July 7, 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.
Note: If the X tweet videos don’t play, right click on the tweet and open it in a new tab. It should play there.
- Speculation that the six tanks that washed up on Australian shores were likely from a Long March 3B launch in 2025.
According to Jonathan McDowell the upper stage re-entered nearby on July 1. Jay confirms the location, near the northern coast of Australia.
- Vandenberg Space Force Base to hold an industry day July 29, 2026
It wants to outline its major infrastructure plans that will make it “a high-capacity spaceport,” and wants major launch industry players to attend.
- South Korean rocket startup Innospace signs suborbital deal with Brazil’s Alcântara spaceport
It is creating a suborbital rocket, dubbed SEBIT, in addition to its orbital HANBIT-Nano orbital rocket.
- On July 7 1988 the Soviet Union launched its Phobos 1 probe to Mars
It failed August 28 on its way to Mars when “a mistyped command deactivated crucial systems onboard the spacecraft.”
- On July 7, 1998 the Russian Navy completed its first commercial launch, placing two Berlin University cubesats in orbit
What made this launch even more unique, it took place using a missile launched from a submerged submarine in the Barents Sea north of Norway.
- On July 7, 2003, a Delta-2 rocket launched the Opportunity rover to Mars
It had a 90 day mission. It ended up operating for fourteen years.
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
The Berlin cubesats got very lucky.
The Planetary Society under Friedman–who I have nothing but contempt for–wasted money on not one but two Volna type submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).
Some such missiles submerge the nozzle of a second stage into a propellant tank of the first stage…using pyros to cut the rocket in half for staging.
Friedman–like many others–wanted to hobble MSFC, while his own projects literally went nowhere.
I didn’t hear much in the Canadian news about Hansen’s mission. There was more about Marc Garneau when he was selected to fly on the space shuttle and when Chris Hadfield commanded the ISS.
The impression I get, from a perch which is, admittedly, quite far away in So. California, is that Canada seems notably more peckish these days than it did when the Shuttle was still flying – and not without reason. Perhaps you can confirm or deny. Assuming I’m right, that might explain the relative lack of interest. Or it might be that the Artemis 2 mission was just too Yankee for current normative Canadian tastes even with a Canadian aboard.
One wonders what Hansen’s plans are come September. I don’t get the impression that there’s all that much space-related stuff going on in Canada and there is also no giant Canadian military-industrial complex, ala the one in the US, into which an ex-astronaut could find remunerative, and not-too-demanding, employment.
If he’s looking to fly in space again, I think his only options are all south of the border. The US private space station companies have a few ex-NASA astronauts on their payrolls but I suspect the real working-in-space bonanza is going to be SpaceX’s lunar industrialization project once that gins up in earnest in two or three years.
I’m sure that most of my fellow Canadians had more important things to be concerned about.
I didn’t hear much about the flight from the mainstream media. I would have thought that something like the mission might have received more coverage than I think it got, but, then, I get most of my news from independent sources.
I know that Hadfield’s activities on the ISS were often in the news and Garneau’s selection for his first shuttle mission received considerable coverage. Maybe the fact that Artemis II was largely an American project didn’t sit well with certain people. (There is an epidemic of TDS here, as illustrated by the phrase “elbows up”.)
Most Canadian astronauts have largely faded into obscurity, though some of them have made appearances on the lecture circuit. Garneau eventually headed the Canadian Space Agency and, after that, went into politics, eventually serving as a cabinet minister under Justin Trudeau. Julie Payette was selected for Governor General (i. e., the viceroy), but she didn’t serve out her term.
Most Canadians probably don’t even know that the CSA exists (located in St.-Hubert, Quebec), but, then, it’s not as if we hear much about what it does.
Sadly, I have to agree about that “more important things to be concerned about” bit. The ongoing destruction of one’s nation by its second consecutive vandal administration would certainly rivet a lot more of my attention, in comparable circumstances, than one of my fellow countrymen playing fourth-chair on a space flight. Given the destruction wreaked here by the now-mercifully-ended Biden regime I can only sympathize with a neighboring nation still enduring its appreciably longer national nightmare. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
I didn’t know the CSA HQ was in Quebec. I get the impression – and, again, please correct me if I’m wrong – that not much of what goes on in Quebec registers very much in English-speaking Canada. So perhaps that is also contributory to the comparatively low profile of Hansen’s lunar fly-by.
Even now, I don’t think even most American conservatives really appreciate just how badly things are going in Canada of late, and just how much the country has changed over the last several years. It’s like a whole country run by DSA operatives, and they get away with it because Canadian boomers still get the economic benefits of Trudeauism, and rarely have to encounter the costs of it.
I suspect the lack of attention on space is likely in part because Canadian space activities function so much as an adjunct to American space power, and America is in bad odor in the Great White North now. But I think the more fundamental reason is that Trudeaupia suffers from the anti-growth mindset that permeates the western left now, and space is viewed as a manifestation of dangerous growth. Canadian legacy media don’t really know what to do with it, if it doesn’t give an opportunity to peel the hide off Elon Musk.
Obviously, not *all* Canadians feel this way. But the ones who feel otherwise do not seem to be able to shape the Canadian national discourse very much.
That’s an accurate assessment of what’s going on in Canada right now.
I think one reason space isn’t taken very seriously in this country goes back to the cancellation of the Avro Arrow in 1959. Many of the scientists and engineers who worked on the project found jobs south of the border and made major contributions to the American space program (e. g., Jim Chamberlin, Owen Maynard, and Bryan Erb).
There aren’t many high-profile Canadian companies in that business, either. There is MDA Space (which traces part of its lineage to the now-defunct SPAR Aerospace), but that’s about it.
There a number of reasons why I think the CSA was located in St. Hubert.
Politics, I’m sure had a lot to do with it, but St. Hubert (which is a short distance from Montreal) was the site of a military base (originally RCAF, I think). Also, the old Canadair (which is now part of Bombardier) was located in the area. Among the aircraft it produced was F-86s for the RCAF.
In addition. CAE Inc. is also in the Montreal area, located in St.-Laurent. It builds flight simulators.
Actually, we do hear a lot of news about Quebec here in western Canada. For one thing, the CBC has a French-language network, though it has its own programming. Also, many federal cabinet ministers come from that province.
” . . . it took place using a missile launched from a submerged submarine . . . ”
If there is a more metal way to put a commercial satellite in orbit, I do not know it.
Reminds me of Space:1999
The nuclear pulse Orion has entered the chat
Speaking of nukes
https://phys.org/news/2026-07-space-sensor-hidden-nuclear-weapons.html