June 23, 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.
- Starlab touts its Bishop Airlock on ISS, the station’s first and only commercial airlock
It is used to launch cubesats and small experiments into space.
- Starliner remains in limbo according to Space News
Ars Technica claims NASA has a tentative launch date of August 1, 2026, but no one believes it. As I first reported in May, NASA has given all crewed missions to SpaceX through 2030, leaving Boeing and Starliner nothing. It thus appears Boeing no longer wants to spend any money on it.
- New Horizons sends home an A-OK signal, indicating all is well as it hibernates
The science team gets this signal every Monday.
- China touts both the ’27 launch of the Xuntian space telescope as well as the planned expansion of its Tiangong-3 station
This confirms the delayed launch date this Hubble-class optical telescope, which was originally supposed to launch in ’24. As for the station’s expansion, no dates of any kind were indicated.
- Blue Origin touts the Power Tower on its Blue Moon MK1 unnmanned lunar lander for getting solar power at the Moon’s south pole
Rather than this empty PR, we’d much rather get some solid updates on the company’s recovery from its New Glenn launchpad explosion.
- Vast gets a $32.75M tax credit from California
The company seems proud to stay and even expand in California, which could be a big mistake as long as that state’s government remains decided leftist and hostile to private enterprise.
- On this day in 1960, the U.S. launched the world’s first successful reconnaissance satellite GRAB-1
Designed to track Soviet air defense radars, the program was declassified in 1998.
- In 2000, Pizza Hut paid the Roscosmos $1 million to put their logo on the Proton rocket that launched ISS’s Zvezda module
That was 26 years ago. The module itself had been built a decade earlier. No wonder it is leaking now.
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
Re: Vast California Tax Credits
How do the California Vast employees feel about:
California Assembly Bill (AB) 1967 that is moving through the California Legislature. It would allow children of any age to initiate state dependency proceedings against their own parents. Divorce their parents.
“”Government control over children is only one purpose of AB 1967. The second is financial. Once the county takes custody of the child, it is almost certain that he will be removed from the parent-directed residential facility. Detained children must be placed in an AFDC-FC-eligible nonprofit facility, foster care home, or institution. This requirement creates a direct financial incentive for nonprofits and their affiliated attorneys to facilitate the child’s transfer into county-approved placements.
Each nonprofit can receive up to $17,616 per month in state and federal funding for a short-term residential therapeutic placement.””
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/06/california_want_to_do_what.html