May 19, 2025 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who apologies for their lateness. 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.
As I noted to him when he sent these links, I had read all these stories and considered them bottom of the barrel and not worth a full post. They do rate however as quick links.
- Startup Venus Aerospace does successful suborbital test of its “Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine”
Video here. This is still not much more than at the large model rocket stage, but the potential is great.
- Jared Isaacman posts two tweets (here and here) noting how budgets are limited and we must face the reality of NASA budget cuts.
He specifically slams SLS and the issuance of two lunar lander contracts, to SpaceX and Blue Origin. Says we can’t afford it, while robbing NASA of money it could use for “dozens of scientific programs.” He must be confident he has enough confirmation votes in the Senate or he wouldn’t say these things now.
- Headline: “SpaceX launches 1,000th Starlink satellite of the year during Friday morning mission”
This was the May 16, 2025 launch. Jay calls this an “insane headline,” adding “I remember back when there were only about 1000 active satellites total, as in for the whole world.”
- Russia & China ink agreement for Russia to supply a nuclear power source for Chinese lunar base
Anatoly Zak I think correctly notes, “I think that ‘collaboration’ was actually a simple purchase of the Russian hardware with no Russian access to the resources of the project.” Russia has a very limited ability to send much of anything to China’s lunar base. It will deliver some hardware and let the Chinese deliver it to the Moon.
- On this day in 2009 the last shuttle servicing mission to Hubble ended, with the robot arm releasing the telescope after major repairs
At the time Hubble’s engineers estimated the repairs would give the telescope a minimum of another five years of operation (see the afterword in the paperback edition of The Universe in a Mirror for more details). It is now sixteen years later. The telescope is still functioning but it is also definitely on thin ice, with only two working gyroscopes.
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
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who apologies for their lateness. 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.
As I noted to him when he sent these links, I had read all these stories and considered them bottom of the barrel and not worth a full post. They do rate however as quick links.
- Startup Venus Aerospace does successful suborbital test of its “Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine”
Video here. This is still not much more than at the large model rocket stage, but the potential is great.
- Jared Isaacman posts two tweets (here and here) noting how budgets are limited and we must face the reality of NASA budget cuts.
He specifically slams SLS and the issuance of two lunar lander contracts, to SpaceX and Blue Origin. Says we can’t afford it, while robbing NASA of money it could use for “dozens of scientific programs.”He must be confident he has enough confirmation votes in the Senate or he wouldn’t say these things now.
- Headline: “SpaceX launches 1,000th Starlink satellite of the year during Friday morning mission”
This was the May 16, 2025 launch. Jay calls this an “insane headline,” adding “I remember back when there were only about 1000 active satellites total, as in for the whole world.”
- Russia & China ink agreement for Russia to supply a nuclear power source for Chinese lunar base
Anatoly Zak I think correctly notes, “I think that ‘collaboration’ was actually a simple purchase of the Russian hardware with no Russian access to the resources of the project.” Russia has a very limited ability to send much of anything to China’s lunar base. It will deliver some hardware and let the Chinese deliver it to the Moon.
- On this day in 2009 the last shuttle servicing mission to Hubble ended, with the robot arm releasing the telescope after major repairs
At the time Hubble’s engineers estimated the repairs would give the telescope a minimum of another five years of operation (see the afterword in the paperback edition of The Universe in a Mirror for more details). It is now sixteen years later. The telescope is still functioning but it is also definitely on thin ice, with only two working gyroscopes.
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
Now that the the confirmation hearings are done the pipsqueak is safe to pipe up.
How brave
(Slow clap)
Which was….during the Obama Administration. You know, 2012.
Think about that.
There are now (as of May 2025) over 12,000 active satellites in Earth orbit. Over 7,000 of these are SpaceX Starlink satellites.
Think about *that*.
I found a video of the RDE rocket with a closeup of the engine https://youtu.be/GslZnuDjQqI?feature=shared
Five years ago, Scott Manley showed how a rotating detonation rocket engine works, and he explains the efficiency advantage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG_Eh0J_4_s (11 minutes)
A 3D printed engine failed recently.
Now, let’s say you got a rather simply shaped engine from the 3D print shop.
Might you fill voids with something like TPS materials?
Put the engines in orbit and heat them–then chip out the tile material that kept it from melting into a ball in microgravity.
Would that get rid of powdery grain fails?