Lena Horne – Stormy Weather
An evening pause: From the 1943 film of the same name.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Category: Behind The Black
Saturn’s rings, warped by one of Saturn’s moons
Click for original image.
Cool image time! Rather than post another Mars image, I decided today to dig into the archive left from the Cassini orbiter that circled Saturn from July 1, 2004 until September 15, 2017. The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on September 13, 2017, only two days before the orbiter burned up in Saturn’s atmosphere. From the caption:
This image of Saturn’s outer A ring features the small moon Daphnis and the waves it raises in the edges of the Keeler Gap. The image was taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on Sept. 13, 2017. It is among the last images Cassini sent back to Earth. The view was taken in visible light using the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera at a distance of 486,000 miles from Saturn. Image scale is 2.7 miles [per pixel].
The moon is traveling downward in this image. As it moves past the outer ring, its gravity causes that edge to ripple, producing the waves.
The scale will give you an idea of how big the rings of Saturn are. The Keeler Gap is at the outer edge of the A ring of Saturn, which is the outermost ring that is clearly visible using ordinary amateur telescopes. That edge however is more than 90,000 miles from Saturn. And grayish bands to the right of Daphne and the Keeler Gap are only the outer half of the A ring, which is by itself about 9,000 miles wide.
November 12, 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.
- Northern Lights set to dazzle UK and US this week due to possible ‘severe’ geomagnetic storm
From Jay: “I saw it outside while observing the Starlink ‘train’ of satellites, a deep red color. NOAA has it listed as a ‘G4 (severe) storm.'” Sounds terrible, but don’t panic. The biggest threat is to the power grid, and utilities have now spent decades planning for these kinds of storms.
- On this day in 1966, NASA launched the last Gemini mission, Gemini-12
Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin spent close to three days in orbit, with Aldrin performing three spacewalks, proving it was possible to do productive work in a spacesuit.
The leftist protest at Berkeley this week: Feel the hate!
All this guy wanted to do was sell
“Freedom” t-shirts. Click for video.
While a lot of reports have done good work documenting the Antifa and leftist protests that attempted to shut down a Turning Point USA event on the campus of UCLA at Berkeley earlier this week (here, here, and here), I want to highlight one fundamental and truly ugly aspect of these protests that I think we no longer see because it has become so common.
While it is clear these leftist protesters have nothing positive to propose, it is their hate and anger that stands out above all. All they can do is vent hate, pure and simple.
The screen capture to the right is a typical result of this hate. It comes from video whereby this guy had set up a table outside the event, attempting to sell a variation of the “Freedom” t-shirt that Charlie Kirk was wearing when he was assassinated. A crowd of leftist mask-wearing protesters soon surrounded him, shouting obscenities and threatening him. Finally, one protester named Jihad Dphrepaulezz grabbed the t-shirts as well as a chain necklace from the man and ran. The man chased him and they got into a fight, resulting in this man’s bloodied face.
Dphrepaulezz has now been charged with assault and robbery. The t-shirt seller, who remains unidentified, was initially arrested but then released when the police determined he was the victim.
This violence however is typical now of the left at these protests, so typical we are no longer even shocked by it. It stems from blind angry emotions, driven further by an utter ignorance that embarrasses them if challenged in any way. If you were to ask them to give any examples proving that Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA supported bigotry or “fascism”, their response would be incoherent or confused, because they clearly have never listened to even one nanosecond of any Turning Point USA event, with or without Charlie Kirk. I have, and I can say unequivocally that Kirk or his organization were and are the exact opposite of these false slanders. Kirk and his organization have always stood for individual rights, freedom, and open debate. They also stand for an end to bigotry, for not ranking people by their skin color or religion but solely based on their character and actions.
And above all, Kirk and his organization have always stood for bringing the two sides of the political debate together to talk as civilized rational human beings about the issues everyone so passionately cares about.
The left however can no longer debate anyone rationally. Instead, we have these protests, designed to silence debate. And to do so they scream obscenities and insults, chanting “Fascists out of Berkeley!” repeatedly as if that means anything. And if that doesn’t work, they next turn to violence, as happened above to this t-shirt vendor.
This tactic — of screaming and disrupting events to silence them — isn’t news, as this kind of violent protest behavior has been standard leftist tactic to silence speech now for more a decade. At Berkeley in 2017 it prevented then-Breibart editor Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking there. Since then it has been used in numerous campuses nationwide to shut down conservative events.
What is different now is the level of emotional hate exuded by these protesters. They are literally so filled with this venom that they now almost routinely lose control of themselves, resulting in violence and vandalism of the sort seen above, that even a decade ago was rare.
Below are two more clips. All I see is hate. Hate for the right. Hate for debate. Hate pure and simple.
» Read more
First Soyuz-5 rocket arrives at Baikonur
According to Russia’s state-run press, the first Soyuz-5 rocket has arrived at the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan, with a targeted maiden launch scheduled for December.
Soyuz-5 is designed to replace Russia’s soon-to-be retired Proton rocket, as well as the Ukrainian Zenit rocket that is no longer available because Russia invaded the Ukraine. It was first proposed in 2016, with its development proceeding in fits and starts since then. Part of the problems has been Kazakhstan, which demanded (and apparently received) a larger cut from Russia before it would allow Soyuz-5 to launch at the planned launchpad at Baikonur.
A larger factor in the delays has been a shortage of cash in Russia itself, as well the generally slow culture of its aging aerospace industry. However, in the case of Soyuz-5, it appears Russia managed to speed things up, as previous reports in 2024 suggested this first launch would be delayed until 2026.
SpaceX signs Starlink deal with major African telecommunication company
In a major deal that will make Starlink available across a wide swath of Africa, SpaceX has now signed an agreement with the African telecommunication company Vodacom, which operates in 47 African countries.
Vodacom will market for SpaceX its Starlink terminals, aimed specifically in rural areas where traditional land lines are not available.
The African company [Vodacom, majority owned by Britain’s Vodafone, has been seeking to close connectivity gaps across the continent through low-earth orbit satellite technology which can help provide internet even in tough terrains. Vodacom will integrate Starlink’s satellite technology for data relay into its mobile network and will be authorized to resell equipment and services from the SpaceX-owned firm to customers in Africa, the company said in a statement.
The parent company Vodafone has also signed deals with the satellite constellations being launched by AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, so it is aggressively seeking numerous avenues for getting service to customers in those rural areas.
It appears that Vodafone will have to obtain government permission from each country, but except for South Africa the company does not see this as a serious problem. South Africa however is presently run by communist bigots who are demanding SpaceX impose racial hiring quotas on its operations before approving Starlink, and SpaceX quite rightly is telling it to go pound sand.
India tests Gaganyaan parachutes again
Artist rendering of India’s Gaganyaan capsule
India’s space agency ISRO on November 3, 2025 successfully completed another drop test of the parachutes it will use on its Gaganyaan manned orbital capsule, this time testing the chutes in extreme conditions.
Explaining the November 3 test, the Isro statement said the GCM parachute system comprises 10 parachutes of four types. “The descent sequence begins with two apex cover separation parachutes that remove the protective cover of the parachute compartment, followed by two drogue parachutes that stabilize and decelerate the module. Upon release of the drogues, three pilot parachutes are deployed to extract three main parachutes, which further slow down the Crew Module to ensure a safe touchdown,” said Isro. “The system is designed with redundancy—two of the three main parachutes are sufficient to achieve a safe landing.”
Using a pyro device, the main parachutes open partially, a process known as reefing, and then open fully after a predetermined period of time, referred to as disreefing. This step-by-step process is known as reefed inflation. An important aspect of the test was the successful validation of the main parachutes under possible extreme scenarios of delay in the disreefing between the two main parachutes.
The August drop tests were from a helicopter at about 3 kilometers. The November drop tests took place from an airplane at about 2.5 kilometers.
The agency has indicated the first unmanned orbital test flight of Gaganyaan has been delayed from this year to early next, possibly as early as January. It plans to do at least three unmanned flights in 2026 before putting humans on board in early 2027.
Canada’s Nova Scotia spaceport schedules a suborbital launch for November
Proposed Canadian spaceports
The competition heats up: Maritime Launch Services, the startup that has been trying to establish Spaceport Nova Scotia since 2016, has now issued a “notice to airman” (NOTAM) outlining the range restrictions for a suborbital launch window from November 18 to November 24.
The launch is being conducted by the Netherlands rocket startup T-Minus, which signed a deal with Maritime in June 2025 to do two such launches of its Barracuda rocket before the end of this year.
The T-Minus Engineering Barracuda hypersonic test platform “is a single-stage, solid-fuel suborbital vehicle that stands approximately 4 metres tall. It features a booster with a diameter of 200 millimetres and a payload compartment measuring 1000 millimetres. Barracuda can carry payloads of up to 40 kilograms to altitudes reaching 120 kilometres.”
The only launch that has previously taken place at this spaceport was in 2023, when students from York University did a short 8-mile-high suborbital launch of a student-built rocket.
Maritime is now in a tight competition with another spaceport startup, Nordspace, which is pushing hard to initiate launches from its Newfoundland spaceport to the north. It remains unknown whether either can be made profitable.
Goldstone antenna damaged and out of service
The Goldstone antenna in California that is a major component in NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) that it uses to communicate with interplanetary spacecraft was damaged recently and is presently out of service, with no known date for when or even if it will be repaired.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed Nov. 10 that the 70-meter antenna at the Deep Space Network (DSN) site in Goldstone, California, has been offline since Sept. 16, with no timetable for its return to service. “On Sept. 16, NASA’s large 70-meter radio frequency antenna at its Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California, over-rotated, causing stress on the cabling and piping in the center of the structure,” JPL said in a statement to SpaceNews. “Hoses from the antenna’s fire suppression system also were damaged, resulting in flooding that was quickly mitigated.” [emphasis mine]
This statement suggests that as workers were changing the antenna’s orientation, it was moved too far in one direction, beyond the normal limits of that piping and cabling. The immediate question that the JPL statement avoids is this: What caused the antenna to “over-rotate”? Did something fail to stop it from going too far? Or was this an example of simple human error, whereby the person rotating the antenna failed to pay attention and allowed the antenna to exceed its limits?
Either way, the loss of this antenna not only poses a serious limitation in getting data back from the various unmanned probes at Mars, Jupiter, and elsewhere, it is also a problem for the upcoming Artemis-2 mission in the spring of ’26, which will rely on the Deep Space Network to communicate with the astronauts on Orion as it goes to and from the Moon. The network’s other two antennas in Spain and Australia can pick up the slack, but the system will have less redundancy, and more important, other missions will likely have to delay communications in order to give Artemis priority.
PDQ Bach – Beethoven Symphony No. 5
An evening pause: Peter Jacoby is conducting (?) Orchestra X. For those who are unaware, PDQ Bach is the stage name used by Peter Schickele in performing his comedic music. Fans of both classical music and sports will really enjoy this.
Hat tip to Alex Gimarc.
November 11, 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.
- On this day in 1967 the ATS-3 weather satellite captured the first color picture of the entire daylight side of Earth from space
The take-away for all humanity then was the cloud cover, far more than anyone had imagined, and the dominance of the color blue.
- ULA’s CEO touts his growing stock of BE-4 engines
The images show six engines in total, enough for three Vulcan rocket launches. According to an October 24 report, Blue Origin has so far delivered 30 engines.
- Indications in China’s state-run press suggest an empty Shenzhou-22 capsule will be launched on a Long March 2F to bring the Shenzhou-20 crew home
So far nothing official has been announced, nor has that government-controlled media released any details about the damage to the Shenzhou-20 capsule from “space debris.”
The edge of Mars’ north polar ice cap
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 29, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The picture shows what the science team labels as a “fringe of perennial ice.” For this picture, north is down. The white stuff on the top half of the image is that perennial ice, while the dark material at the bottom is likely a mixture of dust and debris that is still impregnated with ice.
Mars is a very icy world. Orbital data now suggests that above 30 degrees latitude there is a lot of near surface ice, though it is often mixed in with the red planet’s ample dust, blown there for eons. This location however shows us a place where that ice is on the surface, and is generally pure.
That does not mean however this will be a good location to establish a colony.
» Read more
On the Space Show tonight
I will be making another long appearance on the Space Show tonight with David Livingston, beginning at 7 pm (Pacific). If you want to listen and even participate, note that the toll free phone number is no longer available. Instead, you need to go through zoom, as follows:
Listening Instruction for today’s BOB ZIMMERMAN discussion Zoom program. We want to hear from you with your ideas, thoughts and information. Please use the Zoom numbers below but you need to email me at drspace@thespaceshow.com for the Meeting ID. Participation in the Zoom room is for large donors to The Space Show as a way of showing our thanks for helping to make The Space Show possible for 25 years. The Space Show is a listener supported program so if you like our programming, please support us.
There is a PayPal button on our home page in the upper right area. Zelle donations us david@onegiantleapfoundation.org. You can also subscribe to us using Substack.
In addition to the above, if you previously called using our toll free number, unlike that number, calling us on a Zoom phone number enables you to listen to the entire program and join the discussion. This is far better than the old toll free number in which you had to get off the line to make room for other callers.
Zoom Phone Numbers and be sure to email me for the Meeting ID:
One tap mobile
+1-253-205-0468,,82551254178# US
+1-253-218782,,82551254178# US (Tacoma)
Kazakhstan expanding its access to multiple internet satellite constellations
It appears the Kazakhstan government is making multiple internet satellite constellations available to its citizens in an effort to increase competition and lower costs.
Kazakhstan first engaged with Starlink in 2023, following government frustration over the slow pace of domestic telecom expansion. The project initially connected 2,000 rural schools, and by mid-2024 nearly 1,800 had access to satellite internet.
Authorities briefly considered banning satellite internet services operated from abroad late last year, citing national security concerns, but withdrew the proposal after a public backlash.
Meanwhile, competition in the country’s nascent satellite internet market is heating up. In September 2024, Kazakhstan signed an agreement with Amazon to bring its Project Kuiper satellite network to the country, setting up a future rival to Starlink. Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov said the move would help improve affordability and service quality. Chinese firm Spacesail Kazakhstan, a subsidiary of Spacesail International, has also registered at the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) with $17mn in capital, positioning itself as another potential player in the mega-constellation internet sector.
When Kazakhstan opened Starlink to all its citizens in June 2025, I noted how this deal indicated the country’s move away from Russia. Its willingness now to add Kuiper and Spacesail deals accelerates that move, in numerous ways. It not only wants its citizens to have capabilities that Russia cannot control, it wants to encourage competition to lower costs for those citizens. What a concept!
Like the Ukraine, Kazakhstan is working hard to exceed Russia in technology, in order to make it much harder for its big and very power-hungry neighbor to dominate or even invade it.
China’s Zhuque-3 reusable rocket now ready for its first launch
According to a report in China’s state-run press today, the Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3] rocket, built by the pseudo-company Landspace, is now cleared for its first launch, though no launch date has yet been announced.
If everything goes according to schedule, the first ZQ 3 will take to the sky in the near future at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China’s Gobi Desert and will attempt to recover its first-stage booster, according to the Beijing-headquartered enterprise.
The rocket is now undergoing technical testing at the Jiuquan spaceport, which has a dedicated launch service tower for the ZQ 3 series.
Though the rocket is methane-fueled, its overall design is a copy of work already done by SpaceX, with a stainless steel first stage with nine engines designed to land vertically after launch and then reused. It is also appears in the lead among about a dozen Chinese pseudo-companies attempting to build reusable rockets.
The Chinese government has recently been pressuring its pseudo-companies to accelerate development. Right now, only three have done any static fire tests, and only one, Landspace, appears ready to launch. There have even been rumors that China might reorganize these fake companies into a government-run operation.
Avio to provide solid-fueled motors to Lockheed Martin and Raytheon
The Italian rocket company Avio has now signed deals with both Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to provide each with solid-fueled rocket motors for U.S. missiles, built at its planned American-based factory, expected to begin operations in 2028.
Under the arrangement with Lockheed Martin, “Lockheed Martin will have preferred access to a portion of the Avio USA plant production capacity to meet future demand for its products,” according to Avio. Tim Cahill, president of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, said the collaboration “positions us to increase production of essential capabilities and deliver them to our customers faster as global demand grows.”
Raytheon will receive similar preferred access to production capacity under a comparable agreement. The deal follows a July 2024 contract between the companies for preliminary engineering work on a tactical rocket motor for Raytheon’s Standard missile program for the U.S. Navy. Bob Butz, vice president of operations, supply chain and quality at Raytheon, said the agreement “will help establish an additional supplier of solid rocket motors within the U.S.”
In both cases, these solid-fueled motors will be used in U.S. missiles.
Since Avio regained control of its rockets and engines from Arianespace — the government-controlled commercial arm of the European Space Agency (ESA) – it has been moving very fast to obtain customers worldwide. Under ESA control, Arianespace was focused on doing business in Europe, so establishing a factory in the U.S. to garner U.S. business was never even considered. Avio is not hindered by such restrictions, and it is therefore looking for profits wherever it can find them. It has committed almost a half billion dollars to build this U.S. factory, and has begun signing up international satellite companies for its Vega-C rocket. It is also begun work on a Grasshopper-type test vehicle, with plans to incorporate this concept into Vega-C, making its first stage reusable.
The above deal also indicates that Avio is grabbing market share from the established American makers of solid fueled rockets, especially Northrop Grumman. Apparently those American companies aren’t providing manufacturing capacity required by the Pentagon.
New company formed to run proposed North Sea offshore launch platform
Launch platforms proposed for North Sea
The German company OHB has now formed a new subsidiary, The European Spaceport Company, to consolidate its various spaceport projects, its proposed North Sea offshore launch platform as well as the launchpads it is building at French Guiana.
According to an 11 November OHB press release, the initial goals of the new European Spaceport Company, which will be based in Bremen, are the “realisation of a European offshore spaceport and the expansion of launch capacities at the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana to include a launch complex that can be used for various rocket types.”
The home port for the offshore spaceport, dubbed the Offshore Spaceport Alliance, will be in Bremen, as shown by the map to the right. The launch facilities the company is building in French Guiana are for the German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg as well as Arianespace’s Ariane-6 rocket.
The North Sea launch platform appears to be an attempt to give the three German rocket startups, Rocket Factory, Isar Aerospace, and Hyimpulse, a German-based launchpad close to Europe, rather than have to rely on the new spaceports in the United Kingdom, Norway, and Sweden that surround the Norwegian Sea to the north.
First launch of Rocket Lab’s Neutron rocket delayed until 2026
Artist’s rendering of Neutron’s first stage fairings opening
to deploy the payload with the second stage engine.
Despite a concerted effort in the past year to achieve the first launch of its new reusable larger Neutron rocket before the end of 2025, Rocket Lab this week revealed that the company is now targeting a 2026 launch instead.
Sir Peter Beck, the CEO of Rocket Lab, announced the shift in plans during the third quarter earnings call with investors on Nov. 10. He said that the company’s goal is to get the rocket out to Launch Complex 3 at the Virginia Spaceport Authority’s (VSA) Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) within the first quarter of 2026 “with first launch thereafter.”
“As always, this is a rocket program that’s been completed at a pace and a cost that nobody has achieved before and the financial and long-term impacts are insignificant to take a little bit more time to get it right,” Beck told investors on the call.
During the call officials also made clear that there would be no attempt to recover the first stage on that first flight, as the landing barge won’t be ready by then. It hopes a landing attempt will occur on the second flight.
Finally, officials revealed that the company has spent a bit more to develop Neutron then the originally planned cost of between $250 to $300 million. Right now it expects to spend about $360 million by the end of 2025.
This delay or the increased cost are relatively inconsequential when looked at in context. Rocket Lab had only started this project in 2021. To create a new rocket in less than five years for only about a quarter of a billion dollars is quite unprecedented.
SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites
Note: My original post mistated the time of launch. Below is a corrected text:
SpaceX tonight at 10:21 pm (Eastern) successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
I specify the launch time because it occurred just outside the FAA’s so-called curfew banning all launches from 6 am to 10 pm local time, due to the government shutdown and a shortage of air traffic controllers to coordinate aviation and rocket launches. Though the Senate today voted to end the shutdown, that shutdown has not yet ended, and won’t until the House passes the Senate budget version and Trump signs it.
Thus, it appears Blue Origin has negotiated an exemption for its now planned launch of New Glenn on November 12, 2025 in the afternoon.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
147 SpaceX (a new record)
70 China
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 147 to 115.
Note that I had made an error in entering my numbers earlier this week in regards to China, and have now corrected the mistake, thus revising the numbers in the last few launch reports.
Dean Martin & Caterina Valente – One Note Samba
An evening pause: Performed live on the Dean Martin Show, 1966.
Hat tip Judd Clark.