Ethel Merman – Anything Goes
An evening pause: From a 1954 television production.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Category: Behind The Black
February 23, 2026 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.
- Video from Sierra Space of the Tenacity Dream Chaser tow tests
Posted last week, but I think it shows the tow tests done in November 2025. As I noted then, these tow tests should have been done years ago, not after final electromagnetic, telemetry, and vibration tests. There is something wrong here that Sierra Space is not telling us.
- On this day in 1966, the USSR launched an adapted Voskhod spacecraft carrying the dogs Veterok and Ugolyok
The mission lasted 21 days — the first such long term flight — and returned the dogs alive, though in poor health. They had lost weight, but more important was the discovery that weightlessness caused a loss of bone density.
- On this day in 1969, the Soviet Union attempted the first test flight of its giant N-1 rocket
The launch was a failure, as were the three that followed.
Saturn’s moon Enceladus, as seen during Cassini’s last close fly-by
Click for original.
Cool image time! On December 19, 2015 the Saturn orbiter Cassini made its last close fly-by of the moon Enceladus, known best for the many geysers detected on its surface venting water and other carbon-based materials.
The picture to the right, reduced and enhanced to post here, shows that the entire face of this
Saturn’s moon Enceladus, as seen during that fly-by. The moon itself is only about 310 miles across.
Its icy surface is evident, as are the many fractures, some meandering almost like rivers. Interestingly, for some reason there are a lot more craters in the lower hemisphere, while the upper hemisphere is more completely covered with fractures.
The black outline indicates the approximate area captured by the two close-up images below.
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Webb imaged a star before it went supernova
Click for original image.
One of the biggest challenges facing astronomers for more than four centuries has been the detection of a star prior to its going supernova. Until very recently, no such detection had ever happened, and so astronomers could only guess at the kind of stars or binary systems that might result in these gigantic stellar explosions.
In recent years the improvement in telescopes, both in orbit and on the ground, has produced some successes, whereby the progenitor star was imaged in archival imagery and found after the explosion. The sample however has been small, and the data limited to only a few wavelengths.
Now, the Webb Space Telescope has made its first detection of a supernova progenitor, in the infrared. That image is to the right, showing the star prior to the June 2025 supernova explosion.
By carefully aligning Hubble and Webb images taken of NGC 1637, the team was able to identify the progenitor star in images taken by Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) in 2024. They found that the star appeared surprisingly red – an indication that it was surrounded by dust that blocked shorter, bluer wavelengths of light. “It’s the reddest, most dusty red supergiant that we’ve seen explode as a supernova,” said graduate student and co-author Aswin Suresh of Northwestern University.
This excess of dust could help explain a long-standing problem in astronomy that could be described as the case of the missing red supergiants. Astronomers expect the most massive stars that explode as supernovas to also be the brightest and most luminous. So, they should be easy to identify in pre-supernova images. However, that hasn’t been the case.
One potential explanation is that the most massive aging stars are also the dustiest. If they’re surrounded by large quantities of dust, their light could be dimmed to the point of undetectability. The Webb observations of supernova 2025pht support that hypothesis.
You can read the peer-reviewed paper here [pdf].
First visual detection of another star’s heliosphere
Click for full image.
Using both the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have made the first visual detection of another star’s heliosphere, in both X-rays and in the infrared.
The image to the right, cropped to post here.
Astronomers have nicknamed the HD 61005 star system the “Moth” because it is surrounded by large amounts of dust patterned similarly to the shape of a moth’s wings when viewed through infrared telescopes. The wings are formed from material left behind after the formation of the star, similar to the Kuiper Belt in our own solar system. Observations of these wings with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope showed that the interstellar matter surrounding HD 61005 is about a thousand times denser than that around the Sun.
The wings are the points to the left and right. The star’s young heliosphere, which they dub an “astrosphere,” is the purple glow above and below. From the caption:
In this composite image of HD 61005 in the inset, X-rays from Chandra (purple and white) have been combined with infrared data from Hubble (blue and white). Chandra reveals a bright source of X-rays in the center of the image, which is the star itself surrounded by the star’s astrosphere. The wing-like structure sweeping away from the star in the infrared image is dusty material that remained behind after the formation of the star. These wings have been swept backwards as they fly through space.
As this star and its solar system are very young, what we have is a very dusty accretion disk interacting with a very temperamental baby star.
NASA to return SLS to assembly building tomorrow Wednesday
UPDATE: Due to weather, the roll back to the VAB is now delayed until Wednesday, February 25, 2026.
Original post:
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According to its most recent update, NASA is now planning on rolling its SLS rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) no sooner than tomorrow, February 24, 2026, in order to begin its investigation into the helium flow issue in the rocket’s upper stage that has now delayed any launch until April at the earliest.
Returning to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy is required to determine the cause of the issue and fix it.
Teams are reviewing the exact time to begin the approximately 4 mile, multi-hour trek. The quick work to begin preparations for rolling the rocket and spacecraft back to the VAB potentially preserves the April launch window, pending the outcome of data findings, repair efforts, and how the schedule comes to fruition in the coming days and weeks.
The present launch window closes on April 6, 2026. For a launch to occur, NASA engineers need to identify and fix the flow issue. They will also need to test it, which suggests they will have to do some form of fueling test once the rocket is returned to the launchpad.
All of this takes time. First we have one week to get back to the VAB. Then at least a full two weeks in the VAB to identify and fix the upper stage. Then another week to roll the rocket back to the launch pad. And then another week to do another fueling test on the launchpad. That brings us to the beginning of April.
In other words, NASA has no time margin at all. If anything takes just a little longer than planned, it will not make the April launch window.
None of this is a surprise. SLS in its first launch attempt in 2022 missed its spring launch window due to similar issues and ended up launching six months later (after more launch scrubs). I predicted it would happen again now. NASA at this moment has not revealed any later launch windows, so we don’t yet know how long a delay to expect if it misses this window. Based on 2022, I suspect the delay would be until the fall.
Exolaunch integrates five satellites in Isar’s Spectrum rocket
Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe
Exolaunch, which specializes in preparing and integrating satellites onto rockets for satellite companies, has now completed the integration of the five satellite payloads that will fly on the second launch attempt of the German startup Isar Aerospace.
The launch is presently scheduled for March 19, 2026, lifting off from Norway’s Andoya spaceport, and is Isar’s second attempt to complete an orbital launch. The first, in March 2025, failed mere seconds after launch due to a loss of attitude control.
The payloads are as follows:
- CyBEEsat for Technische Universität Berlin (Germany)
- TRISAT-S for University of Maribor (Slovenia)
- STS1 for Technische Universität Wien (Austria)
- Platform 6 6UXL for Endurosat (Bulgaria)
- FramSat1 for Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway).
These are all cubesats and are all likely student projects, willing to risk their launch on an untested rocket because the cost is low.
Of the half dozen or so rocket startups in Europe, Isar appears in the lead. Both PLD and Rocket Factory Augsburg say they will attempt a launch in 2026, but neither has set a date. And both will be trying for their first time, unlike Isar.
It also appears that Andoya is in the lead in the race to be the first European spaceport to complete an orbital launch. The spaceports in the United Kingdom started almost a decade earlier, but have been stymied by government red tape. Norway in turn moved fast to make its regulations simple and fast.
SpaceX launches 28 more Starlink satellites on 2nd launch today; sets new 1st stage reuse record
SpaceX this evening completed its second launch today, placing 28 more Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The first stage (B1067) completed its 33rd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. With this flight, B1067 has tied the space shuttle Atlantis for the second most reused launch vehicle on record.
39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
33 Falcon 9 booster B1067
31 Falcon 9 booster B1071
31 Falcon 9 booster B1063
29 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle
The 2026 launch race:
22 SpaceX
8 China
2 Rocket Lab
2 Russia
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)
As it did in both ’24 and ’25, SpaceX in ’26 so far has more launches than the entire rest of the world combined.
Problem pops up during SLS roll back after wet dress rehearsal countdown
Not so fast! According to an update posted by NASA today, during the process to roll back the SLS rocket from the launchpad following the wet dress rehearsal countdown two days ago, crews suddenly detected “interrupted helium flow” in the upper stage that appears to be of some concern.
NASA is taking steps to potentially roll back the Artemis II rocket and Orion spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after overnight Feb. 21 observing interrupted flow of helium in the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket’s interim cryogenic propulsion stage. Helium flow is required for launch.
Teams are actively reviewing data, and taking steps to enable rollback positions for NASA to address the issue as soon as possible while engineers determine the best path forward. In order to protect for troubleshooting options at both Pad B and the VAB, teams are making preparations to remove the pad access platforms installed yesterday, which have wind-driven constraints and cannot be removed during high winds, which are forecasted for tomorrow. This will almost assuredly impact the March launch window. NASA will continue to provide updates. [emphasis mine]
The helium flow is likely used to fill the tanks as the actual and dangerous fuel is pumped out. They need to drain those tanks in order to roll the rocket from the launchpad. If it has stopped flowing, it means they can’t drain the tanks as planned.
During launch the helium is also likely pumped into the tanks to maintain pressure as the fuel burns. If during launch the helium stopped flowing it would almost certainly result in a failed launch.
This issue not only impacts the tentative March 6th launch date that NASA announced yesterday, if a fix is not found quickly it almost certainly means no launch can occur before this launch window closes on April 6th.
SpaceX launches 25 more Starlink satellites
SpaceX early this morning successfully placed another 25 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.f
The first stage (B1063) completed its 31st flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific, moving it up in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicles:
39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
32 Falcon 9 booster B1067
31 Falcon 9 booster B1071
31 Falcon 9 booster B1063
29 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle
The 2026 launch race:
21 SpaceX
8 China
2 Rocket Lab
2 Russia
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)
As it did in both ’24 and ’25, SpaceX in ’26 so far has more launches than the entire rest of the world combined.
February 20, 2026 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
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Jay Leno’s Garage – Randy Grubb’s Decopods
An evening pause: “There is fun and there is stupid fun.”
Hat tip Cotour.