Category: Behind The Black

India’s space agency: In ’25 it did 20 maneuvers to avoid collisions in space

10:29 am

India's space agency ISRO, as transparent as mud
India’s space agency ISRO.

India’s space agency ISRO today released its annual Space Situational Report, describing the collision possibilities that now exist due to the large increase in orbiting objects. According to this report, in 2025 ISRO did 20 maneuvers to avoid collisions in space.

More than 150,000 alerts issued by the Combined Space Operations Center (CSpOC) of USSPACECOM for ISRO’s Earth orbiting satellites were analysed using more accurate orbital data from operational flight dynamics. There were 4 collision avoidance maneuvers (CAM) for GEO [geosynchronous orbits], while 14 CAMs, including one for NISAR [A NASA/ISRO radar telescope], which is designated as Risk Mitigation Maneuver in NASA terminology, were performed for LEO [low Earth orbiting] satellites. Wherever feasible, collision avoidance requirements were met by adjusting orbit maintenance maneuvers to avoid exclusive CAMs.

In addition, ISRO had to twice shift the orbit of its Chandayaan-2 lunar orbiter because of an orbital conflict with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

The report has a lot more interesting details, as ISRO is also trying to increase its ability to track everything in orbit, rather than rely on data from the American military or American commercial tracking companies, which has been the policy in the past.

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Saxavord spaceport faces new regulatory and financial issues

9:19 am

Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe
Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe

The long-delayed Saxavord spaceport on the Shetland Islands in Great Britain appears to now face two new problems that could block future launches, one regulatory and the second financial.

First the financial issue: The spaceport, which has lost about $7 million in both ’23 and ’24, appears to be in technical default of a loan of a bit more than $14.3 million. In this case, the lender is willing to ignore the technical issue, assuming the spaceport meets certain conditions presently being negotiated.

The regulatory issue however is more serious, and could block the spaceport’s expected first launch later this year by the rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg.

Despite claiming to be ready for launch, the spaceport has also been subject of a formal complaint to the SIC [Shetland Islands Council] over allegations that the facility has not yet been granted a completion certificate or approval for occupation. The complaint alleges that the fire detection and alarm systems appear not to have been installed and that the premises may be in use without adequate fire precautions. It asks the council to confirm whether the premises has been subject to regulatory oversight and whether it has undertaken an inspection of the site.

The SIC said in response: “Concerns have been raised with the council and these are being looked at by our building standards service. A site inspection is scheduled this week as part of the live building warrant process, including to establish the current position in relation to the building on the site that falls within the council’s building standards remit. Any further action will be considered in light of the findings of that inspection.”

In other words, if the local council finds the fire detection and alarm systems not installed and within its regulatory responsibility, it will deny Saxavord its launch permit.

Meanwhile, the spaceport has been trying for years to get other rocket companies interested in using Saxavord, to no avail. Rocket startups have enough difficulties. They quite rightly don’t need the added delays caused by the UK’s red tape, delays that contributed to the bankruptcy of two different rocket startups. For example, most of the regulatory delays — lasting years — have initially come from a variety of national agencies, with Great Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority leading the way. This new issue is local, an additional bureaucratic layer that must be satisfied.

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Vast unveils a proposed docking port more than 3x larger than standard space station ports

8:01 am

Vast's larger port compared to standard ports now used at ISS
Click for short movie.

The space station startup Vast yesterday unveiled its proposed Large Docking Adapter, designed to provide a docking port more than three times wider than the standard space station ports presently used on ISS.

The image to the right provides an clear comparison. The two smaller ports on the left are presently used on ISS. Vast’s new port is on the right.

Vast, the company developing next-generation space stations, announced today at the 41st Space Symposium the Large Docking Adapter, including its current development, its availability for purchase, and Vast’s plans to open-source its interface.

Future space stations will use larger modules, have greater overall mass, and dock with a new generation of bigger crewed vehicles. New docking standards and universal hardware are required for the future generation of space vehicles and habitats. The Large Docking Adapter is engineered to support higher mass and increased structural demands while enabling varying types of modules and vehicles to dock together. By open-sourcing the interface, slated for May 2026, Vast is intending to encourage industry-wide collaboration and accelerate the development of interoperable space systems.

Animations of the adapter at this Vast website suggest strongly that the company wants to encourage SpaceX to use the adapter on Starship. Since the company is releasing the design as open-source, it also wants everyone to use it as the standard.

Such a port could also be used on a variety of other spacecraft designs presently under development, and if used would enhance their capabilities significantly.

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Voyager wins slot to fly tourist mission to ISS in 2028

4:24 pm

Starlab design as of December 2025
Starlab design as of December 2025

NASA today announced that it has awarded Voyager Technologies a slot to fly a tourist mission to ISS in 2028.

The mission, named VOYG-1, is expected to spend as many as 14 days aboard the space station. A specific launch date will depend on overall spacecraft traffic at the orbital outpost and other planning considerations.

Voyager will submit four proposed crew members to NASA and its international partners for review. Once approved and confirmed, they will train with NASA, international partners, and the launch provider for their flight.

Voyager is the lead company in the consortium that is building the Starlab station, a single very large module to be launched on SpaceX’s Starship.

At this moment three of the five commercial stations that are developing private space stations — Axiom, Vast, and Voyager — now have deals to fly such missions to ISS. The two remaining likely didn’t pass muster with NASA, for different reasons. Max Space is a late comer to this competition, only declaring that it is building its own station this year. Orbital Reef, led by Blue Origin and Sierra Space, is apparently a dead project, with neither company doing anything to sell its project for the past year or so.

In my rankings below of the five American commercial space stations presently in development, the first three are essentially tied at this point.
» Read more

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Sweden’s space agency signs cooperative licensing agreement with the FAA

11:40 am

Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe
Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe

The Swedish Space Agency has signed a cooperative licensing agreement with the FAA to help facilitate orbital launches by American rocket companies from its Esrange spaceport.

While the Esrange Space Centre has been in operation since the 1960s, it has strictly been used for suborbital flights. In 2023, SSC Space, the commercial operator of the facility, inaugurated a new launch complex at Esrange to support orbital missions. While the facility has yet to host a launch, South Korea’s Perigee Aerospace and US launch provider Firefly Aerospace have both committed to using it in the future.

Sweden’s efforts to enable US rocket launches from Esrange took another step forward on 15 April 2026, as the Swedish National Space Agency signed an agreement with the FAA to coordinate the licensing of those missions. The agreement builds on a 2025 Technology Safeguards Agreement between the two countries, which laid the groundwork for US launch providers to export what the US government considers “advanced space technology” to Sweden.

Esrange’s interior location remains a problem, however. Any orbital launch is going to have to fly over other countries, either Finland, Russia, or Norway, and it remains unclear whether those countries will approve. Norway has already expressed opposition.

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A review of India’s government space program suggests it is behind schedule

11:28 am

India's space agency ISRO, as transparent as mud
India’s space agency ISRO.

Link here. The main take-away of the article is that the investigation into the two launch failures of ISRO’s PSLV rocket has stalled everything, including the planned two unmanned orbital test missions of its Gaganyaan capsule, needed before the actual manned mission can fly in early 2027. The first was originally supposed to fly in March, but has been delayed pending completion of the investigation of the PSLV failures.

That investigation however has stalled far more than just Gaganyaan:

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), which had announced an aggressive manifest of 18 launches for 2026, has so far completed only one in the first four months of the year, and that mission [PSLV] ended in failure.

The article also notes a decline in ISRO’S transparency in recent months, a decline that bodes ill for the agency and its programs. I have noted this as well. When ISRO in February 2026 announced the next PSLV launch for this coming June, it released no information from its investigation of the previous two launch failures. If ISRO knows what went wrong, it wasn’t saying. All it has told us so far is that the cause of the two launch failures was for different reasons.

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A very interesting and revealing interview of NASA administrator Jared Issacman

11:02 am

Jared Isaacman
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman

Link here. I found this interview with NASA administrator Jared Issacman to be very informative and worth reading, especially in regards to his comments on the proposed cuts to NASA’s budget.

First, he admits right off the bat that the heat shield was his biggest concern during the Artemis-2 mission. He also took a swipe at past NASA management over this issue. After noting that the initial inspection of the Artemis-2 shield after recovery showed it experienced little serious damage, he added this: “All that aside, if you’re going to wait three and a half years between missions, just replace the heat shield.” In other words, after Artemis-1 NASA management dithered when it saw the damaged heat shield. It should have immediately moved to replace it.

As for the proposed Trump budget cuts and the opposition to those cuts by many in Congress, Issacman said this:

There’s a lot of passionate people out here [referring I think to the space industry and its advocates]. They can do incredible things, from a scientific perspective. I don’t know how many of them have ever pulled together a financial model, and driven execution on some of these things to say what should or shouldn’t be the right budget.

Now, all that said, of course, we will maximize every dollar that Congress affords to the agency. But it is not healthy, for the agency, to get in this mindset that we have to spend our way out of every problem. And I don’t think it’s good for the country to think we have to print our way out of every problem. [emphasis mine]

This is not the first time Isaacman has indicated he thinks NASA can survive these cuts, and in fact can do as well if not better by using what it gets more wisely. It is however the first time he has put NASA’s budget in the context of the entire federal budget, which is badly out of control. Isaacman does not want more money from Congress because he thinks it is bad for the nation to spend itself into debt. He thinks he has enough to do the job.

The entire interview is worth reading. It indicates a very practical and honest mindset. Everyone might not agree with every proposal Isaacman has put forth, but he is clearly approaching things from a very good place.

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DESI telescope completes its nominal mission, mapping more than 47 million galaxies

9:56 am

DESI map
Click for original image.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak in Arizona, in Arizona has now completed its initial five-year nominal mission, mapping more than 47 million galaxies to produce a rough 3D map of the universe.

By comparing how galaxies clustered in the past with their distribution today, researchers can trace dark energy’s influence over 11 billion years of cosmic history. Surprising results using DESI’s first three years of data hinted that dark energy, once thought to be a “cosmological constant,” might be evolving over time. With the full set of five years of data, researchers will have significantly more information to test whether that hint disappears or grows. If confirmed, it would mark a major shift in how we think about our Universe and its potential fate, which hinges on the balance between matter and dark energy.

The image to the right shows the map, with the blank areas to the left and right regions blocked by the Milky Way.

DESI will continue mapping for at least another three years, refining its data. I suspect when scientists begin analyzing this information they will find there are more than one way to interpret it.

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Amazon buys Globalstar satellite constellation

9:32 am

Amazon Leo logo

As part of an effort by Amazon to make its Leo internet constellation more competitive with SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, the company has just completed a deal for about $11 billion to acquire the Globalstar satellite constellation, which includes Globalstar’s partnership with Apple and its Iphones.

The Seattle-based company’s agreement to acquire the satellite operator behind Apple’s iPhone Emergency SOS feature promises to give it a new constellation of operating satellites, a key slice of mobile spectrum, and Apple as a flagship partner.

…Under a separate long-term agreement announced along with the deal, Amazon Leo will power satellite features on future iPhone and Apple Watch models, including Emergency SOS, messaging, Find My location sharing, and roadside assistance. Amazon will also continue supporting the Apple devices that already rely on Globalstar’s existing network.

In other words, Amazon’s Leo internet constellation is now primed to also provide extensive cell phone service, service that at the moment appears superior to the cell service that Starlink can offer.

Or not. Amazon is playing catch-up, with Starlink operational and owning the market with millions of signed-up customers. It needs to offer a superior product to convince people to eithe buy it or switch to it. This deal is part of that effort.

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Three launches today, two by SpaceX and one by China

9:37 pm

The launch beat goes on! First, China launched eight satellites using its Kinetic-1 (Lijian-1) rocket, lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. China’s state-run press provide no further information about the satellites, nor did it provide information about where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China.

Next, SpaceX completed two Starlink launches on opposite coasts. First it placed 29 Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The first stage completed its 26th flight, 42 days after its previous flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The company then did its second launch of the day, placing 25 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage completed its 21st flight, 45 days after its previous flight and landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

46 SpaceX
20 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, 46 to 35.

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Firefly’s delays launch of its Eclipse rocket to 2027

9:31 pm

Eclipse as of April 2026
Click for original image.

It appears that Firefly has delayed the first launch of its new more powerful Eclipse rocket — being built in partnership with Northrop Grumman — to 2027.

The company made no specific announcement, but in a tweet today touting the rocket’s “fresh look”, with no details, the company linked to its Eclipse webpage (in the first link above) that describes the rocket in detail. In the last paragraph adds that the first launch is now scheduled for “no earlier than 2027”, a delay from the 2026 launch date both companies were originally targeting.

This guarantees that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is going to get more launch contracts taking Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus capsule to ISS.

Firefly says Eclipse is being built for re-usability, but the graphics of the rocket, as shown above, are puzzling in that they show grid fins but no landing legs.

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