May 14, 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.
- Stoke Space shows pictures of the flight version of its Nova rocket’s first stage, now undergoing final testing
It sounds as if the launch is about three months away, though once again Stoke has not set a date.
- Rocket Lab is secretly shipping a large payload adapter (used to hold satellites on a rocket) from New Zealand to Wallops
The tweet speculates this may be the adapter to be used on the first launch of the new Neutron rocket.
- Firefly touts its scheduled 4th Blue Ghost lunar mission near the Moon’s south pole
It still has to complete two lunar landing missions before this 4th mission can fly.
- NASA provides preliminary mission details for Artemis-3 next year
The key revelation is that SLS will launch with a dummy upper stage. As this mission will stay in low Earth orbit, there is no need for that stage.
- Video of the launch of Venera 10 on May 14, 1975
The lander operated for 65 minutes on the surface of Venus, taking the second picture ever of that surface. It worked in conjunction with Venera-9, which launched a week earlier and took the first picture ever of Venus’s surface.
- Air & Space museum touts two Hubble instruments in its collection, brought back by astronauts in the last repair mission in 2009
The instruments were the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and COSTAR (which had launched in 1993 and fixed the telescope’s focus problem).
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
In other news today, ULA has conducted the Launch Vehicle On Stand (LVOS) of its next Vulcan rocket, this time using the new VIF-A. Ostensibly to conduct ground testing for the new VIF, using flight hardware suggests Vulcan will return to flight with a mission for Amazon not too long thereafter.
“finally testing”
final testing
Jeff Wright: Fixed. Thanks.
This concerns me…Vought thinking
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/CQ73Pp0pT_g
HST is an artifact that should be retrieved, and displayed at the Smithsonian. As notable orbital science platforms are retired, we should maybe think about retiring them in a way beneficial to The People. Bringing them back and displaying them, demonstrates a lot of capability, just in the doing. Historical connection is only as real as it is tangible. “We did this. And so can you.”
mkent,
I hope you’re right about Vulcan’s return to flight. I was figuring more like late 3Q or early 4Q, but I’d be happy to be wrong.
Jeff Wright,
Vought is a pinch-penny green eyeshade type. The linked video is from some biblical literalist “firmamentarian.” The most extreme of these people think the entire Universe is only a bit larger than Earth with the visible heavens being just a planetarium show projected by Jehovah on a “firmament” that is just a big screen a few hundred miles up.
As an atheist, I, of course, beg to differ. But I’ve always thought this view of a mingy little Universe makes the putative Judeo-Christian God seem like a pretty minor sort of Wizard of Oz-ish deity if that’s the best He can do.
Jeff Wright,
Receipts?
Dick Eaglseon,
As a Christian, I also beg to differ with those firmament loons.
I fully believe that the heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and that He is far from the Wizard of Oz-ish deity that they’re espousing.
Here’s a song that encapsulates my view:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhRBRw_WgcA
Better lunar trajectory?
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mathematical-method-efficient-earth-moon.html
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42064-025-0297-x
I think this will be of interest to some regulars here: Today, the Guardian (UK) published yet another rant against economic development of space. Granted, it is the Guardian, and clickbait rants are their specialty; but they also sometimes provide a valuable window into the current shape of the anti-growth and anti-space mindset which has taken hold in so much of the Western progressive left. (The author, Ben Bramble, has an entire book coming out on this subject, endorsed by a host of the usual suspects including some NASA alums and consultants, predictably titled “Lunacy”.)
“They are the opening moves in a long-term transformation of another world. And yet the decisions behind them – about what the moon is for, how it should be used and what risks are acceptable – have been made with remarkably little public deliberation…
This matters because it shapes how we allocate attention, resources and political will. Every hour of effort directed toward building infrastructure off Earth is an hour not spent addressing the crises that threaten the only habitable world we know we have.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/01/artemis-moon-mars
British physicist Peter Hague, who Elon sometimes amplifies, is irritated, as well he should be:
Many intellectuals continue to believe, after a century of catastrophe, that they have the right and the wisdom to direct human efforts. This is the goal of the “debate” they wish to have prior to allowing other people to act. Fortunately, the people with the capability to act aren’t listening.
https://x.com/peterrhague/status/2055014914121757156
Certainly Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Trump Administration officials are not listening. But some western technocrats in certain other nations are, I fear. And, apparently, some former American technocrats who could well become *future* technocrats once again if Republicans lose power in 2029.
My greatest excitement for launches this year is reserved for Starship. But I have to say, I am very, very excited at the prospect of a Nova launch this year, too. I hope they can do it this summer.
”I hope you’re right about Vulcan’s return to flight. I was figuring more like late 3Q or early 4Q, but I’d be happy to be wrong.”
No, I think you’re right. By “not too long” I mean August or September, probably September. I’m expecting LA-07 on Atlas in late May, LE-03 on Ariane in June, LA-08 on Atlas in early July, possibly Starliner-1 on Atlas in August, LV-01 on Vulcan in September, and New Glenn return to flight with LN-01 about September. Blue might actually return to flight with their Blue Moon lander, but personally I wouldn’t risk it.
Sending up a Vulcan without solids would throw a monkey wrench into my predictions. If that were to happen, I would expect it to be a military payload. STP-5 maybe? I don’t have a good feel for which DoD payloads that would be possible or where they are in the production cycle.
Richard M,
No one, of course, must be permitted to do anything not approved by the commissars of the People’s Utopia – most especially escape from the People’s Utopia.
This sort of ramp-up of politico-religious psychopathology is characteristic of the end-stages of cults approaching implosion. The Left everywhere seem to be indulging a last paroxysm of galloping nutbar-ism before what amounts to their version of The End Times. They’ve already suffered a lot of reverses in the last 18 months. The next 30 do not seem to be shaping up for any diminution of serial bad news.
Richard V Reese,
As a Christian, I guess you can view the loonier of your declared brethren as simply things God has sent to try you.
When asked by an interviewer what his long studies in the Sciences had revealed to him about the nature of God, the late British scientist and polymath J.B.S. Haldane replied that He seemed inordinately fond of beetles.
I think the same could be said of human craziness. Like beetles, it seems to come in endless variety and, also like beetles, only a small fraction of its types are actually dangerous.
Perhaps it is not so much that God has a plan for everything as that He just has a very odd sense of humor.
Forty three species of parrot
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=To5wKh9Ypec&ra=m
From Richard M’s linked TheGuardian commentary:
Ben Bramble must be kidding. Before colonizing what island or continent did anyone have such a democratic conversation? Why would such expansion require democratic conversation? Where would the world be if we had chosen to not expand to new islands and continents, bringing industry and civilization with us? Prosperity came because we had additional resources, including human resources, and those humans have prospered, too.
On the other hand, perhaps the complaint is that in space there are no Stone Age aborigines to civilize and bring into the sixteenth or seventeenth century. We didn’t have such democratic conversations before we moved into the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Nuclear Age, or the Carbon-Carbon Composite Age, so why should we have had such conversations before entering the Space Age?
Don’t the hours spent in off-Earth democratic conversation also take away from the discussions addressing these crises? If the eight billion people of Earth have not solved the world’s problems in the eight thousand hours of the past year, then why should we expect that the eight hundred people currently pondering expanding into space would have made the difference in solving our problems by using only earthly resources? Haven’t we already noted several possible solutions that could come from expanding into space? Hasn’t the company Varda already shown us some practical solutions? Didn’t the International Space Station spend the past quarter century exploring several possible solutions that can come from expanding into space?
If we are capable of extraordinary technical feats that solve some of the world’s problems, why should we not perform them? Should not the people who are capable of these feats be the ones to decide which ones to perform? Why should those-who-can’t hobble those-who-can?
Free markets tend to direct us as to what solutions are worth performing. The masses choose what to do with the technical feats by choosing to buy them from those who are capable of performing them. Those feats that are purchased are encouraged to be performed, and those that too few people choose are discouraged. This is the very choice that Bramble tells us he wants from sustained democratic conversation. This is sustained on its own, because as the technologies change — as new technologies are innovated and developed — the choices by We the People direct which technologies thrive and which are abandoned to the wayside. For example: indoor plumbing replaced the outhouse, which had replaced going out in the woods. The world is a better place due to free market choices, not because we spent decades holding sustained democratic conversation.
If Bramble is serious, he has not thought out his opinion very well. Or maybe Peter Hague is correct, and Bramble is just a control freak; the masses already have bottom-up control over their own lives, but Bramble prefers top-down control over those masses. If the public does not want those extraordinary technical feats performed on the Moon or on Mars, then the free markets will not support them. If the public does want them, then they will support them.
Bramble missed it, but we asked and answered whether we should do it way back in the 1960s when we spent taxpayer money to go to the Moon in the first place. Asked by the public. Answered by the public’s representatives. Ignored by those who insist upon controlling the public. The question became who should do it, not whether it should be done. Government spent the last seven decades hobbling the kind of space utilization that we have been witnessing We the People perform over the past decade. We let government run the space program, and all we got was what government wanted, but now that We the People run our space program, we are getting what We want — what seven decades of sustained democratic conversation determined that we want.
ad astra prosperitas
Edward,
All leftists are control freaks. Control is the basis of their entire ideology. Mr. Bramble is no exception. Whenever a leftist speaks of “democratic control” he’s really talking about control by The Right People – or perhaps I should say The Left People – as we obviously cannot leave such important matters in the hands of people who are not like us – e.g. people who can build and not simply control and destroy.
At least the Soviet Chief Designers were cosmists. They wanted control–to go OUTWARD….and folks like Bramble ignored or put away.
You can’t please everyone.
But Bramble isn’t the only stumbling block.
I hate to say this, but Dwayne Day (Black Star at NSF and elsewhere) is ten times worse.
At the Secret Projects Forum ‘s thread on nuclear spacecraft, he all but calls engineers second class citizens. Like Handmer, he is of the JPL Uber called types.
He goes on about telling us what planetary scientists do or don’t want–as if theirs should be the only voice in the room.
That–right there–is why it took half a century for America to get its Moon Mojo back.
Forget SLS for a moment.
Had it been MSFC that developed F9/FH, Dwayne Day and Handmer would have tried to kill it too…just so they could launch a dozen more bomb-disposal robots atop Delta II.
One of critics of SLS is Nate of course, but he at least doesn’t want to kill Marshall. He’d rather my guys do in-space propulsion. But Day doesn’t like that either.
Elsewhere here, I posted a link where Buffet all but lamented that Orville Wright should have been downed.
This is why I prefer a MSFC centric NASA…to steamroll over such small minded spreaders of negativity that have pushed America forward not one JOT.
Dick Eagleson wrote: “All leftists are control freaks.”
Too true. Some want to do the controlling, but most want to be controlled. Why would someone want to be controlled? Because making decisions is so awfully hard.
Going down the store aisle, looking at all the laundry detergent choices is daunting. Which to choose? The brand that is all temperature? The brand that brightens colors? The inexpensive brand that is not seen on TV ads?
Once deciding on the brand, then there are the more specific choices. The one with the lemony scent or the one with the fresh scent? The powder or the liquid? The large size that eats a little more of this month’s budget or the small size that eats a little more of the annual budget?
_____________
Jeff Wright wrote: “He goes on about telling us what planetary scientists do or don’t want–as if theirs should be the only voice in the room. That–right there–is why it took half a century for America to get its Moon Mojo back.”
The mojo didn’t come back until it started to look like the Chinese had a chance of beating us back to to the Moon. There were presidents that talked about going back to the Moon, Bush Jr. set it as a goal (then Obama said, “been there, done that”) and Trump reset the Moon as a goal. Excitement about going back to the Moon didn’t occur until 2025, when Congress decided that the U.S. should Beat the Chinese™ back there. It was the number one concern during both of Jared Isaacman’s nomination hearings, but Congress barely mentioned it before then and only as a budget item, not a goal to achieve.
The lack of competition — right there — is why it took half a century for America together its Moon mojo back, and it was the Chinese that brought it back for us.
“This is why I prefer a MSFC centric NASA…to steamroll over such small minded spreaders of negativity that have pushed America forward not one JOT.”
Fortunately, we have SpaceX that is pushing America far, far in the lead, and we have Rocket Lab that is hard on their heels. There are some others that are getting into (e.g. Blue Origin, Stoke Space) or back into (ULA) the launch business, and several others getting into the space operations business.
Of course, it was NASA and government’s lack of interest that held us back ever since we landed on the Moon. Government laws that only the Space Shuttle could launch America’s payloads and NASA’s requirement that money not be made aboard the Shuttle or the ISS prevented us from doing much in space, and the lack of products from space kept American’s disinterested in the resource, thinking that it was a waste of money. And they were right, but now that we are beginning to get goods and affordable consumer services from space, Americans are beginning to wake up to the potential that NASA has denied us, all these decades.