March 4, 2026 Quick space links
As BtB’s stringer Jay is on vacation, here are a few links I spotted that don’t deserve full posts. 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.
- Redwire touts its new solar array available for sale to spacecraft and satellites
The company says it produces 50% more power while being smaller and lighter.
- China successfully conducts laser communications between a geosynchronous satellite and ground station
According to China’s state-run press, it did “two-way data transmission at 1 gigabit per second over a distance exceeding 40,000 kilometers.”
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
As BtB’s stringer Jay is on vacation, here are a few links I spotted that don’t deserve full posts. 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.
- Redwire touts its new solar array available for sale to spacecraft and satellites
The company says it produces 50% more power while being smaller and lighter.
- China successfully conducts laser communications between a geosynchronous satellite and ground station
According to China’s state-run press, it did “two-way data transmission at 1 gigabit per second over a distance exceeding 40,000 kilometers.”
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 NASA Authorization Act of 2026 has finished marking up in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation today, and there are interesting changes in it. That 50% launch provider cap is gone now, for starters. But there’s a bigger provision inserted, and it’s a significant empowerment of Jared Isaacman over Artemis’s future:
“The Administrator may repurpose, reprogram, reconfigure, or reassign existing programs, platforms, modules, or hardware originally developed for other programs.”
That seems like a big vote of confidence in Jared.
Full 206 page text of the marked up Act is here:
https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/S._933_Cruz-Cantwell_Substitute__as_modified_.pdf
There is a new type of polymer armor called PST5
A 100 gram steel ball was dropped 100 cm…with the transmitted impact force lessened by 97%
From NANOWERK
Good news this morning: Vast has announced today that it has raised $500 million in new funding.
https://www.vastspace.com/updates/vast-secures-500m-in-funding-to-accelerate-production-of-haven-space-stations
Sierra Space got even more.
The Germans did research on Starship–and compare it to the SpaceLiner concept
https://phys.org/news/2026-03-europe-starship.html
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12567-025-00625-8
Jeff Wright,
Good for the Germans. Too bad their proposed super-heavy lifter will never see the light of day because – Europe. They should emigrate to the US, begin the naturalization process and seek venture funding.
One person who will not be happy with the German findings is Robert Oler who continues to maintain that Starship had essentially no payload capacity in its version 1 & 2 forms and won’t have very much in its version 3 form either. The Germans say that Starship has already demonstrated a capability to lift 59 tonnes to LEO and that the new version should be good for well over 100. We are likely no more than a few months away from the Germans being proven right by events.