June 22, 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.
- Vast touts the continuing installation of equipment on its Haven-1 single module station
Launch is still targeting early next year.
- Details about a planned Chinese university smallsat to be launched in 2028 to rendezvous with the asteroid Apophis
One of the most ambitious student projects ever attempted.
- India’s telecommunications company Jio to develop its own homegrown satellite broadband network to compete with Starlink
No specifics about the constellation however were revealed.
- On June 22, 1976 the Soviet Union launched Salyut 5, its second and last purely military station
Two missions occupied it, for 50 and 18 days. The first was cut short ten days due to crew conflicts and emotional issues. They insisted the station’s environmental system was failing, requiring an early return. The second crew however found no such evidence. See chapter four of Leaving Earth.
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
Not surprised
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-pantheon-analysis-supernovae-universe.html
Standard candle my foot
They are beating up Nate at SPF over server farms. I’d say not building them is akin to jumping off a bridge. You need more computational power for medicine…as here:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-quantum-ai-tailor-patients-cancer.html
What is SPF? If I had any idea at all, I’d go over there – wherever that is – and help him out.
I believe he’s referring to the Secret Projects forum.
That university smallsat is cool. There’s a lot to learn about the asteroids still, especially as we plan to make use of them. I hope they succeed.
Aha.
Not surprised you picked up some incoming fire over there. The few times I’ve followed one of Jeff’s links there, the site seems like a playground for Jeff’s fellow fabulists and fantasists who pretend to Secret Knowledge. Talking sense is pretty much an affront to their default worldview.
I like the military aviation threads.
In the past, you’d have to go to Popular Science magazines to see spy report photos of cars and such.
Good model makers—a famous one is David Merriman–he does great R/C model submarines.
It’s not me. I don’t know why Jeff thinks it is. Every time he’s posted a link and I’ve followed it, I’ve never felt compelled to stay.
SpaceX Starfall mission TV report video
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/spacex-starfall-mission-aims-test-135503172.html
SpaceX sheds $600 billion in three days as it taps the bond market for the first time
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/spacex-sheds-600-billion-in-three-days-as-it-taps-the-bond-market-for-the-first-time/ar-AA26kOjK?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=LCTS&cvid=6a3aa0dbf49f4cc998220f2da043baa1&ei=70
Just for funsies, might someone here who understands trajectory analysis brainstorm China’s Apophis mission…using DART data–as to whether a small nuke could drop Apophis (or a hunk of it) on the Continental United States (CONUS)?
Put it on the far side to hide the nuke-flash.
I don’t know what the minimum-distance ground track on Earth’s surface would be when Apophis makes its closest approach in 2029 but, given that the PRC covers a much larger land surface area than CONUS – or even CONUS + Alaska – I would think the PRC would be more likely to be struck by any man-made spallation than the US. Using a nuke to bust an asteroid is not what you would call a high-precision activity after all.
As far as detectability and deniability, I believe the Apophis closest approach distance is supposed to be well inside GEO – which is where all of the US, Russian and Chinese nuclear “event” detectors are. Even if the notional nuking were done well before closest approach, there will be enough astronomical and space situational awareness infrastructure staring hard at Apophis that the un-concealable side effects, like plume spectra, would be pretty unmistakable. If the Katalyst mission to rescue the Swift observatory is successful there will also be the possibility it could be in position to detect the gamma ray flash of the detontation.
A quick 4 second search on BtB finds Apophis in 2029 will come within 20,000 miles of the Earth. See: https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/terran-orbital-wins-contract-to-build-cubesat-to-go-to-apophis-with-esas-ramses-probe/
None of the missions going to Apophis in 2029 have any military component. This is science, with a practical bent because the asteroid is potentially dangerous several centuries hence.
This thread
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/underwater-data-centers.51852/page-2#post-920874
If Earth survived KT, it can survive sport-utes and data centers.
Best in space, though. No protest can reach them.
I can’t respond myself…they ban pro-SLS folks, but Byeman (Jim from NSF, Charley Murphy at Disqus) continues to abuse any and everyone..though he has lightened up a bit ;)
Speaking of NSF, they have removed public access to the historical spaceflight and advanced concept threads–allowing the woo-filled “new physics” to stay public.
That should be reversed. Talk about EM drive….show some money