Category: Behind The Black

Norway signs the Artemis Accords

9:37 am

Norway today became the 55th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, the second nation to do so since Donald Trump assumed the presidency.

The full list of nations now part of this American space alliance: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

Unlike previous announcements, the only official public announcement (so far) was from the State Department. NASA has not yet issued its own statement. Also, and maybe far more important, unlike the previous announcement in April when Bangladesh signed, the text of the announcement made no mention of the Outer Space Treaty, as had been routinely stated during the Biden administration.

When Trump in his first term had created the Artemis Accords, the goal had been to create an American alliance of nations that supported private property and capitalism, which could also become strong enough to either get around the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on these concepts, or work to revise that treaty entirely to allow nations to establish such laws on other worlds. During Biden’s term that goal was abandoned. NASA announcements of new signatories would always state bluntly the exact opposite, that the accords were designed to support the Outer Space Treaty, using this language:

The Artemis Accords are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty and other agreements including the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.

Today’s State Department announcement makes no mention of the Outer Space Treaty at all, instead placing the focus on the accords’ principles of private enterprise.

With an alliance now of 55 nations (which is also likely to grow), the present Trump administration is well positioned to force some action on changing or eliminating the Outer Space Treaty’s limitations on private property and the ownership of territory on other worlds. Obviously this is not the most important item on Trump’s plate, but it does need to be addressed if Americans (and everyone else) are to have the freedom to establish colonies on other planets, protected by the same laws that protect Americans on Earth.

Hopefully the subtle language change seen today in this State Department press announcement is a signal that the Trump administration intends to do so.

UPDATE: It appears that NASA still wants this alliance to uphold the Outer Space Treaty. Late today it released its own press release announcing Norway’s signing, and included the boilerplate that I quote above that it began using during the Biden administration.

I wonder when (or if) Marco Rubio or any of the higher ups in the Trump administration (including Trump) will ever take an interest in this issue. So far it does not appear they have.

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Axiom’s next commercial manned flight to ISS delayed at least one week

9:06 am

NASA and Axiom have delayed the launch of the company’s fourth commercial manned flight to ISS by at least a week, from May 29 to June 8, at the earliest.

The NASA press announcement was decidedly vague about the reason:

After reviewing the International Space Station flight schedule, NASA and its partners are shifting launch opportunities for several upcoming missions. The schedule adjustments provide more time to finalize mission plans, spacecraft readiness, and logistics.

This report speculates that SpaceX might have had additional issues getting its brand new manned Dragon capsule ready on time, without out any clear evidence. The capsule has taken longer to build than originally predicted, but giving SpaceX one extra week seems insufficient if the capsule had some outstanding technical issues.

More likely it is exactly as NASA states, the delay is to accommodate the complex coming and going of vehicles to ISS.

The mission will launch one Axiom command pilot and three passengers, government astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary.

This new manned Dragon, as yet unnamed, will bring SpaceX’s fleet of manned capsules to five, assuming it does not retire one of the older capsules. The company will thus have the largest manned spacecraft fleet ever, exceeding NASA’s four shuttle fleet that existed in the 1990s.

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Kabardinka Ensemble – Dance of the Black Sea Circassians

6:01 pm

An evening pause: From the webpage:

A collection of various Circassian dance figures and influenced by the Western Adyghe tribes Ubykh, Natukhay and Shapsug who once used to populate the Black Sea coasts of the Northwest Caucasus for thousands of years with their Abkhazian cousins before they were completely exiled from the region by Russian Empire in 1864.

The solo dances are especially hypnotic. There are also many elements that resemble Irish dance.

Hat tip Judd Clark.

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May 14, 2025 Quick space links

3:10 pm

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.

  • On this day in 1973 the last Saturn 5 rocket launched, carrying the first American space station, Skylab, into orbit
    Three crews in 1973 occupied the station, for 28, 59, and 84 days respectively. The first mission however had to do major improvised repairs to make the next two missions possible, because during launch a heat shield on the hull ripped off, destroying one solar panel and preventing a second from deploying. Astronauts on that first mission, led by Apollo astronaut Pete Conrad, had to install a new umbrella shield to control the station’s internal temperature, and during a spacewalk released the remaining solar panel. More details in Leaving Earth.
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Engineers reactivate thrusters on Voyager-1 that have been out of commission since 2004

11:58 am

The Voyager missions
The routes the Voyager spacecraft have
taken since launch. Not to scale.

Because of an anticipated pause in communications due to upgrade work on the antennas of NASA’s Deep Space Network — used to communicate with interplanetary missions — the engineers operating the two Voyager spacecraft that are now in interstellar space after almost a half century of travel have improvised a repair that reactivated thrusters on Voyager-1 that were deemed inoperable in 2004.

Since then the spacecraft had been dependent solely on its backup thrusters. The engineers wanted the spacecraft to have two sets of thrusters again in case something went wrong during that pause in communications, running from May 2025 to February 2026.

The repair required getting two heaters switched back on, and carried with it the risk of an explosion that would destroy Voyager-1. The command to reactivate the heaters was sent on March 20, 2025, and two days later (after the command traveled at the speed of light for 23 hours to reach Voyager-1 and then 23 hours to return) the spacecraft signaled that all was well and that the heaters and thrusters were now working again.

Both Voyagers are expected to run out of power sometime in the next two years. The goal now is try to make both last at least until 2027, so that they will mark a full half century of operation since their launch in 1977.

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SpaceX committing millions to develop the town of Starbase at Boca Chica

10:55 am

Even though the newly minted town of Starbase at Boca Chica is essentially a “company town,” with almost all its residents employees of SpaceX, the company is not treating the town in a traditional company town manner, which in the past meant the company used its monopoly control to the detriment of its employees.

Instead, it appears SpaceX is committing millions to develop the town of Starbase at Boca Chica into a very classy place to live.

The newly minted Starbase, Texas will soon have a $22 million community center, according to online records from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. The community center is being designed by a Pennsylvania design firm called AE7, and will be located at 41028 Quicksilver Ave. immediately north of a bend in the Rio Grande. It will include a 20,000-square-foot building and pool, with construction aiming to start in June and be completed by June 2026, according to the TDLR records.

…Earlier this year, Starbase officials registered several other community projects with state regulators, including a $20 million school “housing children from infancy to grade 12,” whose construction was set to get underway in April. Other projects include a 2,555-square-foot medical clinic, a $2 million multifamily construction featuring a 111,745-square-foot “new parking garage and multifamily” development at 52163 Memes St.

SpaceX is also building a $100 million office building for its operations. It has also filed plans to create a $13.5 million recreation center and sushi restaurant. Another plan to build a $15 million retail plaza was proposed earlier, but has remained stalled.

Under the leadership of Elon Musk (“the new Hitler” according to the brainless Democratic Party and its media propagandists), the employees of SpaceX at Starbase will be living in an up-to-date modern and very upper middle class environment, comparable to the best suburban communities found anywhere in the United States.

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Astronomers observe cloud changes above the northern polar lakes of Titan

10:15 am

Changes seen in Titan's atmosphere
Click for full resolution image.

Using data from both ground- and space-based telescopes, astronomers have now observed clouds rising in the thick atmosphere of the Saturn moon Titan.

The team observed Titan in November 2022 and July 2023 using both Keck Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope. Those observations not only showed clouds in the mid and high northern latitudes on Titan — the hemisphere where it is currently summer — but also showed those clouds apparently rising to higher altitudes over time. While previous studies have observed cloud convection at southern latitudes, this is the first time evidence for such convection has been seen in the north. This is significant because most of Titan’s lakes and seas are located in its northern hemisphere and evaporation from lakes is a major potential methane source. Their total area is similar to that of the Great Lakes in North America.

The image to the right shows these methane clouds, indicated by the arrows, as seen by Webb on July 11, 2023 and then three days later by Keck. The clouds appear to have shifted downward during these observations.

The data suggests we are seeing one small aspect of Titan’s atmospheric methane cycle, where the liquid methane in the lakes evaporates to form clouds, which later than condense to rain back down. Though superficially similar to the water cycle here on Earth, the details suggest it will be very different on Titan.

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China and SpaceX complete launches

9:58 am

Two launches so far today. First, China successfully launched the first 12 satellites for proposed orbiting computer constellation dubbed the “Three-Body Computing Constellation,” its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

As is usual for China’s state-run press, it revealed little useful information about this constellation.

Each satellite in this initial batch is equipped with a domestically developed 8-billion-parameter AI model capable of processing satellite data across levels L0 to L4 (with L0 referring to raw data directly collected by the satellite), CGTN learned from the lab. The constellation also supports full inter-satellite connectivity. In addition to AI-powered data processing, the satellites will carry out experimental missions, including cross-orbit laser communication and astronomical science observations.

The press also provided no information about where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

Next, SpaceX placed another 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its fourth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

58 SpaceX
26 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 58 to 43.

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AST SpaceMobile: It will be launching satellites almost monthly in the second half of ’25

9:42 am

Though it did not state the all the specific rockets the company will use, the satellite-to-cellphone company AST SpaceMobile revealed this week that it plans to launch its BlueBird satellites every month or two beginning in July 2025.

India’s GSLV rocket is slated to carry AST SpaceMobile’s first Block 2 BlueBird satellite, which the operator said is scheduled to ship from its Texas facility in June. At three times the size of each of the five Block 1 BlueBirds launched last year on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the satellite would surpass its predecessors to become the largest commercial antenna ever deployed in low Earth orbit.

Abel Avellan, AST SpaceMobile founder and CEO, said that from the second or third launch this year, Block 2 BlueBirds would feature in-house developed chips to support peak data rates of up to 120 megabits per second at 10 times the capacity of Block 1. Subsequent launches would also deploy between three and eight Block 2 satellites at a time, depending on the rocket, Avellan told investors during the company’s earnings call.

Avellan did not give an update on other launch missions that would leverage SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rockets, whose larger fairings can accommodate up to eight Block 2 satellites per flight.

Whether AST SpaceMobile will be able to fulfill this schedule however is a big question. SpaceX could provide the rockets for all these launches, but the availability of its Falcon 9 rocket might be limited due to other customer contracts as well as its own needs to launch Starlink satellites. Blue Origin’s New Glenn could certainly use the business, but that rocket has only launched once, and the company has been very slow about doing its second launch, now scheduled for later this month. It is very unclear whether it could do more than one of these launches this year.

India’s GSLV rocket could grab the business, but once again it is unclear it has the capacity to do more than two such launches before the end of the year.

All in all, it appears the demand for rocket launches exceeds the supply, a situation that is very good for the launch industry.

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Varda’s third capsule returns to Earth, completing hypersonic test for Air Force

9:24 am

Varda's third capsule, on the ground in Australia
Varda’s third capsule, on the ground in Australia.
Click for original image.

The third recoverable capsule for the startup Varda has landed successfully in Australia, completing its commercial orbital mission for the Air Force, which tested a positional sensor intended for use during hypersonic missile flights.

The California-based space manufacturing startup said the capsule, carrying an inertial measurement unit (IMU) developed for the U.S. Air Force by Innovative Scientific Solutions Incorporated (ISSI), touched down at the Koonibba Test Range operated by Southern Launch.

According to company officials, the capsule reentered Earth’s atmosphere at speeds exceeding Mach 25 – more than 25 times the speed of sound. “This extreme environment offers researchers valuable data to enhance hypersonic navigation, expand orbital economy applications, and support U.S. national security objectives in low Earth orbit,” said Dave McFarland, Varda’s vice president of hypersonic and reentry test.

The capsule had been launched on March 14, 2025 on a SpaceX Falcon 9. Of the capsule’s now three flights, two have tested equipment sensors during descent. Only the first did in-space manufacturing, as had been what Varda anticipated would be its primary customer base.

This was also the second return in a row landing in Australia. Initially the company had planned to return the capsules in the U.S., as it did with its first capsule, but the bureaucratic red tape from both the FAA and the military to do that landing was so bad (delaying the capsule’s return by six months) Varda made alternative arrangements in Australia.

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Starlink gets approvals to operate in Saudi Arabia, Scotland, and Bangledesh

12:08 am

In the past two days SpaceX’s Starlink constellation for providing internet service globally has obtained approvals from three different countries, widening its use significantly worldwide.

First, Scotland has approved Starlink to begin a six-month trial whereby the constellation will provide internet access on trains operating “between Inverness and Thurso, Wick, Kyle of Lochalsh and Aberdeen.” If successful, the program will be expanded to provide service along other rural train lines in Scotland.

Next the Bangledesh government approved a 90-day waiver allowing Starlink to “supply bandwidth from outside the country.” Normally the regulations in that country require such services to be routed through “local gateways”, which likely refers to local communications companies. This waiver will allow SpaceX to offer Starlink in its normal manner, direct to the customer and outside any already established communications network.

Whether the waiver will be extended further is at present unknown, but I suspect it will be because of public pressure.

Finally, Elon Musk announced that Saudi Arabia has now approved Starlink for “aviation and maritime use” within the country.

All in all, SpaceX continues to vacuum up the world’s internet market simply because none of its competitors have made the effort to compete aggressively. They continue to cede territory to Starlink, without a fight.

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The global distribution of dust devils on Mars

4:13 pm

Global map of dust devils on Mars
Click for original image.

Scientists reviewing the dust devil tracks in orbital images produced by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have now created a global map that also provides insight into the ground conditions that cause the dust devils to form. From the abstract:

In the first global study of these tracks using high-resolution satellite images from 2014 to 2018, we find tracks in 4% of the images, mostly near 60° north and south latitudes. These tracks are more common during local summers, especially in the southern hemisphere, coinciding with the peak of Mars’ dust storm season, when active dust devils are also more common. Surprisingly, dust devil track (DDT) formation does not depend on elevation, indicating it is not related to the ambient atmospheric pressure. Instead, they occur in darker areas where surface dust covers coarser material, which is revealed as the dust devil moves past.

The white dots on the map above, figure 5 of the paper, shows those MRO images where dust devil tracks were seen. The redish-orange regions are where the data suggests more dust devils should occur, while the blue areas of regions of few dust devils.

The map also notes the locations where Spirit, Opportunity, and InSight landed. Opportunity clearly landed in a region that had more dust devil activity, which explains why its solar panels were cleaned off so regularly by wind. Spirit did not land in such a region, but somehow it was lucky in getting wind events that cleared its panels of dust. InSight had no such luck, and having landed in a region with little dust devil activity, its panels steadily became covered with dust, eventually forcing the end of the mission.

As the paper notes, “To maximize mission lifetimes, future solar powered assets should favor regions where we have identified numerous [dust devil tracks] and where many active [dust devils] are present.” This proposal makes sense, for many reasons. For one, it shifts missions to higher latitudes where many glacial and near-surface ice features are found. Up until now the science community has sent all the landers and rovers to the Martian dry tropics, which has no such near surface ice. For future colonies it is imperative we begin studying Mars’ wetter regions.

This study provides another practical reason for doing so.

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Scientists: Martian gullies formed by CO2 frost, not water flows

3:49 pm

Frost on Martian hillside
Dry ice frost on Martian cliffs. From a 2020 post.
Click for full image.

A new analysis of the gullies found on cliffs on Mars, usually on the interior rims of craters, has concluded that carbon dioxide frost is the cause of the erosion, not ancient flows of water.

This conclusion eliminates the need for liquid flowing water in the Martian past, at least in conjunction with gullies. From the paper’s conclusion:

These results show that CO2 frost is capable of producing Martian gully morphologies. Since flows powered by this process are known to be ongoing and capable of transporting the necessary volume of material, it is the simplest explanation for their formation. Variations in the frequency and fluidity of flows could have occurred over time due to variations in the CO2 cycle. CO2-driven gully formation would indicate that there was not necessarily regular, recurring meltwater during high-obliquity periods. This removes a constraint on recent climate, and also addresses a paradox: if obliquity regularly exceeds the current value as generally thought, and if gullies formed via snow melting at high obliquity, the Late Amazonian Epoch should have included regular snowmelt and widespread aqueous processes. Gully formation by CO2 frost processes is consistent with a cold-desert Late Amazonian with rare or small amounts of liquid water and little aqueous weathering, consistent with the observed mineralogy.

…Gullies, one of the most-discussed lines of evidence for liquid water on Mars, may in fact have no direct connection to H2O. CO2 frost-fluidized gully formation also has broader implications for geomorphology, widening an emerging field of new landform types and processes without Earth analogs. Similar processes could occur on other worlds with erodible substrates on steep slopes and volatile ices at their frost point, although we currently lack the high-resolution images needed to test this hypothesis. Such ices include N2 on Pluto and Triton, and SO2 on Io. [emphasis mine]

In other words, though the gullies appear at first glance to our Earth eyes to have been caused by water flowing downhill, in fact the data now suggests the annual CO2 frost cycle of Mars is the prime cause, even in the distant past. No surface water was required. And since no one has yet come up with a good model for liquid surface water even existing in the Martian past (the atmosphere being too cold and thin), this conclusion helps eliminate this conflict.

The paper also notes the lack of water likely eliminates the need for any planetary protection efforts at these gullies, as the lack of water makes the likelihood of any microbiology nil.

As these conclusions are based on lab work and analysis of images, there remains great uncertainty. Nonetheless, the results help reinforce the arguments that the geological features we see on Mars were formed not by flowing liquid water but by other processes, such as glaciers of ice.

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May 13, 2025 Quick space links

2:34 pm

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.

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Gilmour finally gets launch license from Australian bureaucrats

11:37 am

Australian commercial spaceports
Australia’s commercial spaceports. Click for original map.

After several years of delays, the Australian rocket startup Gilmour Space today announced that it has finally been issued a launch license from the Australian Space Agency.

According to the company, “pending weather & final system checks, we’re on target for our launch window to open NET May 15.”

The launch will take place at Gilmour’s own Bowen spaceport on the east coast of Australia. The Eris rocket has three stages and is designed to launch smallsats similar to Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket.

It is amazing this company hasn’t gone bankrupt waiting for this launch license. It applied in 2022, hoping to launch that year. Three years later it finally gets the okay. The amount of cash it had to burn unnecessarily in those years would generally destroy most startups.

Whether the red tape in Australia will clear up in the future is decidedly unknown, especially with the election victory this month of the leftist party.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.

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China launches communications test satellite

9:53 am

China early this morning successfully launched another communications test satellite. its Long March 3C rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China.

China’s state-run press as always released little information. All we really know is that this launch has been part of a series of recent launches putting similar communications test satellites into orbit. We also don’t know where the rocket’s lower stages, which use very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

57 SpaceX
25 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 57 to 42.

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Pentagon raises the list of companies that can bid on space infrastructure projects to almost two dozen

9:48 am

Capitalism in space: In its effort to rely on the private sector for its space needs, the Pentagon yesterday added fourteen space companies to its list of eight companies that can bid on space infrastructure projects.

The latest round of companies added to the project includes Capella Space, EdgeCortix, Eutelsat America Corp. OneWeb Technologies, Fairwinds Technologies and AST Space Mobile, Illumina Computing Group, Lockheed Martin Space, MapLarge, SES Space & Defense, Skycorp, SkyFi, Ursa Space, and Viasat.

They join eight other firms that were brought on board in 2022: Aalyria Technologies, Amazon Web Services, Amazon Kuiper, Anduril, Astranis, ATLAS Space Operations, Enveil, Google, Palantir, Planet Labs, Microsoft, and SpiderOak.

Essentially, the Pentagon wants these companies to compete for contracts to build various space-based communications assets, coming up with the designs and spacecraft themselves. In this round the specific goal is to develop satellite systems that can transmit data and communications to military units anywhere on the globe.

It is puzzling however that SpaceX is not included in this list, even though all its competitors are. I suspect this is because SpaceX’s Starshield version of Starlink is covered under different military programs and contracts. Or it could be that politics forced the military to exclude it in this case. Or there could be some other reason that defies logic. Understanding the byzantine workings of the government’s bureaucracy is often impossible.

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Lockheed Martin invests in new solid-fueled rocket startup

9:36 am

In its most recent fund-raising round, the solid-fueled rocket startup X-Bow (pronounced “crossbow”) raised $35 million in private investment capital, with Lockheed Martin being the largest investor.

Lockheed Martin’s involvement marks a deepening interest in securing alternative sources for solid rocket motors, components that are increasingly vital to a wide range of U.S. missile systems, including hypersonic weapons. The investment comes three years after Lockheed’s attempt to acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne was blocked by the Federal Trade Commission on antitrust grounds. Aerojet was later bought by L3Harris Technologies, leaving Lockheed without a vertically integrated propulsion supplier.

Nor is this the first time that Lockheed Martin has invested in a rocket startup. It had previously invested in ABL and Orbex, both liquid-fueled but struggling or failing, as well as the much more successful Rocket Lab. It has also invested in the orbital tug startup Orbit Fab, the orbital capsule company Inversion Space, and the satellite startup Terran Orbital, which it ended up buying entirely.

All in all, Lockheed Martin appears determined to join the new wave of space startups, if not by doing it itself but by buying into the successes of new startups. So far this has not entirely paid off, but it does appear to be, in the long term, a viable strategy to keep Lockheed Martin competitive and in the game.

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NASA engineers end second super pressure balloon flight early

9:23 am

Flight path of second super pressure balloon test
Flight path of second super pressure balloon test

Due to an issue with its power system, NASA engineers today decided to end its second super pressure balloon flight this year after only nine days, when the balloon crossed over South America and thus allowing them to recover it safely.

Although the balloon performed well and the mission successfully met its minimum requirements toward qualification of the balloon system, an issue with the power system aboard the balloon gondola prompted the team to terminate the mission early as a precaution. The team had been monitoring a power failure in one of the redundant charging systems since May 8.  “Despite the loss of one of the redundant charging systems, the remaining power system was performing very well and still able to sustain the batteries and electrical equipment over the course of the mission,” said Hamilton. “However, to be cautious, the team opted to end the flight early to get the equipment back, so we can do a full failure analysis.” 

After identifying a safe area and coordinating with Argentinian officials, the flight was safely terminated. Recovery of the balloon and payload is in progress. 

The first flight flew for seventeen days, circling the globe at the high southern latitudes. In that case issues with the balloon caused the flight to be terminated while it was over the ocean, preventing recovery. As the goal with both flights was to fly for 100 days, neither came close to that target.

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NASA releases thermal image of Mars taken by Europa Clipper

9:11 am

Mars as seen by Europa Clipper in thermal
Click for original image.

NASA yesterday released a thermal image of Mars taken by during Europa Clipper’s March 1, 2025 fly-by of the red planet on its way to Jupiter. From the caption:

This picture of Mars is a composite of several images captured by Europa Clipper’s thermal imager on March 1. Bright regions are relatively warm, with temperatures of about 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius). Darker areas are colder. The darkest region at the top is the northern polar cap and is about minus 190 F (minus 125 C).

The press release doesn’t identify the bullseye feature on the left. I think the bright area inside the bullseye might be the shield volcano Syrtis Major, with the dark area to the right Isidis Basin, which means this is also a snapshot of Perseverance, sitting on the basin’s western perimeter. The dark feature on the right edge of the image might be the giant volcano Elysium Mons. These however are total guesses and likely wrong.

The mission team used this fly-by to test the spacecraft’s science instruments, and have so far found all to be working as expected.

Europa Clipper will do one more fly-by of Earth in December 2026, allowing it to reach Jupiter in April 2030.

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SpaceX launches twice last night, with one launch using first stage for record 28th time

8:41 am

SpaceX last night successfully placed more than fifty Starlink satellites into orbit, launching Falcon 9 rockets from opposite coasts with one using first stage for record 28th time.

First the company placed 26 Starlink satellites into orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the first stage completing its sixth flight by landing softly on a drone ship in the Pacific.

Four hours later the company placed 28 Starlink satellites into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the first stage completing its 28th flight by landing safely on a drone ship in the Atlantic. Not only did this set a new record for reflights by a Falcon 9 first stage, it matched the number of flights of the space shuttle Columbia (the last of which ended in its destruction). Columbia took 22 years to complete those flights. This booster took less than four years to do the same. And it is still viable and has the chance (along with several other Falcon 9 first stages) of eventually beating the flight records of the shuttles Discover (39 flights) and Atlantis (33).

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

57 SpaceX
24 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 57 to 41.

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May 12, 2025 Quick space links

3:35 pm

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.

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Poland completes suborbital test launch

8:36 am

A consortium of Polish private and public institutions announced on May 9, 2025 that it had successfully completed a suborbital rocket launch on April 15, 2025, testing the first stage of a planned three-stage suborbital rocket.

According to a separate release from ZPS Gamrat [one of the consortium partners], the rocket exceeded an altitude of 10 kilometres before being destroyed by its onboard flight termination system, as planned. The goal of the test was to validate the rocket’s navigation and control systems, engine performance under flight conditions, flight termination system, telemetry systems, and aerodynamic characteristics. According to the WITU release, teams are currently analysing the data collected during the flight.

The next flight will add the second stage, and is targeting a launch this summer. If successful, the third launch using all three stages will take place before the end of the year.

This solid-fueled rocket is essentially a re-invention of the Scout suborbital rockets that NASA (and its predecessor the N.A.C.A) tested and flew many times out of Wallops Island in the 1950s and 1960s. Those test flights tested many basic components used in orbital rockets today, while also doing short suborbital science research each flight. It appears Poland aims to do the same thing now.

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China launches classified satellites for military remote sensing

10:27 pm

China today successfully launched a set of classified satellites (number classified) for doing military remote sensing, its Long March 6 rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in north China.

As usual, China’s state-run press released little information about the satellites, the launch, or where the rocket’s core stage and four strap-on boosters crashed inside China. The report did state the Long March 6 was “modified,” but did not detail how. One wonders if China has done something to improve the rocket’s upper stage, which reaches orbit and has had a tendency to break up shortly thereafter, creating large clouds of space junk.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

55 SpaceX
24 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 55 to 41.

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Crash prediction for Venera failed lander now reduced to four hours

8:24 am

Venera reentry prediction
Click for original image.

UPDATE: According to several reports today such as this one, the spacecraft ended up burning up over the Indian Ocean west of Indonesia at 2:24 am (Eastern) on May 10, 2025. It remains unclear whether it can be salvaged in any way.
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The Aerospace Corporation’s prediction for the final uncontrolled re-entry of the Soviet Union’s 1972 failed Venus lander Venera has now been reduced to four hours, centered above the Indian Ocean near Indonesia, as shown on the map to the right, at around 1:29 pm Eastern.

This prediction however has great uncertainty, and will change in the next few hours. However, based on the orbits depicted, there is a good chance the lander will come down over either Europe or Asia.

As it was designed to survive the very thick and very hot atmosphere of Venus, there is also a good chance it will survive its uncontrolled re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere. Since Russia inherited all the assets of the Soviet Union, it will be responsible for any damage the lander does, as per the Outer Space Treaty.

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SpaceX completes two launches today

11:36 pm

SpaceX successfully completed two Starlink launches today.

First, it placed 26 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its fourteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

Next, it launched another 28 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The Falcon 9 first stage completed its eleventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

55 SpaceX
23 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 55 to 40.

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