1969 the Soviet Union attempted the first launch of its giant N1 rocket, intended to match the U.S.’s Saturn-5
This as well as three subsequent launches all failed.
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.
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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.
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.
- China to use AI in its future interplanetary missions
Jay sums things up quite succinctly: “I hear people, companies, and countries throw that term around. I don’t think they know what that means.”
- BAE wins $230.6 million satellite contract from NOAA
The company will build NOAA’s next generation solar satellites for monitoring space weather, with launches scheduled in ’29 and ’32.
- On this day in 1969 the Soviet Union attempted the first launch of its giant N1 rocket, intended to match the U.S.’s Saturn-5
This as well as three subsequent launches all failed.
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.
That X-37 photo is just amazing.
Some more good news for SpaceX today:
https://spacenews.com/nasa-selects-spacex-to-launch-neo-surveyor/
NASA press release: https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-awards-planetary-defense-space-telescope-launch-services-contract/
Kind of pricey for Falcon 9 launch. Is this expendable? (It is going to a Lagrange Point, after all.) Or just a lot of special launch services involved?
I’m waiting for ad agencies to figure out a way to work AI in to toothpaste commercials.
It’s coming.
I have a photo of a store Coke display featuring limited-edition flavor Y3000 with the tagline “Co-Created With Artificial Intelligence”. I only wish I were making any of that up.
One wonders if the Chinese have ever watched 2001?
“Open the pod bay doors, HAO.”
Richard M,
Wikipedia says NEO Surveyor will only weigh 1.3 tonnes so I don’t think we’re looking at an expendable 1st stage mission here.
Falcon 9 has flown L1 halo orbit missions before, notably the DSCOVR (“Goresat”) mission a decade ago. DSCOVR only weighed about half of what NEO Surveyor will, but the mission was flown on a v1.1 Falcon 9, not a Block 5 – which didn’t yet exist.
Landing of 1st stages was also not yet a thing, but the DSCOVR’s 1st stage did do one of those “soft splashdown” ocean “landings” that SpaceX was doing during that period ahead of its first actual booster landing in Dec. of that same year.
So NEO Surveyor won’t be an expendable booster mission. It might even be an RTLS landing.
NEO Surveyor is a deep space mission. So the $100 million launch price tag is most likely related to the sort of extra NASA-mandated hoop-jumping and paperwork that always seems to accompany such.
Hello Dick,
I hadn’t actually looked at the numbers when I posted that, and — well, I did think it had more mass than that. I also forgot that it’s infrared, and those do require a lot of special payload processing including purge systems right up to the point of launch.
NASA and SpaceX have provided no launch details, but it does seem most likely that the extra $33M is for special payload services.
Looks like Trump already is it investing in the Huntsville economy by moving 500 FBI agents there..
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/02/21/boom-kash-patel-is-already-making-huge-changes-at-the-fbi-n4937220
I could snark that Huntsville didn’t do anything to deserve this, but maybe this is another sign that Trump might be buttering up Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville for that SLS kill-shot.
Article about China’s space ambitions. Not much new, but worth reading. Should have mentioned that a large part of China’s development strategy is to steal technology from the leaders like SpaceX.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/02/chinas-dream-of-space-exploration-with-no-end/
China’s Space Dream: No Limits, No End
China’s space strategy is shaped by military ambitions, aspirations for technological dominance, and ubiquitous commercial considerations.
Take our rockets first, then dump the alphabet police on us…thanx a bunch.
That’s okay—you know why?
When ISS is splashed—what happens to Dream Chaser—to Cygnus?
Non-SpaceX New Spacers are *also* going to be looking for work.
Poor deluded saps—they thought SLS was the rat—when the whole time—it was actually the cheese.
They bit down hard, and now the spring will fasten around their necks as well.
I must say, this was masterful executed…going after NewSpace rivals when folks just thought he was going after Old Space.
(Slow clap…)