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 flies 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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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 flies 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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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.