September 11, 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.
- France backs Dassault VORTEX reusable spaceplane program
No money amount or timeline was provided. The project started in 2023, and initially hoped to do the first test mission to ISS in 2026. That test flight is now targeting 2029, with later missions slipping beyond 2031 and now targeting missions to one of the new stations replacing ISS.
- China is apparently shaking-up its lunar program, including its Chang’e-8 lunar mission
It appears China’s human spaceflight bureaucracy is now taking its robotic Chang’e missions from the agency that used to run it. This shake-up might also be related to the abrupt cancellation of the Chang’e-7 mission in late August.
- Management of Wallops Island now officially shifted from Goddard to Kennedy
The shift actually occurred in May, but the signs at Wallops only changed recently. The shift also makes sense, as both spaceports are now managed by people who run spaceports.
- On September 10, 1967 Surveyor 5 landed on the lunar surface in the Sea of Tranquility
As noted in a quick link three days ago, its instruments found the lunar soil was made up of 58% oxygen, 18% silicon, 6% aluminum, and 1% iron, with 13% a variety of other elements.
- On September 10, 2007, Cassini snapped the first high-resolution image of Saturn’s moon Iapetus
The cool image at the link was posted here on Behind the Black in March 2026, with further details.
- On September 11, 2024 a record breaking 19 people were simultaneously in orbit around Earth
Three on a Soyuz capsule, four in the Polaris Dawn Dragon mission, nine on ISS, and three on China’s Tiangong-3 station.
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

Dark energy may evolve:
https://phys.org/news/2026-09-big-supernova-dataset-dark-energy.html#goog_rewarded
I suspect dark energy/matter theory will evolve to the point it isn’t needed. At present, it’s a place-holder for “We don’t know.”
Artemis II trajectory such that Orion could return even if both the upper stage and the service module went kaput—around the 9 minute mark:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cfzgVlSXi-Y&pp=ygUKcmFpeiBzcGFjZdIHCQn-CwGHKiGM7w%3D%3D&ra=m
Coating technology
https://phys.org/news/2026-09-silicon-nanosphere-coatings-glossy-nonfading.html