September 16, 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.
- Axiom touts the testing of the thrusters it wants to use on its first station module
This is their eighth iteration of the thrusters.
- Space Pioneer also touts successful static fire test of the Tianlong-3 first stage
This company had a first stage launch itself during a static fire test in 2024. Jay says they doubled the number of hold-down clamps for this test.
- Satellite startup Astranis signs Impulse Space to use its Helios tug for a 2027 launch
SpaceX will put both into orbit on a Falcon 9, and then Helios will put the six satellites into their final orbits.
- Amazon touts its Kuiper manufacturing process in Washington state and in Florida
It claims it is now producing five satellites a day.
- An attempt to compare the re-entry and landing burn timings between China’s Long March 10 rocket and SpaceX’s Falcon-9
Speculative. They used the timings during the Long March 10 static fires.
- On this day in 2017 Cassini orbiter ended its mission, burning up in Saturn’s atmosphere
The video at the link has some nice imagery from the mission, along with sci-fi-style graphics, dramatic music, and overheated narration.
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.
- Axiom touts the testing of the thrusters it wants to use on its first station module
This is their eighth iteration of the thrusters.
- Space Pioneer also touts successful static fire test of the Tianlong-3 first stage
This company had a first stage launch itself during a static fire test in 2024. Jay says they doubled the number of hold-down clamps for this test.
- Satellite startup Astranis signs Impulse Space to use its Helios tug for a 2027 launch
SpaceX will put both into orbit on a Falcon 9, and then Helios will put the six satellites into their final orbits.
- Amazon touts its Kuiper manufacturing process in Washington state and in Florida
It claims it is now producing five satellites a day.
- An attempt to compare the re-entry and landing burn timings between China’s Long March 10 rocket and SpaceX’s Falcon-9
Speculative. They used the timings during the Long March 10 static fires.
- On this day in 2017 Cassini orbiter ended its mission, burning up in Saturn’s atmosphere
The video at the link has some nice imagery from the mission, along with sci-fi-style graphics, dramatic music, and overheated narration.
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
If Amazon is producing 5 sats a da, that means they are filling up a New Glenn every week. How much of a backlog do they think they are going to clear with their launch history? I sure hope the batteries on those sats have trickle charge on them.
Joe, as you know they need to get half their birds (about 1,600) up by next July. It’s not going to happen, but I bet Amazon will pay to get an extension. I can see them reaching the half way goal in two more years if they contract more flights with SpaceX.
So far they have about 100 up with the four flights: two by Atlas-V and two by Falcon-9. Two more launches by those rockets this year, along with Ariane-6 is supposed to put up 30, Vulcan 40, and New Glenn’s capacity is 50.
I don’t think the next New Glenn flight is hauling up any Kuiper sats.
Helion has finished shielding is now testing Polaris, the prototype for a D-He3 50MWe fusion generator, and will hopefully generate around 5MJ of electric power per pulse by the end of the year
the generator will have no superconductors, no breeding blanket, no steam turbine and could conceivably fit in a Starship or two
with some tweaks this could easily be a 50MW engine
a 50MW D-He3 engine that uses directed alpha particles as exhaust provides only a little thrust, but the ISP is so ridiculous you could conceivably run it all the way to Alpha Centauri and back, building up an enormous average velocity… robotic probes could explore as far as Vega
He3 can be bred from D-D, so even if you only brought along D you could conceivably breed your own He3 in a fuel cycle of D-D>T>He3 and D-D>He3 along the way… only half the T becomes He3 every 12 years, but interstellar trips are going to take decades anyways, so…
in the long run we can start sending out chains of habs to start mining D from other stars, and eventually colonize the whole galaxy
By having LM-10 being a tad bigger than Falcon, it is perhaps closer to Glushko’s idea for the RLA series.
It will allow for lunar missions–is less of a bear for them to copy than Starship–which is still iterating.
Each LM-10 might have room for an extra satellite or three than Falcon…a way to make up for lost time if they launch their own comsats frequently.
Elon never used FH for Starlink–China may consider three core LM-10s.
This way, even if they still launch less often than SpaceX–they will gain ground quickly–not counting the other rockets in their stable.
To steal/modify a quote:
SpaceX and China—there is no third.
SpaceX never used Falcon Heavy for Starlink because it is less reusable than F9. As a practical matter, the center core always has to be expended. Making a lot of FH center cores would compromise the ability to make a lot of 2nd stages. There’s also the matter of the payload fairing, the same as the one on F9, being too volume-limited to allow taking full advantage of FH’s greater LEO lift capability. Then there’s the non-trivial matter of there being only one pad that can launch FH. Switching LC-39A from F9 to FH and back takes a lot longer than the three-day turnarounds that have now become common on the other pads. All of this would seriously bite into SpaceX’s ability to continue increasing its F9 annual launch cadence. Starlinks on FH is just a thoroughgoing non-starter idea.
LM-10 isn’t going to launch any PRC megaconstellations either. It’s entirely expendable and too production-limited. The PRC can only make one LM-10 per year with existing production capacity – less if it also wants to build any LM-5s. If more such capacity is built – by no means a certainty – it will go toward making manned lunar missions more frequent occurrences than the one-every-other-year-at-most cadence PRC production capacity for LM-10 can now support.
Joe & Jay,
I wonder more than a bit about that “5-per-day” production claim by Kuiper. It’s been well over a month since the last Kuipersat launch and that was on an F9. The next scheduled launch is on an Atlas 5 later this month. The next after that is another F9 in Oct. That’s a deployment rate that is more consistent with a 1-per-day production rate.
5-per-day is 150/month. That’s about four Atlas Vs worth and ULA simply can’t fly Atlas Vs that quickly – and there are only a few left in any case. Vulcan, Ariane 6 and New Glenn are still in the months-between-launches phase of their slow ramp-ups to any reasonable launch cadence. If Kuiper could actually turn out 5 sats per day, it should already have announced a vastly-expanded F9 launch buy to at least cover the imminent end of Atlas Vs and the minimum year or so it will take to get any or all of Vulcan, Ariane 6 and New Glenn up to speed. I have not seen any such deal being announced.
I think SpaceX could fairly easily accommodate launch of at least half of that putative 150/month Kuipersat production cadence. That would be about three F9s per month and would likely replace a like number of Starlink launches. SpaceX might even be willing to do more monthly launches than that for Kuiper if the price allowed for some opportunity costs. Alternatively, SpaceX could try increasing its average total F9 launch cadence per month by flying more, but lighter, loads of either or both Starlink and Kuiper sats in order to allow RTLS booster landings and faster turnarounds.
If Kuiper doesn’t make any kind of additional deal with SpaceX for more F9 Kuipersat deployment missions and actually is producing 5 sats a day, having a warehouse or two full of unflown sats is not going to be a good look when Kuiper goes to the FCC for lenience anent its deployment deadlines.