September 5, 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.
- AST SpaceMobile updates the status of its next eleven BlueBird satellites, all in various stages of production
#6 is ready for shipment, and the company hopes to begin launching one every one or two months, beginning next year.
- Startup PERSEI Space plans to test the use of tethers to remove space junk
The concept, using the electromagnetic force produced as the tether moves through the Earth’s magnetic field to lower defunct satellites, is actually an old one. There have been a number of attempts to test it previously, especially by the space shuttle, but every time technical problems prevented the test from succeeding.
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.
- AST SpaceMobile updates the status of its next eleven BlueBird satellites, all in various stages of production
#6 is ready for shipment, and the company hopes to begin launching one every one or two months, beginning next year.
- Startup PERSEI Space plans to test the use of tethers to remove space junk
The concept, using the electromagnetic force produced as the tether moves through the Earth’s magnetic field to lower defunct satellites, is actually an old one. There have been a number of attempts to test it previously, especially by the space shuttle, but every time technical problems prevented the test from succeeding.
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
That shuttle tether was rather formidable–and easily visible…enough to the point it engendered UFO reports with digital blooming making it look like an ID4 saucer passed between it the the camera on shuttle.
The charge broke the tether–adding to space junk.
Absolutely unrelated to this thread, but Russia is turning up the heat in Ukraine. I have been called out as wrong on this forum when I said it would be very unwise to underestimate Russia and it’s abilities to inflict serious damage on Ukraine. My post was pointing out the Russkies have “tactical nuclear weapons”, but I was also shot down ( pun intended) when I spoke about the vast amounts of ordinance, and indeed troops at their disposal.
The Russians attack at the heart of Kiev today proves my point. They have the means, even if some of it is rusty, to escalate this war thru the roof… Russia is a huge country, and as very many nations have discovered over the years, it is very unwise to underestimate their abilities and resilience.
I hope that the US continues to lend a helping hand, and I am proud that the EU has committed to supplying military aid to Ukraine… And let’s be honest… We just have to stand firm until, by whatever means,. Putin departs this mortal coil.
Interesting political development detailed by Eric Berger just now: Congress and Trump may compromise on the SLS rocket by axing the costly Exploration Upper Stage in favor of a modified ULA Centaur V stage.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/09/congress-and-trump-may-compromise-on-the-sls-rocket-by-axing-its-costly-upper-stage/
The Russian war effort is, indeed, not in great shape. The problem is, the Ukrainian war effort is in much worse shape: Above all, they’re simply running out of men. And that’s just not a problem that the Trump Administration, or any government in Europe, can readily solve for them.
It’s helped trash the Russian space program, but that’s not going to be much comfort to most Ukrainians.
Some other news, this time from Axiom:
https://x.com/Axiom_Space/status/1965075193233051968
Interesting that this comes just a few days after NASA announced its partnership proposal, or AFPP, for the second phase of its Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program.
https://spacenews.com/nasa-releases-details-on-revised-next-phase-of-commercial-space-station-development/
No press release from either Axiom or FAA yet, and I expect you’ll want more details before posting anything on it, Bob. It’s a regulatory hurdle cleared. But perhaps worth keeping an eye out for, if there’s more than meets the eye — maybe more evidence that Axiom is still in the best posture to actually get a permanent station into orbit first.
Lee S,
The Russians will certainly be able to continue killing Ukrainian civilians for awhile longer, but how much longer is a real question. The Ukrainians have also “turned up the heat.” The Russians have suffered major losses of men and materiel – and even some of their formerly occupied territory – in several places recently, especially in the vicinity of Pokrovsk.
The Ukrainians have now smashed roughly a quarter of Russia’s oil refining capacity – and counting. There is a serious gasoline shortage in many parts of Russia now, even in Moscow and environs. With the new Ukrainian Flamingo cruise missile just having entered service, the Ukies can now reach out and touch pretty much anything in European Russia. More refineries will be getting smashed and the planes that launch all of those missiles and glide bombs at Ukraine may soon find that fuel shortages are not limited to gasoline.
The Ukrainians are also hammering the pipeline that carries Russian gas to its few remaining customers in Europe, cutting off a significant source of Russian export earnings. In other developments affecting Russian energy export earnings, the Indians – after some arm-twisting by Trump – have ceased buying energy from Russia and have replaced those purchases with product from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The fact that Russia is a physically large country is not an advantage at this point. Its vast landmass has equally vast borders – far more mileage of which is with NATO nations than was true pre-war as the latest invasion of Ukraine finally convinced Finland to join up. Russia has fewer and fewer men and less and less military equipment with which to defend those vast borders.
Russia still has a large population, but most of it is not military-capable and the portion that is has been used quite profligately in this war. Russia is using up people a lot faster than it is making more.
As for ordnance (not “ordinance”), Russia does not have a lot. It has been getting more and more of its artillery shells and rockets from North Korea. Nork ammo is low-quality. The Russians have to rebuild most of what they get before it is usable. But the Ukrainians have been targeting not only ammo dumps but also the plants where the upgrading of Nork shells is done and the plants that produce the explosives.
The Ukrainians, in contrast, are getting more NATO-caliber ammo all the time for its NATO-supplied guns and has recently started getting large quantities of Russian-caliber rounds from Azerbaijan that it can use in its legacy Warsaw Pact artillery.
So Russia has lately been doing what it has done at several previous junctures in this war when serious reverses were suffered – threaten nuclear weapons use, drop broad hints that it might force Belarus to join the war and even fly drones into NATO nations such as Poland and Lithuania.
Richard M,
Not the best possible news anent SLS, but still good news.
You are off the beam on Ukraine though. The Ukrainians are doing better now than at any previous point in the war. They are getting more Western munitions and are also making more and more of their own – especially drones, where they have completely outclassed the Russians.
Nor are they hurting for men. Casualty ratios with the Russians are vastly better now than in the bloody early months of the war. Most of the Russian casualties are inflicted by artillery and drones at ranges from the nearest Ukrainian troops far exceeding rifle-shot. The Ukrainians also have the advantage of being the defense and they’ve gotten very good at defending. The Russians have been entirely unable to get any sort of significant offensive going this year and mud season will soon be upon Ukraine, then winter. Finally, Ukraine has non-trivial numbers of non-Ukrainians in the ranks. There is a sizable contingent of ethnic Russians fighting for Ukraine as well as formations from France and Colombia.
The Axiom thing sounds good. Can’t read the Foust article because of the paywall. I mistakenly thought the paywall was down the other day because I could read the site. Turns out it’s just that my 2-freebies-per-month had reset for September. I used my monthly quota so the site is now blocked until next month.
Hello Dick,
Yeah, that was actually my first Space News freebie for September. :grumble grumble:
If it helps, here is the official draft announcement of the AFPP by NASA:
https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/080ae9f595d9490d982efb0f4842a0fc/view
I will not stretch fair use or Bob’s combox space, but there was one part of the story I found encouraging — Phil McAlister thinks highly of the new policy, and there is hardly any recent and current NASA official whose opinion I respect more than Phil’s:
I haven’t evaluated it myself, but if McAlister is right, all that remains is to get Congress to fund it adequately. That could open up more VC pocketbooks.
Well, I mean, the Russians gained more ground in August (184 sq miles) than they have in any month since 2022. Ukrainian AWOLs are at record levels (Francis Farrell at the Kyiv Independent had a bleak story on this last week); the penetration north of Pokrovsk was not a breakthrough, and it did get nibbled back, but I think reasonable observers think it is yet another worrying sign. It should be entirely up to the Ukrainians how long they want to keep fighting — and how they do it — but their supply of military age manpower is finite, and, alas, a growing swath of it seems to not want to fight. Justice is on their side, but the just don’t always win wars, alas.
P.S. You can read that full McAlister social media essay here, by the way. It’s at LinkedIn, of all places, LOL
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/changes-allowed-phil-mcalister-y8xvf/?trackingId=SQS0MJThkBcVKHm1zDb15w%3D%3D
Space News–the new Photobucket.
I look forward to seeing Centaur V for BEO missions. It saved Vulcan certainly.
Over at the Secret Projects Forum, there are discussions about drones, defense against them, etc.
One of the more chilling things I have seen are faces of soldiers staring into the drones that kill them.
I don’t feel the least bit bad for, say, the North Koreans that have been felled.
Most of Putin’s victims, after all, never saw the instruments of their demise–there are many more such casualties when standard armaments are used against such “soft targets.”
–and yet,
There was a short piece at the end of the physical copy of the movie MOON that showed where this technology might take us.
Drones scare me more than nukes. A nuke is the first of God. Jew, Gentile, Amish, atheist…all feel its touch alike.
The very personal way in which drones kill is dangerous-corrosive to humanity even.
It might not be the most effective use of weapons…then too–this theater is a proving ground for munitions that may one day be used against Americans.
It used to be political wisdom to never criticize the voters…who were anonymous, once.
With debanking, doxxing, GPS and internet surveillance….this anonymity has dissolved.
We are all “viable targets” now—drones merely the last step–the last tool for those who wish “termination with extreme prejudice” upon a dissenting populace.
It has plausible deniability, and could be used not just on criminals, but against citizens who vote for the “wrong” party.
And our taxes are paying for this.
So while some lament SLS, science-funding or even sports stadium construction–I am more concerned about drones.
Medical science have found a way to put brain organoids on a chip.
Remember the “bird bomb” concept–where a pigeon could be trained to “peck” at a target?
Replicate that during a PET scan to see what lights up in the bird’s brain–and replicate that en masse via bio-circuits.
I am reminded of the verse in Revelation where crowds flee before locusts that have stingers and the faces of men.
We are just about there.
From the Ars Technica article that Richard M linked:
The stated goal of Artemis is to create a sustainable lunar base that is continually resupplied with men and materiel. However, Artemis only puts us back on the Moon for the sole purpose to Beat the Chinese™ then to transition to a different and more affordable lunar program, because nothing about Artemis makes sense for the stated goal. Cancelling Artemis after the third mission allows us to transition to work toward the goal sooner than keeping Artemis going through flight V or VI. The current plan, and the Artemis architecture, are little more than expensive flags and footprints missions.
Starship is seen by many as the way to accomplish Artemis’s goal, but it is not the most efficient method for doing so, as it is a heavy machine that requires a lot of tanker missions to provide the propellants to do the job. Even with all these tanker launches, it is less expensive than SLS (a low bar) and can supply the lunar base more often at a lower annual cost. Still, we would do well to develop another, more efficient, and inexpensive method for building, maintaining, and supplying an American lunar base.
One of the many mistakes with the SLS was not insisting that the design be an affordable one. Instead, the design was to use existing Shuttle hardware, except all those existing parts were redesigned and somehow ended up being even more expensive than when used on the Shuttle.
We have a tremendous opportunity, here. We can Beat the Chinese™, a second time, at great expense, as Cruz and other want to do, then we can transition to doing it the right way. The right way is to create flight hardware that is specific to the mission: to build and maintain a sustainable lunar base. Why we want such a base is not yet clear, so we cannot yet be sure just where we want to build it. It could (and should) take a little more exploration in order for us to figure out where we want to build it. It could take additional exploration to figure out exactly what we want to do with such a base. Are we going to mine water from the Moon? Are we going to mine materials in order to build solar power stations in Earth orbit in order to power the Earth? Do we merely want to test out technology for use in a Mars colony? Do we want to explore the Moon and do little else? How about mining helium-3 for fusion power plants? Many of those purposes could be most useful if they are located in different places on the Moon, so where do we want to build the lunar base?
OR:
We could transition to doing it right without the Beat the Chinese Again® goal. We start now, not later, by answering questions like the ones I asked in the previous paragraph, and those answers begin driving our lunar base design. We may even want more than one lunar base, depending upon how many questions are answered “yes.” We may want a base on the far side of the Moon to support radio telescopes in a place that is outside most of the radio noise that we have on and near the Earth. Maybe we want to build the lunar base inside an underground lava vent, for protection from solar and galactic radiation. If we don’t waste money on Artemis, we will have more money to spend to do it right.
We are currently letting government run the mission to the Moon, and all we are getting is what Congress wants: Beat the Chinese Again®. We the People have thought of several reasons to go back to the Moon, and none of them involves that mission. The taxpayers are paying a lot of money, and all we are getting is what government wants, not any of the things that We want.
Musk wants to go to Mars, which is what we all were expecting government to do ever since Apollo (or even earlier, Disneyland had a “Voyage to Mars” theater before Apollo), but the taxpayer is not paying for his goal. In this case, We the People are running that mission, and we are finally starting to get what we had wanted and expected, for all these decades.