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