October 2, 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.
- Lockheed Martin signs non-profit to study if a commercial mission with Orion, launched on other rockets, would make sense
Very preliminary, but it indicates the company is searching for ways to make money on Orion once SLS is eventually cancelled.
- Ispace to fly two South Korean commercial rovers on its future lunar lander missions
The rovers will be built by a company called UEL. Each are two-wheeled and would fly prior to ’27.
- Intuitive Machines completes acquisition of KinetX
The deal gives Intuitive Machines deep space navigation and communications capabilities.
- Japanese rocket startup Innovative Space Carrier purchases engines from American rocket company Ursa Major
The deal was signed in early July. Jay has doubts about Innovative Space Carrier, which seems to have very big dreams for a startup.
- Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS shows “extreme negative polarization”
Already some of making more into this than justified. It is merely a known aspect of comets, though the number here appears to be an outlier, not surprising as it comes from outside our solar system.
- On this day in 1958, the NACA (the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) officially became NASA
For some reason, while we pronounce “NASA” as a word, “NACA” was always spelled out when named, as in “the EN-A-SEE-A”.
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.
- Lockheed Martin signs non-profit to study if a commercial mission with Orion, launched on other rockets, would make sense
Very preliminary, but it indicates the company is searching for ways to make money on Orion once SLS is eventually cancelled.
- Ispace to fly two South Korean commercial rovers on its future lunar lander missions
The rovers will be built by a company called UEL. Each are two-wheeled and would fly prior to ’27.
- Intuitive Machines completes acquisition of KinetX
The deal gives Intuitive Machines deep space navigation and communications capabilities.
- Japanese rocket startup Innovative Space Carrier purchases engines from American rocket company Ursa Major
The deal was signed in early July. Jay has doubts about Innovative Space Carrier, which seems to have very big dreams for a startup.
- Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS shows “extreme negative polarization”
Already some of making more into this than justified. It is merely a known aspect of comets, though the number here appears to be an outlier, not surprising as it comes from outside our solar system.
- On this day in 1958, the NACA (the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) officially became NASA
For some reason, while we pronounce “NASA” as a word, “NACA” was always spelled out when named, as in “the EN-A-SEE-A”.
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
Near miss!
2025 TF whiffed by within 185 miles or so of us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqV4sYjAz-s
New fibers
https://phys.org/news/2025-10-random-nanofiber-networks-optimized-strength.html
Recently, researchers at The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute devised a method to repeatedly print random polymer nanofiber networks with desired characteristics and use computer simulations to tune the random network characteristics for improved strength and toughness.
“This is a big leap in understanding how nanofiber networks behave,” said Ioannis Chasiotis, a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. “Now, for the first time, we can reproduce randomness with desirable underlying structural parameters in the lab, and with the companion computer model, we can optimize the network structure to find the network parameters, such as nanofiber density, that produce simultaneously higher network strength, stiffness and toughness.”