January 8, 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.
- Stoke Space honors the memory of John Glenn as it refurbishes the launchpad he used for his first American orbital flight
The company hopes to launch its Nova two-stage reusable rocket there, though no date as yet been announced.
- Rocket Lab touts its proposal to get Perseverance’s sample back
The company claims it can do the job for less than $4 billion, with samples returned as early as 2031. This is faster and cheaper than what was NASA is now considering, as described at the press conference yesterday.
- Scientists propose a gentle collusion between Pluto and Charon caused the double planet system
Very cute sales job with its description as “kiss-and-capture”, but the entire theory is very speculative based on such a tiny amount of knowledge we have both planets that it is absurd to take this too seriously.
- A tweet listing the ten new rockets China hopes to launch for the first time in 2025
Go here for a more detailed report.
- China touts its own Mars sample return mission, Tianwen-3, targeting 2028
The mission has been kept very simple by scaling up what China’s engineers learned in doing its two lunar sample return missions. Or to put it another way, they will almost certainly fly at least two of these missions before NASA even comes close to deciding how it get Perseverance’s samples back.
- ISRO once again delays the autonomous docking of its two Spadex orbiting spacecraft
Apparently during the maneuver to bring the chase satellite within 225 kilometers of the target satellite, engineers detected a “drift … more than expected.” Before attempting the docking they need to know exactly where the two spacecraft are, relatively to each other, and apparently this drift requires more analysis.
