January 30, 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.
- PLD provides detailed update on construction of its MIURA 5 rocket
Very impressive video. They continue to appear on schedule for a 2026 launch.
- Astrolab touts its FLEX unmanned demo lunar rover, and its compact configuration during transport
Once on the Moon it will unfold.
- Chinese pseudo-company Ispace admits the first launch of its Hyperbola-3 rocket will be postponed
The tweet touts tests of their strongback, and only mentions the delay as an aside. Jay says the company is now saying it will slip to 2027.
- SpaceX to offer at no cost to all satellite operators the data from its Stargaze system used by Starlink satellites to determine positions precisely
It is doing this to help avoid collisions. Others should do the same, though no one knows what the large Chinese satellite constellation operators will do.
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.
- PLD provides detailed update on construction of its MIURA 5 rocket
Very impressive video. They continue to appear on schedule for a 2026 launch.
- Astrolab touts its FLEX unmanned demo lunar rover, and its compact configuration during transport
Once on the Moon it will unfold.
- Chinese pseudo-company Ispace admits the first launch of its Hyperbola-3 rocket will be postponed
The tweet touts tests of their strongback, and only mentions the delay as an aside. Jay says the company is now saying it will slip to 2027.
- SpaceX to offer at no cost to all satellite operators the data from its Stargaze system used by Starlink satellites to determine positions precisely
It is doing this to help avoid collisions. Others should do the same, though no one knows what the large Chinese satellite constellation operators will do.
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
In other news today, Blue Origin has suspended flights of its New Shepard for at least two years in order to “focus on New Glenn.”
What a shame! They were just getting to a monthly cadence and flying through what their own announcement said was a multi-year backlog. With both New Shepard and Virgin Galactic suspended, the cheapest ticket to space is now $65 million. Come to think of it, with NASA’s private astronaut missions also suspended, the cheapest ticket is to buy an entire manned Dragon flight for about $250 million. I guess non-billionaires need not apply.
You have to feel bad for Andrew Yaffe. He bought his ticket, went through the training, got sick two days before the flight, got bumped to next next flight, and now that flight will likely never happen. A lifelong dream crushed at the last minute.
mkent: What this news about New Shepard tells me is that Blue Origin under David Limp wants to focus on things of importance that can move the company forward. New Shepard is not doing that. New Glenn will, in innumerable ways.
It IS tragic for those holding tickets who wanted to fly, but hey, there is always Virgin Galactic (he says with tongue firmly in cheek).
it is a shame that a company with that much backing cannot do multiple thangs at once. It also tells me that New Shapard wasn’t profitable, or at least not profitable enough to be worth the trouble.
Virgin Galactic?
I wouldn’t wish a trip on that to my worst enemy.
New Shepard was a de facto LLRV for Blue.
The folks with tickets are just going to have to be patient.
There are longer waiting lists for Supercars, were I to hazard a guess.
”Come to think of it, with NASA’s private astronaut missions also suspended…”
Ha! Not even 12 hours after my comment, and it’s already obsolete. NASA today announced the resumption of private astronaut missions to the ISS and the award of PAM-5 to Axiom. The Axiom-5 mission is currently scheduled for January 2027. No word yet on the makeup of the crew.
Interesting update by PLD. It seems to be a very up-to-date outfit in most respects, but I was disappointed to see that it is using the same antique iso-grid/ortho-grid major structures fabrication technology as legacy rockets and most of the new ones as well. This is a very expensive and time-consuming fabrication technology that also requires turning 90%+ of purchased aluminum plate into machining chips. There are places where this type of fabrication is justified, but major cylindrical rocket structures are no longer really among them. SpaceX pioneered rolled-sheet-with-stringers construction for its rockets going all the way back to Falcon 1. Given how many newer vehicles ape SpaceX rockets in other ways, it’s a bit odd that few, if any, of their makers have elected to copy SpaceX’s basic structures fabrication technique. It’s one the major reasons SpaceX can crank out as many of its various rockets as it can so quickly. It is also, of course, an intrinsically much less expensive technology as well.
Anent SpaceX’s free offer of its Stargaze system to other satellite operators, this comes as no surprise. I predicted some time ago that SpaceX would do something like this in self-defense. I expect it to quickly get takers from everywhere except, perhaps, Russia and the PRC – and it’s not entirely beyond the realm of possibility that one or both of those nations might sign on as well. This is, in any case, an entirely free-market solution to the space traffic management problem – which the various governmental Karens, worldwide, can now stop whinging about. Not that they will.
Good news: The Starbase crew has rolled Booster 19 out to Massey’s for cryo testing. Something I know we’re all excited about.
https://x.com/i/status/2018070079833784604
Hello Bob,
Worth noting, if not a post: Elizabeth Schulze of ABC’s Good Morning America did a segment this weekend on the Orion heat shield, interviewing Charlie Camarda and Daniel Raskie.
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/video/safety-concerns-raised-ahead-historic-artemis-ii-launch-129699177
Not sure what drove her to do it or her producers to air it, unless it was a “if it could bleed, it leads” impulse. But they did air it, and even if it doesn’t change the overall trend toward adulatory coverage of Artemis II or get NASA to shift its PR, it’s at least one more critical piece of coverage that shows there were critical voices beforehand if (God forbid) something goes wrong.
Hello Dick,
“I expect it to quickly get takers from everywhere except, perhaps, Russia and the PRC – and it’s not entirely beyond the realm of possibility that one or both of those nations might sign on as well.”
They just *might*, in time….but if they do, I expect them to do it very quietly, low-key.
Yesterday, 60 Minutes saddled up Jim Bridenstine’s criticism of SpaceX’s decision to employ on orbit propellant refueling as an essential part of its architecture and rode it out of the barn. To his credit, Jared Isaacman responded with a substantive post on X, defending SpaceX: “To throw away game-changing capabilities like reusable heavy-lift launch vehicles and on-orbit propellant transfer would be to surrender the high ground to our adversaries, alongside the economic opportunity, scientific discovery, and national security advantages it brings.”
https://x.com/i/status/2018177327050457109
Richard M,
Wow. I didn’t know Dan Rasky had thrown in with Charlie Camarda. That is major. Rasky was the guy who worked, on a sort of detached-duty basis, with SpaceX back in the Dragon development days to refine the NASA PICA TPS material into the more manufacturable PICA-X 1, 2 and 3 formulations used on the Dragons.
Anent Russia, the PRC and Stargaze, you are likely right. I would expect both nations to sign on with all the ballyhoo and fireworks that accompanied Amazon’s new 10-launch F9 contract for Amazon Leo.
Bridenstine continues to blight his escutcheon in service to legacy contractor clients who still seem to entertain notions of being able to shoulder SpaceX aside anent a lunar lander done by them in classic cost-plus fashion. As if.
The only sporting proposition in all of this is attempting to guess the exact date upon which SpaceX will complete the filling of the first depot Starship in LEO. Sometime in 1Q 2027 would be my bet.
Dick Eagleson wrote, “The only sporting proposition in all of this is attempting to guess the exact date upon which SpaceX will complete the filling of the first depot Starship in LEO. Sometime in 1Q 2027 would be my bet.”
Sounds good, but I wouldn’t be surprised it if happened in the 4th quarter 2026.
Hello Dick,
I have my frustrations, too, but I feel I have to let Isaacman stick in the office and complete enough of his coursework before I start pondering a grade for him. It’s clear that Congress saddled him with *a lot* of handcuffing requirements as the price of confirmation, which they appear willing to enforce with active use of the purse strings* (and Jared’s boss seems unwilling to gainsay), but I’d like to see how to what degree and with what intensity he tries to work around those to produce some meaningful reform. The odds are heavily against him. For now I’ll take the greater transparency and see what he does beyond that.
A lot of old hands and useless feeders at NASA were laid off or given early retirement last year, and that both helps and hurts: it likely removed a lot of peeps who would have resisted reform efforts, but it also likely got rid of some older guys with actually useful technical knowledge, and plunged the remaining workforce into a deeply demoralized state, and Isaacman has clearly been spending a lot of his first six weeks on the job dealing with the latter.
__
* To this end, I will note yesterday’s news that the chairmen and ranking members of both the House’s science and space committees backed a new NASA authorization act which imposes some very extensive reporting requirements on Isaacman to clarify in detail the development status of both the HLS lander programs and the Axiom EVA suits program, within 60 and 90 days respectively. What’s more, they stuck in language demanding that NASA retain internal expertise to develop EVA suits! “NASA shall maintain the internal expertise necessary to develop space suits for both extravehicular activity and surface operations.” Oh, and it even specifies exactly where that expertise must be located (JSC), because of course it does. Since the bill has the public support of the leadership of both parties, it’s basically a slam dunk to become law.
https://spacenews.com/house-nasa-bill-seeks-details-on-lunar-lander-and-spacesuit-development/
Non-paywalled: https://archive.is/6IXKs#selection-1777.0-1777.134