November 10, 2025 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.
- European Atmos space cargo startup signs deal to fly payloads on French rocket startup HyprSpace’s suborbital Baguette-1 rocket next year
Atmos wants to test components of its proposed orbital re-entry capsule
- Sierra Space is seeking $300 million in fresh funding to shift focus from civilian space to defense contracts
The full article is behind a paywall so no details are available, though the company’s shift in this direction does appear real based on other recent stories.
- Delivery of 17 new Globalstar satellites being built by MDA (with Rocket Lab as its subcontractor) delayed until 2026
It appears the cause is a new MDA production facility not yet up to speed. It also appears Globalstar will claim damages from MDA.
- India’s space agency ISRO declares its NISAR radar satellite, built in partnership with NASA, is now operational
The satellite is designed to study the Earth’s forests and ice surfaces.
- Fairing pieces from a Chinese Smart Dragon-3 (Jielong-3) rocket found on Japanese coast
This is the second time pieces from the September 24, 2025 sea platorm launch have ended up on someone else’s territory. Previously a burned tank was found in the Australian outback.
- Roskosmos is apparently switching from 6-month to 8-month missions on ISS, reducing launches from 2 to 1.5 per year
The reduction is not news (though I can’t find the original announcement from several months ago). It is caused by Russia’s bad cash shortage, resulting from the international sanctions imposed after its invasion of the Ukraine.
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. 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.
- European Atmos space cargo startup signs deal to fly payloads on French rocket startup HyprSpace’s suborbital Baguette-1 rocket next year
Atmos wants to test components of its proposed orbital re-entry capsule
- Sierra Space is seeking $300 million in fresh funding to shift focus from civilian space to defense contracts
The full article is behind a paywall so no details are available, though the company’s shift in this direction does appear real based on other recent stories.
- Delivery of 17 new Globalstar satellites being built by MDA (with Rocket Lab as its subcontractor) delayed until 2026
It appears the cause is a new MDA production facility not yet up to speed. It also appears Globalstar will claim damages from MDA.
- India’s space agency ISRO declares its NISAR radar satellite, built in partnership with NASA, is now operational
The satellite is designed to study the Earth’s forests and ice surfaces.
- Fairing pieces from a Chinese Smart Dragon-3 (Jielong-3) rocket found on Japanese coast
This is the second time pieces from the September 24, 2025 sea platorm launch have ended up on someone else’s territory. Previously a burned tank was found in the Australian outback.
- Roskosmos is apparently switching from 6-month to 8-month missions on ISS, reducing launches from 2 to 1.5 per year
The reduction is not news (though I can’t find the original announcement from several months ago). It is caused by Russia’s bad cash shortage, resulting from the international sanctions imposed after its invasion of the Ukraine.
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
We watched some of the live Blue Origin pre-launch self-lovefest. Two moments stand out. Two Blue Origin talking heads were commenting on the camera image of the rocket on the launch pad. They actually said something very close to: “”the rocket is looking cool, the rocket is feeling cool. We are all feeling cool.””
Then, a documentary about the ocean-going recovery platform for the first stage. During the documentary, they said that the platform crew had time to relax and play card games.
I guess that the recovery crew was feeling cool also.
I suppose if I were a SpaceX staff, I would follow-up with “they are feeling cool, we are cool.”
All that said, if Blue Origin remains a Bezos hobby instead of a business venture, someone else will fill the void of
only one company accomplishing rapid reusability and heavy lift.
Thank G-d that President Trump is in office, and SpaceX can continue to reach for the stars as fast as they are able.
I will not live to see it, but when I see all those young SpaceX employees shouting with joy, I know some of them will eventually form their own companies/ventures. More science fiction will become science fact.
PS – I was so happy to hear Vast will start working on gravity in space, spinning their space station(s).
The Roscosmos move to 8 month missions will mean, of course, that the NASA astronaut who rides on the swap seat will have to do an 8 month mission, too.
But I’m assuming that conversation has taken place between Roscosmos and NASA before this announcement.
Ronaldus Magnus,
Heh. Yeah, Blue pretty much leads the league in self-congratulatory happy talk on its launch-day webcasts. Especially Ariane Whatzername. Amazing Bezos’s arse isn’t badly chapped from all the kissing it gets from his employees.
Rotating space stations were part of Vast’s plan from the get-go, but Haven-1 has gotten most of the attention in the interim with the rest pretty much going to Vast’s proposed multi-module ISS replacement Haven-2. I think the initial variable-G “rotating baton” space station will probably be Haven-3.
Richard M,
If history is any guide, I expect NASA to pretty much bend over and take it anent anything the Russians care to do anent ISS over the notional next five years. All part of Russia’s slow recessional to zero as a manned space power. And even that, of course, assumes Russia doesn’t suffer a brittle fracture at the hands of Ukraine first – something I’m increasingly disinclined to bet against.
Nice article on a US rocket plane
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5100/1
Particle accelerator
https://phys.org/news/2025-11-tabletop-particle-medicine-materials-science.html
How to spot deep fakes
https://techxplore.com/news/2025-11-minutes-people-fake-ai.html