8 comments

• mkent

  January 22, 2026 at 7:07 pm

  In other space news today…

  1) Blue Origin sent five ordinary people and one Blue Origin employee to space today aboard a New Shepard vehicle. The Blue Origin employee was a last-minute swap required when the sixth ordinary person scheduled for the flight became ill.

  2) Blue Origin and AST SpaceMobile announced that the next flight of the New Glenn launch vehicle will carry AST’s Bluebird-7 satellite, as AST builds out its direct-to-cell satellite network. This launch, scheduled for late February, will re-fly the first-stage New Glenn booster used and recovered on New Glenn’s second flight.

  These were done by Blue Origin, but they don’t merit even a mention, let alone a dedicated post, because Blue Origin never flies anything.

  3) Blue Origin shipped its first Blue Moon Mk 1 lunar lander, named Endurance after Ernest Shackleton’s legendary ship, to NASA’s Johnson Space Center for thermal vacuum testing. It recently completed acoustic testing in Florida as is scheduled to fly to the moon later this year.

  4) ArianeSpace started stacking its next Ariane 6 launch vehicle, the first in the Ariane 64 configuration. This will be a dedicated launch carrying a set of 32 Amazon Leo satellites to orbit for Amazon (flight LE-01).

  5) ULA rolled its new Vulcan Launch Platform (VLP-A) out of its new Vulcan Integration Facility (VIF-A) to the launch pad for pad integration testing. VIF-A and VLP-A are dedicated facilities for Amazon Leo launches.

  6) Amazon announced that it has completed payload stacking for its first Vulcan launch and has begun payload stacking for its second (flights LV-01 and LV-02). These two flights are planned to follow a few weeks after the Amazon LE-01 flight mentioned in item #4 and carry 40 Leo satellites each.

  Apparently Amazon, Arianespace, AST SpaceMobile, and ULA don’t merit mentions either. Funny how that applies to companies competing directly against SpaceX but not to companies not competing with SpaceX completing much smaller milestones. Just something I noticed.
• Robert Zimmerman

  January 22, 2026 at 7:29 pm

  mkent: Don’t be so sarcastic. I didn’t see those stories, or I would post them. To imply I wouldn’t is very ugly, considering more than 34K posts I’ve done for 15 years.

  I have also repeatedly noted that under David Limp Blue Origin appears to be ramping up to a more normal and acceptable pace. Takes time. Until they prove themselves, I am quite justified holding their feet to the fire.

  You don’t provide links, but no matter. I will certainly see them by tomorrow. The AST-Mobile launch story is like the most interesting, especially with Blue Origin planning to reuse that stage.

  As for the others, I generally don’t post stories about the stacking or rollout of rockets. What matters to me is the launch. And that applies to Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy as well.
• Dick Eagleson

  January 23, 2026 at 2:05 am

  mkent,

  Interesting that Arianespace and ULA are getting ready to start launching Amazon Leo sats on their new rockets, while Blue is letting AST SpaceMobile cut in line ahead of all of the Amazon Leo launches it has on its own manifest. But perhaps it is simply a matter of Amazon Leo’s sat production being insufficient to feed more than the Ariane 64 and Vulcan launches upcoming.

  And, with the initial Blue Moon Mk1 lander still in testing and well away from readiness to launch, it would certainly make sense to take on a mission for AST SpaceMobile – which has been scrambling a bit to get its big Bluebirds launched given Amazon Leo’s lock on most of the suitable non-SpaceX rockets.

  As much as it may pain AST SpaceMobile to launch its birds on a direct competitor’s rocket, it does still have a couple of such F9 missions scheduled for later this year. But one can readily appreciate the degree to which an opening on New Glenn would have been seized upon with alacrity.
• Richard M

  January 23, 2026 at 7:48 am

  Bob, prepare to fall out of your chair in amazement: this just appeared on CNN, main page alert, no less.

  Jackie Wattles, “NASA is about to send people to the moon — in a spacecraft not everyone thinks is safe to fly,” CNN, January 23, 2026 (8:46am EST)

  https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/23/science/artemis-2-orion-capsule-heat-shield

  They even quote Charlie Camarda! And link to Casey Handmer’s “Flaming garbage” essay! (But not your stuff, I regret to say. We need to get you on Jackie’s contact list.)

  It is a surprisingly lengthy article, too. It’s….not terrible. Really surprised to see this.
• Richard M

  January 23, 2026 at 7:52 am

  “But perhaps it is simply a matter of Amazon Leo’s sat production being insufficient to feed more than the Ariane 64 and Vulcan launches upcoming.”

  Not impossible that AST signed its contract first, or paid for priority (I do not know the answer on that)…. But I suspect you may be right, Dick.

  Still, either way, Amazon finally is making some progress on Leo.
• Robert Zimmerman

  January 23, 2026 at 9:09 am

  Richard M: Thanks for the link. I find it interesting that Olivas, advocate for this mission, admits at one point that NASA is putting “schedule” ahead of engineering in its decision.

  As for not referring to me, I am not an engineer, and Wattles was better served quoting engineers in this matter. Also, publications like CNN usually have policies preventing reporters from quoting material from other news sources, such as my PJ Media op-ed.

  Thirdly, I have become used to not existing in these matters. :)
• Richard M

  January 23, 2026 at 2:52 pm

  Eric Berger is throwing some shade at Camarda on X today. Makes me wish I could watch a recording of that meeting.

  https://x.com/i/status/2014806140152938772
• Robert Zimmerman

  January 23, 2026 at 3:00 pm

  Richard M: Berger appears to be carefully slamming Camarda in this tweet.