July 2, 2025 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, as well as reader Gary for the last link. 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.
- Another Chinese pseudo-company unveils its proposed Falcon 9 copycat rocket
It calls itself New Space, or Xiamen in Chinese. As far as I can tell, it makes great computer graphics, but nothing else.
- Vast touts the beginning of thermal vacuum testing of what it calls its Haven Demo
It is unclear if this Haven Demo is actually the Haven-1 module being built at this time for launch next year.
- ArianeGroup touts completion of static fire tests of its Prometheus rocket engine
The engine will first fly on a suborbital test flight of Europe’s Themis demonstrator, but later will be the main engine used on Maiaspace’s Maia smallsat rocket.
- New geometry discovery could stop lunar landers from falling over
This is the stupid-story-of-the-day. A lot of news outlets have picked it up, but it only takes a nano-second of thought to realize this is hardly a solution to keep lunar landers from tipping over. It is far too complicated a solution to what is really a very simple problem: extend the legs out more and keep the center of gravity low.
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, as well as reader Gary for the last link. 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.
- Another Chinese pseudo-company unveils its proposed Falcon 9 copycat rocket
It calls itself New Space, or Xiamen in Chinese. As far as I can tell, it makes great computer graphics, but nothing else.
- Vast touts the beginning of thermal vacuum testing of what it calls its Haven Demo
It is unclear if this Haven Demo is actually the Haven-1 module being built at this time for launch next year.
- ArianeGroup touts completion of static fire tests of its Prometheus rocket engine
The engine will first fly on a suborbital test flight of Europe’s Themis demonstrator, but later will be the main engine used on Maiaspace’s Maia smallsat rocket.
- New geometry discovery could stop lunar landers from falling over
This is the stupid-story-of-the-day. A lot of news outlets have picked it up, but it only takes a nano-second of thought to realize this is hardly a solution to keep lunar landers from tipping over. It is far too complicated a solution to what is really a very simple problem: extend the legs out more and keep the center of gravity low.
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
I don’t know, just a few challenges to that new lunar lander design, needs to have like 90% of it’s mass on the bottom (8%?) of it’s surface, essentially very strong lightweight rigid structural shell & no internal mass. Then it can’t fail! . . . . .unless it lands somewhere not perfectly flat.(per the article)
What I don’t get is the constant reinvention of simple solutions in a more complex form. The Apollo program already did the math for lunar landers. Keep the base wide with 4 legs. I believe the ratio was 4:3 – 4 feet out for every 3 feet up. Maybe if more landers would adopt this configuration then there would be a lot more success. See Firefly as an example.
It is the same thing we saw with the Titan submersible–Rush put down engineers with experience in the unforgiving environment of benthic depths.
Everybody thinks they are Elon now.
Kids want to do things their way. I see it everywhere.
Ha! Bob was kind and didn’t “credit” me with submitting the “rover tipping” story. Alas, I’m the guy who “fell” for it. ;)
Gary: I did credit you. Look at the first line of the post, where I thank Jay for his suggestions. I added you. I however didn’t put that credit with the link, for your benefit. :)
“weebles wobble but don’t fall down”
Or make Lunar landers spherical with the mass at one end, can even make it inflate after launch so it’ll fit into fairing unlike that tetrahedron :-)
New interstellar comet;
“The object is currently estimated to be roughly 10-20 kilometers wide, Moissl said, which would make it the largest interstellar interloper ever detected. But the object could be smaller if it is made out of ice, which reflects more light.”
“Veres said the object will continue to brighten as it nears the sun, bending slightly under the pull of gravity, and is expected to reach its closest point—perihelion—on 29 October.“
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-astronomers-track-solar.html
Robert wrote: “It is far too complicated a solution to what is really a very simple problem: extend the legs out more and keep the center of gravity low.”
Joe wrote: “What I don’t get is the constant reinvention of simple solutions in a more complex form. The Apollo program already did the math for lunar landers. Keep the base wide with 4 legs. I believe the ratio was 4:3 – 4 feet out for every 3 feet up.”
The Apollo lunar landers also landed almost vertically, not with a lot of horizontal speed, killing almost all their horizontal speed dozens of meters in altitude. They turned off their engines just below two meters in altitude. In order to safely launch the Ascent Module, Apollo also landed in fairly flat places that were less than 12° from horizontal.
Human eyes seemed to be the superior method of choosing safe landing spots, as Apollo landed safely every time landings were attempted. Some other, unmanned, NASA and Soviet soft landers had failures while landing, back in the 1960s.
We humans may be suffering from a case of overconfidence, or maybe hubris. We successfully landed on the Moon before, and we have superior technology now than we had then, so why are todays robots having such trouble landing successfully? In the 1960s, Grumman (now Northrup Grumman) tested the [*cough*] out of its landers. Have the modern companies done that? One modern company programmed its lander to ignore altitude measurements if the terrain changed height too quickly, then landed in a huge crater whose walls changed too quickly. Other companies’ landers touched down while traveling too fast horizontally. One lander set down within a small crater, and some landers’ legs have broken upon landing.
One other factor for the success of Apollo’s landings was enough propellant for the astronauts to find safe landing sites, but are the modern landers too weight conscious to make cautious final approaches?
Finally, what is SpaceX planning to do so that its Starship-based lunar lander lands successfully? The center of mass will be higher than 4:3, and if it is refilled while on the Moon, then the center of mass will rise even higher. How horizontal can they find their landing spots?
Kent Joosten wanted an Eagle like lander
https://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2017/07/sei-swan-song-international-lunar.html?m=1
The problem is that there *wasn’t* a Ted Cruz to back the program.