January 19, 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.
- An image showing the contrail from Ceres-2 rocket that failed at launch on January 17, 2026
The image shows nothing of significance, and could even be from another launch entirely.
- Chinese pseudo-company touts a strange design to catch a booster horizontally with wires
Jay’s comment: “I could think of a few problems with this design.”
- Roscosmos reiterates its promise to launch ~300 satellites by ’27 for its “Russian Starlink” constellation
It also says it will produce 200,000 ground terminals for the system this year. And both Jay and I have strong doubts.
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.
- An image showing the contrail from Ceres-2 rocket that failed at launch on January 17, 2026
The image shows nothing of significance, and could even be from another launch entirely.
- Chinese pseudo-company touts a strange design to catch a booster horizontally with wires
Jay’s comment: “I could think of a few problems with this design.”
- Roscosmos reiterates its promise to launch ~300 satellites by ’27 for its “Russian Starlink” constellation
It also says it will produce 200,000 ground terminals for the system this year. And both Jay and I have strong doubts.
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
Light engineering
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-quantum-alchemy-feasible-excitons.html
A different “light sail” material with hydrogen thrust can be had with this, perhaps:
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-01-solid-state-material-hydrogen-sunlight.html
Eric Berger has a new interview up with Vast CEO Max Haot today, and Haot announces that the launch of the Haven-1 space station has been pushed back to 1Q 2027. Some other interesting tidbits in there, too.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/the-first-commercial-space-station-haven-1-is-now-undergoing-assembly-for-launch/
Welding tool for SpaceX?
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-01-ai-smart-eyes-welding-defects.html
Jay,
Yeesh – you and me both on that “few problems” thing. A “few” off the top of my head:
Unless the booster comes straight down from a considerable height, one runs the risk of melting/burning at least one of the catch cables with the plumes from one or both sets of landing engines – no sneaking in at a shallow angle allowed. This rig doesn’t look as though it would have much margin for either lateral or longitudinal misalignment on descent.
And, unless there are some fore and aft thrusters, plus some more pointing to the sides when the landing engines are pointing down, such misalignments – due to anything more than a dead calm wind state upon descent – would not be correctable. All I see in the X post is a pair of fins/flaps at each end of the booster. These would be worthless for maneuver at low speeds. That adds the possibility of one end or the other of the booster missing its intended catch cable entirely. That would not end well.
Unless the landing engines are quite finely throttleable, the booster might bounce on the catch cables – depending upon how tightly they are strung. This would be bad enough even if the thing lands perfectly level. If it doesn’t, one end might bounce up while the other is still coming down and much weirditude could easily ensue.
If the catch cables are tightly strung, a landing in even a moderately choppy sea state could cause the booster to roll from side to side, picking up steam on each cycle until it rolls itself off one side or the other and goes into the drink – possibly splitting itself open upon hitting the edge of the barge on the way down and exploding first. To avoid this, the catch cables would have to quickly lower the booster to the deck.
The biggest problem, from a performance standpoint, is that the side-mounted landing engines are an entirely parasitic mass. Vertical powered landings are more efficient as the same engines that power the ascent also power the landing – no parasitic mass required. This is likely the biggest reason the USSR never actually built the Baikal fly-back booster as anything but a non-functional mockup for exhibit.
Nor would the landing engines likely be the end of parasitic mass penalties. Some sort of deployable landing strut system would appear to be needed to keep the landing engine bells from getting squashed as the booster is lowered to the deck. There would also be extra structural mass required to allow the booster to withstand bending loads in the middle when it lands. And, of course, there would be the thrusters needed for adequate authority of low-speed maneuvers.
The PRC seems to be deep into its Era of Wonderful Nonsense anent recoverable/reusable boosters or entire stacks. Lots of “out there” concepts being run up various flagpoles seeking salutes. From my standpoint, the interest is mainly in seeing if any of these notions can actually be made to work during what little time the PRC has left before crashing in ruin.
Robert & Jay,
I also regard any noises Russia makes about a “Russian Starlink” as so much passing of gas. It’s hard to see how much service could be provided with a mere 300 birds even if Russia intends to put them in rather higher orbits than those Starlink occupies. Or maybe the 300 are just a start toward some unknown larger number for the full constellation.
In any case, managing even 300 by 2027 seems massively unlikely given that the PRC has been launching its own version of Starlink for well over a year and is only at roughly 150 sats deployed. And this from a nation with a notably more robust national launch cadence than Russia’s.
But the real giveaway that this is a pipe dream is the notion of Russia turning out 200,000 “Starlink-ski” ground terminals this year. Russia can’t get enough microelectronics to keep its military production going. Where all the chips needed for 200,000 broadband terminals could come from is a question with no obvious answer. Actually, so is the question of where the chips could come from for fabrication of 300 broadband sats. The Chinese could probably help, but only for cash and Russia is rapidly running out of that as its “Shadow Fleet” of tankers is incrementally sunk or boarded and confiscated. No oil getting to market, no money.
I’ll put this in the already bulging file labeled “Russian Delusions of Grandeur.”
Regarding Richard M‘s linked interview with Vast’s CEO:
One of the problems with getting funding from NASA for the Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) program is that you are stuck making a space station that NASA wants, not necessarily a space station that the rest of the space industry wants. Haot mentioned needing international customers, other national space programs, as well as commercial/individual customers in order to “get to profitability.”
I am disappointed that they have had a delay to next year for launch. The earlier they can launch, the better off they and we are.
___________
Jay and Dick Eagleson,
My suspicion is that the Chinese have seen Americans do the bizarre chopstick catch and thought that they could try some of their own bizarrenesses. If Americans can do the impossible, then anyone can, right?
The distinction that I see is that the chopsticks have a definite purpose for improving the turnaround time for a Super Heavy flight. Making that work has a very strong reward. The other proposed catch methods that I have seen lately do not seem to have any real operational purpose, thus my suspicion that these proposals are more for some form of bragging rights rather than for operational efficiencies.