July 11, 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.
- Vast touts its thermal vacuum testing of the power distribution unit for its Haven-1 space station
It says this is the unit’s “final qualification milestone”. Whether they are still on schedule for a launch in early 2026 remains unclear.
- Firefly files papers in preparation for its first public stock offering
The number of shares and their price has not yet been determined. Nor is there any date set for the offering.
- Blue Origin shows off the seven BE-4 engines it plans to install on the first stage of the second New Glenn rocket launch
As always, this company moves like frozen molasses. The first launch was seven months ago. Only now they are thinking of assembling the second rocket? Did it take that long to build these BE-4 engines? Or is the company simply twiddling its thumbs while Jeff Bezos gets married?
- Axiom’s spacesuit visor, built for it by the subcontractor Oakley in California
The company’s visor design used technology found in the sunglasses it sells commercially.
- ISRO touts the rocket it is building for its proposed lunar manned missions
Don’t hold your breath. They are targeting the 2040s for the mission. If built the rocket will be bigger than SLS and only slightly shorter than Starship/Superheavy.
- On this day in 1978 Skylab fell to Earth, with some pieces hitting the ground in Australia
The original plan had been to use the space shuttle to dock with it, raise its orbit, and then use both together. Shuttle development however was late and thus there was no way to prevent Skylab’s orbit from decaying, with its de-orbit an uncontrolled one.
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.
- Vast touts its thermal vacuum testing of the power distribution unit for its Haven-1 space station
It says this is the unit’s “final qualification milestone”. Whether they are still on schedule for a launch in early 2026 remains unclear.
- Firefly files papers in preparation for its first public stock offering
The number of shares and their price has not yet been determined. Nor is there any date set for the offering.
- Blue Origin shows off the seven BE-4 engines it plans to install on the first stage of the second New Glenn rocket launch
As always, this company moves like frozen molasses. The first launch was seven months ago. Only now they are thinking of assembling the second rocket? Did it take that long to build these BE-4 engines? Or is the company simply twiddling its thumbs while Jeff Bezos gets married?
- Axiom’s spacesuit visor, built for it by the subcontractor Oakley in California
The company’s visor design used technology found in the sunglasses it sells commercially.
- ISRO touts the rocket it is building for its proposed lunar manned missions
Don’t hold your breath. They are targeting the 2040s for the mission. If built the rocket will be bigger than SLS and only slightly shorter than Starship/Superheavy.
- On this day in 1978 Skylab fell to Earth, with some pieces hitting the ground in Australia
The original plan had been to use the space shuttle to dock with it, raise its orbit, and then use both together. Shuttle development however was late and thus there was no way to prevent Skylab’s orbit from decaying, with its de-orbit an uncontrolled one.
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
”As always, this company moves like frozen molasses. The first launch was seven months ago.”
1st launch of the Falcon 9: 2010-06-04
2nd launch of the Falcon 9: 2010-12-08 (187 days later)
3rd launch of the Falcon 9: 2012-05-22 (531 days after that)
Let’s see how Blue does over the next few launches before we cast aspersions. No?
mkent: My disgust with Blue Origin is cumulative. I pray it is finally about to do something, but I think there is justification for expressing doubt about the company’s management style. Bezos first unveiled New Glenn in 2016, and said then that the company had been working on it since 2012. Thus, it took the company thirteen years to get to the launchpad.
To further your comparison, SpaceX began work on Falcon 9 in 2005, and launched five years later. And it quickly began launching regularly and with increasing frequency over the next three years. By the time SpaceX reached the thirteenth year of development it had completed 67 launches, 21 of which occurred in 2018 alone.
I will cheer when Blue Origin finally ups its game, but every announcement from it suggests it still hasn’t done so.
“On this day in 1978 Skylab fell to Earth, with some pieces hitting the ground in Australia”
“Many Australians were upset over a reported remark by a space official in Washington that Australia was a good place for the space station to come down because ‘there are only kangaroos there.'”
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/13/archives/australians-search-for-souvenirs-of-skylab-visitors-to-cattle.html
New Alloys
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/what-new-materials-are-there.18181/page-25#post-809317
Spacetime vulnerable–to ultrasound?
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Ultrasound_triggers_nuclear_decay_anomaly_hinting_at_flexible_space_time_999.html
“A pair of Italian physicists has observed unexpected changes in radioactive decay triggered by ultrasonic waves-findings that could reshape current views on the rigidity of space-time. In experiments using cobalt-57, brief ultrasound pulses appeared to disrupt standard decay behavior, offering rare experimental support for the Deformed Space-Time (DST) theory.”
“The DST theory holds that at specific energy thresholds, space-time can deviate from its normal geometry, allowing alternative nuclear interactions to emerge. One explanation proposed by the researchers is that ultrasonic stress generates microscopic cavities-called Ridolfi cavities-which serve as miniature nuclear reactors.”
“This work could impact not only nuclear physics but also cosmology and field theory-areas where space-time, matter, and energy may interact in far more dynamic ways than previously thought.”
@Bob…. Quote.. “The company’s visor design used technology found in the sunglasses it sells commercially.”…. This kinda reminds me of the (probably untrue) NASA space pen VS Soviet pencil story.
While it doesn’t always work out well.. ( Faster, Better, Cheaper, or whatever it was called springs to mind), there are many space missions using off the shelf components right now.. sometimes you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
That said…. Multi billion dollar interplanetary missions probably deserve the right to get it really right… If it’s a once in a lifetime mission then it’s worth treble checking everything, but I can never get the image out of my mind from when I saw Spirits first selfie, and realized it’s cables were held together by… Cable ties!
https://www.history.com/articles/the-great-molasses-flood-of-1919
On the evidence, Blue Origin is actually out-paced by frozen molasses.
Typo: Second item reads “flies” rather than “files.” Which is really annoying considering the blog’s focus.
Boobah. Heh. Typo fixed. Thanks!
Boobah & Robert,
Maybe the papers filed were actually flypaper.