Rocket Lab launches a set of technology test satellites for Space Force
Rocket Lab tonight successfully placed into orbit a set of Space Force technology test satellites dubbed DISKSat, its Electron rocket lifting off from Wallops Island in Virginia.
DISKSat is a new standard satellite design, shaped like a flat disk about a yard across and developed by the Aerospace Corporation. The idea is that these disk-shaped satellites will more efficiently fit payload into the standard cylindrical fairings used by rockets. This mission includes four that will be deployed in low Earth orbit, but during the mission will also test operation in much lower orbits than satellites normally fly. I suspect the flat design reduces the atmospheric drag at those low orbits, thus allowing the satellite to remain in orbit for longer time periods.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
168 SpaceX
84 China
17 Rocket Lab (a new record)
15 Russia
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 168 to 140.
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
Rocket Lab tonight successfully placed into orbit a set of Space Force technology test satellites dubbed DISKSat, its Electron rocket lifting off from Wallops Island in Virginia.
DISKSat is a new standard satellite design, shaped like a flat disk about a yard across and developed by the Aerospace Corporation. The idea is that these disk-shaped satellites will more efficiently fit payload into the standard cylindrical fairings used by rockets. This mission includes four that will be deployed in low Earth orbit, but during the mission will also test operation in much lower orbits than satellites normally fly. I suspect the flat design reduces the atmospheric drag at those low orbits, thus allowing the satellite to remain in orbit for longer time periods.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
168 SpaceX
84 China
17 Rocket Lab (a new record)
15 Russia
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 168 to 140.
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


SpaceX will apparently call the month of Dec. and the year 2025 a wrap after three more F9 launches which should see our host’s annual tally for it reach 171, four of which were Starships.
Russia and Rocket Lab each have a truly preposterous number of missions with notional 2025 launch dates left on their dance cards, only a few of which are actually likely to be launched. I have to favor Rocket Lab for the bronze this year, topping Russia.
There are also a bewildering variety of PRC launches notionally scheduled for sometime in the remaining two weeks of 2025. The odds of any particular one of them going off is hard to figure as is the likely total for the year, but I don’t think this is the year for the PRC to post a triple-digit number.
That new Aerospace Corp. satellite form factor should really be called Pizza-sat rather than DISKSat – the buses are round, flat and can have any of a huge variety of payload toppings.