Category: Points of Information

Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.

March 10, 2026 Quick space links

3:06 pm

As BtB’s stringer Jay is on vacation, here are a few links I spotted that don’t deserve full posts. 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.

  • The Paso Robles city council approves plan to make its airport a spaceport
    Don’t bet on any orbital launches from this California city, for years if ever. There are no horizontal rockets presently operational, few are in development, and launching from California’s burdensome regulatory and anti-business government will discourage any that eventually start flying to come here. There are too many far better choices.
  • NASA inspector general generally approves its commercial manned lunar lander program
    You can read the report here [pdf]. While it identifies a number of relatively minor management issues, it admits that relying on private companies to build the lunar lander has controlled cost, kept it low, and is proceeding at reasonable speed. It whines about whether either SpaceX or Blue Origin will be ready for a 2028 manned landing, but recognizes that both are proceeding with all due speed. Note too that this report is out-of-date, as it does not include the recent reshaping of the entire Artemis program.
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Pluto’s cratered glacial terrain

12:56 pm

Panorama of Pluto's eastern limb
Click for full resolution. For original images go here, here, here, and here.

Pluto in true color
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The panorama above, created from four New Horizons’ images that were cropped and enhanced to post here, was taken by New Horizons on July 14, 2015 (here, here, here, and here), about 30 minutes before its closest approach of 7,800 miles above Pluto.

I have searched the New Horizons’ press release archive, and as far as I can tell, this sequence of images and the terrain it shows was never highlighted publicly by the science team. For that reason, I am not sure exactly where to place it on the global true-color image of Pluto to the right, released by the science team shortly after that fly-by. I suspect the panorama covers a strip on the eastern limb of the globe, in the darker crater region to the east of Pluto’s giant frozen nitrogen sea. It is also possible this is actually covering the north pole regions, with the raw images as released oriented with north to the right.

Other than these guesses I cannot tell. If anyone has better information please provide it in the comments.

What the panorama does show us is cracked and pitted terrain, thought to be mostly made up of frozen ice mixed with dust and debris with some nitrogen and other materials thrown in. Though in many ways it resembles the Moon, that similarity is only very superficial. For example, the polygon shapes near the picture’s center suggest ice floes or glaciers, though there is no underground liquid ocean on which they could float.

This is a very alien world. And it is likely even more alien than the few pictures obtained during that New Horizons’ fly-by have suggested. After all, we only saw in high resolution one hemisphere. Who knows what’s really on the planet’s other side?

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SpaceX now targeting early April for next Starship/Superheavy test flight

9:40 am

Based on a tweet posted by Elon Musk on March 7, 2026, SpaceX now targeting early April for next and 12th Starship/Superheavy test orbital flight.

According to this update at nasaspaceflight.com, the Superheavy booster, the 19th prototype and the first version 3 booster, is now on the launchpad for final checks.

On March 8, Booster 19 left Mega Bay 1 and rolled down Highway 4 towards the launch site and Pad 2. This is the start of pad commissioning and booster engine testing for Block 3.

Booster 19 is mounted on Pad 2 to conduct multiple tests over the coming days. This will likely include ambient pressure testing, tanking tests with Liquid Oxygen (LOX) and Liquid Methane (LCH4), spin primes, and eventually a static fire, maybe even a couple of static fires. These tests are not only to help test the booster but also to test all of the pad systems.

While crews have run operations with the Pad 2 tank farm many times, they have never loaded an actual booster with propellant. With a booster finally on the pad, this will help in the final commissioning process.

For these initial pad and booster check-outs, #19 does not have all 33 engines installed. It appears the company wants to test the launchpad fueling system first, with the minimum number of engines needed.

Meanwhile, the Starship prototype that will fly, #39 in the series, is in the assembly building after completing its own series of tanking and launchpad tests.

I want to highlight two numbers — 19 and 39 — in order to illustrate how SpaceX does things versus NASA. Not only has SpaceX already completed eleven test flights of Starship/Superheavy, it has tested or flown 19 and 39 prototypes of each, in one manner or another. The company has a very rich history of hardware and testing as it ramps up towards operational flights. This practically guarantees that those operational flights will not only occur relatively soon, they will be relatively safe and robust.

This was all done in less than a decade, though most of the testing of those prototypes has occurred in the last six years.

NASA meanwhile began work on SLS about fifteen years ago, and has built two rockets total, and so far flown only one. Though the agency did a lot of tests of pieces of the rocket, it flew only one test launch, in 2022. SLS’s design is so cumbersome and expensive, the agency could not afford to fly it multiple times. Thus, much of its testing was done on computer screens, in simulations.

Which rocket would you want to fly on when both are operational?

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Chinese scientists pinpoint a prime landing site for its manned lunar mission

9:21 am

Potential landing site for China's manned lunar landing

Though no final decision has apparently been made, a just published research paper suggests that China is considering a location almost dead center on the Moon’s near side, on the edge of a mare region dubbed Sinus Aestruum, for its first manned lunar landing, presently targeting a 2030 launch date. From the abstract:

We propose four prospective landing sites in the traversable areas, which provide a range of diverse geological samples, including volcanic debris, mare basalts, Copernicus crater ejecta and high-Th materials. Such a collection may provide insights into the geological evolution of the region and enhance our understanding of the lunar mantle composition and volcanic processes.

The red star on global lunar map to the right, taken from figure 1 of the paper, shows the location of this region. The lower map zooms into the region, with the four stars indicating the four prospective landing sites. The region has several rilles, long meandering channels thought to have formed from lava flow, that could be reached during an EVA.

Though it appears the scientists of this paper are lobbying for this landing region and no final decision has been reached, its location and wide variety of geology strongly suggests this will be the final choice. If so, of the four landing sites outlined two are in the smoother mare regions, and two are off the edge, in rougher terrain. For safety considerations, it is likely the final landing site will be in one of the former.

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SpaceX launches EchoStar communications satellite

8:37 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully launched an EchoStar communications satellite, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 14th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The rocket’s two fairings completed their 8th and 27th flights respectively.

The 2026 launch race:

30 SpaceX
8 China
3 Rocket Lab
2 Russia
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)

Not only is SpaceX this year leading the entire world combined in total launches — as it did in both ’24 and ’25 — at the moment its pace is twice that as the rest of the globe.

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Voyager to make “a multi-million-dollar strategic investment” in Max Space’s inflatable habitats

3:16 pm

Voyager-Max lunar habitat
Click for original image.

In an expansion of a partnership announced last month, Voyager Technologies — the lead company in the consortium building the Starlab space station — today announced it is now making “a multi-million-dollar strategic investment” in Max Space’s inflatable habitats, aiming at winning contracts both for NASA’s proposed Moon base as well as any other “future deep space missions.”

The actual dollar amount has not yet been released, but my sources say it is in “the low eight figures,” or more than $10 million but probably less than $25 million.

This partnership appears aimed not at NASA’s space station program nor enhancing Starlab. Instead, it is focused on providing NASA (and other commercial operations) inflatable habitats that can be launched and quickly established on the Moon and elsewhere, as shown by the artist’s rendering to the right. It appears Voyager will build the foundation, base, and airlock, while Max will provide the inflatable module above. From the press release:

This initiative directly supports NASA’s historical Artemis Program and aligns precisely with Administrator Isaacman’s announcement to be on the Moon to stay by 2028. Max Space delivers critical enabling infrastructure, maximizing livable volume, enhancing crew safety, and reducing the cost and complexity of surface deployment. It complements Voyager’s broader lunar roadmap, including cislunar mission management, surface logistics, propulsion, power systems, and future surface infrastructure, reinforcing a shared vision of the Moon as an operational domain, not a temporary destination.

In other words, the two companies are aiming to become major suppliers for NASA’s Artemis lunar base, and to do that by offering a way to get it quickly built and operational, at a reasonable cost.

I suspect it will be a few years before NASA issues any such contracts. It will first want to see both companies demonstrate success, both with Voyager’s Starlab and Max Space’s own demo station module scheduled for launch in ’27. Nonetheless, this announcement puts them on the map in the race to get those contracts, and begins to put some commercial reality to the American colonization of the solar system.

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Webb takes a look at a strange planetary nebula

9:49 am

Nebula PMR-1
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The two false-color pictures to the right, reduced to post here, were taken by two different infrared cameras on the Webb Space Telescope.

The object, PMR-1, is about 5,000 light years away and has apparently not been studied very much in the past. In 2013 astronomers used the Spitzer Space Telescope to get a first look in the infrared, at a much lower resolution. They also gave this object a nickname, the “Exposed Cranium” nebula. From the Webb press release:

The nebula appears to have distinct regions that capture different phases of its evolution — an outer shell of gas that was blown off first and consists mostly of hydrogen, and an inner cloud with more structure that contains a mix of different gases. Both Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) show a distinctive dark lane running vertically through the middle of the nebula that defines its brain-like look of left and right hemispheres. Webb’s resolution shows that this lane could be related to an outburst or outflow from the central star, which typically occurs as twin jets burst out in opposite directions. Evidence for this is particularly notable at the top of the nebula in Webb’s MIRI image, where it looks like the inner gas is being ejected outward.

While there is still much to be understood about this nebula, it’s clear that it is being created by a star near the end of its fuel-burning “life.” In their end stages, stars expel their outer layers. It’s a dynamic and fairly fast process, in cosmic terms. Webb has captured a moment in this star’s decline. What ultimately happens will depend on the mass of the star, which is yet to be determined. If it’s massive enough, it will explode in a supernova. A less massive Sun-like star will continue to shed layers until only its core remains as a dense white dwarf, which will cool off over eons.

The dark lane suggests we are looking at the star’s equator, with the two lobes on either side the material being flung out ward from the poles. It is also possible this is wrong, because the lobes on either side do not have a clear distinct jet-like appearance.

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Italian rocket company Avio wins $65 million War department contract

9:25 am

The Italian rocket company Avio announced last week that it has won a $65 million contract to build a solid-fueled motor for the U.S. Department of War.

Defense Systems and Solutions (DSS), a joint venture between Yulista Integrated Solutions, LLC (YIS) and Science and Engineering Services, LLC (SES), acting as a prime contractor for the US Department of War, selects Avio Group for the development, qualification and initial production of a solid rocket motor for air defense applications.

The contract, amounting approximately to $65 million and covering a three-year period, paves the way for a broader cooperation between the Parties, to exploit respective competences to provide US Government and NATO Allies with critical Defense Systems.

This contract award is significant in several ways. First, it signals the success of Avio’s policy in the past two years to establish itself as a U.S. military contractor, despite being a long-time Italian company. To do this it created a U.S. division, begun construction of a U.S-based manufacturing facility, and committed $500 million to its construction.

Second, Avio’s quick success also illustrates a general weakness in the American solid-rocket industry. It appears the American company that previously dominated this field of military solid-fueled rockets is Northrop Grumman, and its work in recent years has been problematic. Others might also do this work, but it appears no U.S. company has been doing it well enough to satisfy the War Department. The result has been an opportunity for Avio, and it appears it is taking advantage of it.

Finally, this success proves the rightness of the capitalism model. For almost two decades Avio built solid-fueled rockets for the European Space Agency’s commercial division, Arianespace, which controlled the marketing and sale of the rockets. That government control not only created a government middle-man that eat into the profits, it discouraged competition and innovation. Last year ESA completed transfer back to Avio, and the result has been new contracts from many new sources for the company.

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SpaceX launches 25 more Starlink satellites

10:02 am

SpaceX early today successfully placed another 25 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 7th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The 2026 launch race:

29 SpaceX
8 China
3 Rocket Lab
2 Russia
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)

Not only is SpaceX this year leading the entire world combined in total launches — as it did in both ’24 and ’25 — at the moment its pace is about twice that as the rest of the globe.

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NASA awards ULA’s Centaur-5 upper stage for future SLS launches

4:30 pm

NASA yesterday awarded ULA the contract for providing SLS its upper stage after the Artemis-3 mission using the Centaur-5 upper stage that was developed for the company’s Vulcan rocket.

In its procurement statement, NASA said its intention is to issue a sole source contract to ULA, meaning it’s the only upper stage being considered for this new iteration of the SLS rocket. An eight-page supporting document from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama, was published to document the reasoning for its decision.

Among the stated reasons are the decades-long heritage of the RL10 engine, which has matured over time; the ability of the Centaur 5 to use the interfaces available on the Mobile Launcher 1 (ML1) along with the propulsion commodities of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen; and the experience of ULA’s teams working with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) at the Kennedy Space Center and elsewhere in the country.

They also noted that with the Centaur 3 upper stage achieving certification to launch humans as part of the Commercial Crew Program, there are a lot of common features with the Centaur 5.

The decision relieves NASA from wasting more money on the Mobile Launcher-2, which has been a disaster. The contractor Bechtel has gone over budget — from $383 million to $2.7 billion — and is so behind schedule it is still unclear now whether it will be ready by 2029, a decade after the contract was awarded.

It also relieves NASA of spending more money on its own upper stage, which has been as much a disaster, from Boeing.

Instead, this deal is an example of Isaacman doing the right thing. Rather than have NASA design and build its own upper stage, he is buying the product — almost literally off-the-shelf — from a commercial rocket company. He should expand this effort, and consider other private rockets, such as Falcon Heavy, to replace SLS itself.

Now Isaacman should consider suing Bechtel for fraud and incompetence, to try to get back some of the money it wasted.

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Dart changed the orbit of the Didymos/Dimorphos binary asteroids around the Sun

2:54 pm

Dimorphos just after impact

When the Dart spacecraft impacted the asteroid Dimorphos in September 2022, it not only shortened Dimophos’ orbit around its companion asteroid Didymos by about 33 minutes while reshaping the asteroid, a new study has found that it also changed very slightly the orbit of both asteroids around the Sun.

The image to the right, annotated to post here, was taken by the Italian LICIACube spacecraft moments after the September 26, 2022 impact.

The research paper describing this research can be found here. From the press release:

The new study shows the impact ejected so much material from the binary system that it also changed the binary’s orbital period around the Sun by 0.15 seconds. “The change in the binary system’s orbital speed was about 11.7 microns per second, or 1.7 inches per hour,” said Rahil Makadia, the study’s lead author at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “Over time, such a small change in an asteroid’s motion can make the difference between a hazardous object hitting or missing our planet.”

To be precise, the orbital speed was slowed 1.7 inches per hour, which while tiny would mean its solar orbit is now slightly shortened.

The result proves that a similar impact could be used on some asteroids to deflect them from hitting the Earth, though we would need to know a lot about that asteroid prior to launching the mission to accurately predict the orbital change. Otherwise, any impact could be a dangerous crap shoot that could do more harm than good.

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March 6, 2026 Quick space links

2:45 pm

As BtB’s stringer Jay is on vacation, here are two links I spotted that don’t deserve full posts. 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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Curiosity looks uphill at its upcoming travels

12:41 pm

Panorama looking up Mount Sharp
Click for original.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! Since May 2025 Curiosity has been exploring in great detail the boxwork formations located on the lower slopes of Mount Sharp. It is now about to complete those investigations, with the Curiosity science team beginning their planning for moving onward and upward.

The panorama above, enhanced to post here, was taken on March 2, 2026 by the rover’s right navigation camera. It looks uphill along the valley that Curiosity is in toward the mountainous region the rover is targeting. Note that the peak of Mount Sharp is not visible, being more than 25 miles away beyond the horizon and about 15,000 feet higher up.

The blue dot on the overview map to the right mark Curiosity’s present position. The yellow lines indicate roughly the area this panorama covers. The red dotted line marks the rover’s approximate planned route, while the white dotted line indicates Curiosity’s actual travels.

Right now Curiosity is traveling through a geological layer the scientists have dubbed the sulfate unit. The lighter colored hills seen on the horizon have also been identified as sulfate, but believed to be much more pure. The geology there should be very different. Instead of rough and rocky it could be like traveling over soft porous sand. This however is merely a guess on my part, based on imagery of those light-colored hills.

The actual route through those hills however remains unknown. Either the science team has not yet released it, or is still trying to figure out the best way through.

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South Korean rocket startup Perigee signs deal to launch from the Philippines

10:03 am

The Philippines

The South Korean rocket startup Perigee yesterday signed an agreement with the government of the Philippines, allowing it to launch its proposed suborbital and orbital Blue Whale rockets from a sea platform within that country’s territorial waters.

The Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA), together with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA), Ascend International Gateway, Inc., and … Perigee Aerospace, Inc. signed a Memorandum of Understanding … to collaborate on a framework for rocket development training and experimental rocket launches in the Philippines. These initiatives will demonstrate the viability of the establishment and operation of a Philippine spaceport, with the goal of positioning the country as a gateway to space in the region.

…The agreement builds on the rocket technology know-how transfer and training program undertaken by PhilSA engineers in the Republic of Korea from October to November 2025, in collaboration with Perigee Aerospace. The program equipped the engineers with foundational and applied knowledge in launch vehicle systems through lectures and hands-on experience in rocket assembly and testing. These initiatives lay the groundwork for future activities, including possible localized assembly, testing, and launch operations in the Philippines.

The first four entities listed above are all government agencies in the Philippines. Apparently Perigee is providing training and aid to the Philippines in exchange for the right to launch from within that country. It website states the suborbital version of Blue Whale will launch from a sea platform, but the launch site for the orbital version is unclear.

This deal however sets the stage for possibly developing a land-based spaceport in the Philippines. As shown by the map to the right, the country is well situated for such purposes, with a lot of eastern coastline facing the vast Pacific ocean. A spaceport located on its southernmost island of Mindanao would be especially well placed.

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ESA loses contact with the coronagraph satellite of its duel-satellite Proba-3 mission

9:24 am

The Proba-3 mission
The Proba-3 mission. Click for original.

The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that engineers have lost contact with the Coronagraph satellite of its duel-satellite Proba-3 mission, and are working now to recover contact.

During the weekend of 14–15 February 2026, an anomaly onboard Proba-3’s Coronagraph spacecraft triggered a chain reaction that led to the progressive loss of attitude (spacecraft orientation) and prevented the entry into safe mode.

Because the spacecraft’s solar panel was no longer facing the Sun, the onboard battery started to discharge quickly. This caused the spacecraft to enter survival mode, when minimum electronics are active and data transmission to the ground is interrupted.

The exact root cause of the anomaly is under investigation, and mission teams and operators have joined forces to attempt to re-establish contact with the spacecraft to recover the situation.

The Coronograph satellite is the heart of this mission. It records the data, available because the Occulter blocks the Sun from view so that the corona, the Sun’s atmosphere, can be seen. Based on this report, it does not look good that the spacecraft can be recovered.

At the same time, the mission has apparently achieved all of its initial goals, and was now on an extended mission.

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Sierra Space raises $550 million in private investment capital

9:01 am

Due to its aggressive shift in the past year away from NASA-based civilian contracts to defense work, Sierra Space announced yesterday that it has successfully raised another $550 million in private investment capital.

That shift occurred because of its failure to deliver its Dream Chaser vehicle to NASA as planned, as well as the apparently lack of progress in its partnership with Blue Origin on the Orbital Reef space station. From the press release:

Sierra Space Corporation, an industry-leading defense-tech space company delivering solutions for the nation’s critical missions, announced today a $550 million equity investment led by LuminArx Capital Management (“LuminArx Capital”), a global alternative investment manager, with participation from existing investors. The financing values the company at $8 billion post-money.

With this new capital, Sierra Space will be able to further focus on its national security space efforts through ongoing expansion of production capacity and continued development of differentiated solutions for its customers. The investment better positions Sierra Space to secure additional contracts, leverage existing technologies, and pursue growth opportunities beyond its current satellite and spacecraft mission programs.

Artist rendering of Orbital Reef design, as of April 2025
Artist rendering of Orbital Reef design, as of April 2025,
the best we can likely ever expect from this dead project.
Click for original image.

The release also mentioned General Atlantic, Coatue, Moore Strategic Ventures, and Andalusian Private Capital as investors.

Though this money should help fuel its work on Dream Chaser and Orbital Reef, I suspect little will go to those two projects. The company is now clearly targeting military and national security work as its prime source of income. There are also indications that there are some technical issues with Dream Chaser that Sierra has not yet revealed.

Meanwhile, the lack of effort from Blue Origin on Orbital Reef likely convinced Sierra it was better to turn its eyes elsewhere. While Sierra spent considerable effort testing its LIFE inflatable module, Blue Origin did practically nothing, and continues to do little. It is unlikely this partnership will win any funding from NASA when the agency awards new space station contracts, expected sometime in six months.

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Rocket Lab completes another launch yesterday

8:40 am

Rocket Lab yesterday successfully placed a satellite into orbit, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand.

The company did not reveal the name of its customer, though according to this source the satellite was a Blacksky Earth imaging satellite, the fourth launch of a four-launch contract with that satellite company.

The 2026 launch race:

28 SpaceX
8 China
3 Rocket Lab
2 Russia
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)

Not only is SpaceX this year leading the entire world combined in total launches — as it did in both ’24 and ’25 — at the moment its pace is about twice as much as the rest of the globe.

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March 5, 2026 Quick space links

3:32 pm

As BtB’s stringer Jay is on vacation, there wasn’t going to be a quick links today. Then Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas sent me the two links below. Thank you Robert!

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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New Webb data says asteroid 2024 YR4 will miss the Moon in 2032

2:54 pm

Asteroid 2024 YR4 as seen by Webb in the mid-infrared
Asteroid 2024 YR4 as seen by Webb in the
mid-infrared in April 2025. Click for original image.

New Webb data collected in February has now eliminated any chance the potentially dangerous asteroid 2024 YR4 will hit either the Earth or the Moon when it makes its next close pass on December 22, 2032.

Using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observations collected on Feb. 18 and 26, experts from NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California have refined near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4’s orbit and are ruling out a chance of lunar impact on Dec. 22, 2032. With the new data, 2024 YR4 is expected to pass by the lunar surface at a distance of 13,200 miles (21,200 km).

Earlier less precise data had suggested 2024 YR4 had a 4.3% chance of hitting the Moon in 2032. That chance is now zero. This result is actually disappointing, in that an impact of this asteroid, estimated to be about 200 feet in diameter, would have not only been spectacular, but would have been scientifically useful. We would have been able to observe it closely with many ground- and space-based telescopes, and garnered a lot of useful information about the asteroid, the Moon, and the very nature of impacts.

The impact would have also eliminated the chance this asteroid might hit the Earth in the future. 2024 YR4 orbits the Sun about every four years. Previous calculations suggested another potentially dangerous fly-by of Earth in 2047, but these numbers are unreliable because the orbit will be changed by the 2032 fly-by in ways that cannot be predicted as yet.

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Vast raises $500 million in new private investment capital

1:47 pm

Haven-2
Vast’s full Haven-2 station once completed

The space station startup Vast today announced it has raised another $500 million in new private investment capital, bringing the total so far invested in the company’s space station project to more than one billion.

The financing round was led by Balerion Space Ventures with participation from IQT, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Mitsui & Co., Ltd, MUFG, Nikon Corporation (Nikon), Stellar Ventures, Space Capital, and Earthrise Ventures. Jed McCaleb, founder and first investor, also participated in the round. As part of the transaction, Balerion Advisor A.C. Charania, former Chief Technologist for NASA, will join the Vast board.

…To date, more than $1 billion has been invested in Vast’s space stations technologies and facilities—resources that NASA and government partners can leverage to ensure readiness to replace the ISS in 2030. The latest financing includes $300 million in Series A equity and $200 million in debt to support the continued development of Vast’s Haven space stations. The funds will be used to expand facilities, grow the team, and advance the company’s proposed successor to the ISS, Haven-2, designed to ensure continuous human presence in low-Earth orbit for the United States and its allies.

Hat tip to reader Richard M for letting me know about this announcement.

In my rankings below of the five American commercial space stations presently in development, I rank Vast #1. This new investment helps solidify its first place standing.
» Read more

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The auroras of Jupiter and Ganymede

11:13 am

According to two different university press releases in the past month, new details have been discovered about the auroras found on Jupiter as well as its largest moon, Ganymede, caused by the interaction of Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field not only with Ganymede’s weak one but with the motion of all four Galilean moons as they orbit the gas giant.

The first study used data from Juno when it made a close fly-by of Ganymede in 2021. It not only showed how the aurora was caused by interaction between the magnetic fields of Jupiter and Ganymede, it found that Ganymede’s auroras were similar to those on Earth.

Similar structures, known as ‘beads’, have been observed in the auroras of Earth and Jupiter, where they are linked to sub-storms and dawn storms, large-scale rearrangements of the magnetosphere that release enormous amounts of energy and produce intense auroral activity,” explains Alessandro Moirano, post-doctoral researcher at LPAP.

Ganymede interacts with Jupiter’s space environment in a similar way to how Earth interacts with the solar wind; therefore, the discovery of auroral patches on Ganymede similar to those on Earth suggests that the fundamental physical process(es) could be generally induced in the coupling between any celestial body, its magnetosphere, and external forces.

The aurora's on Jupiter
The auroral footprints of Io and Europa
on Jupiter

The second study, released yesterday, used the Webb Space Telescope to a get a more detailed look at Jupiter’s auroras, caused as the four Galilean moons — Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto — travel through Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field, causing energetic particles to following Jupiter’s magnetic field lines down to its poles, there creating the auroras.

Webb’s data found that the auroral footprints on Jupiter caused by each moon were different from Jupiter’s own aurora.

However, the footprints created by Io and Europa, did not have the characteristics expected from Jupiter’s main aurora, which contains a lot of hot material. Instead, in one snapshot, they discovered a cold spot within Io’s auroral footprint that registered temperatures much lower than expected, with extraordinarily high densities.

As the data was limited to a single 22-hour window, the results are very uncertain. More observations are planned, covering a longer time period, to see if this phenomenon can be captured again.

All of these results are very tantalizing, but to really get a handle on what is going on will require continuous observations over years, from many spacecraft devoted exclusively to Jupiter. And that isn’t going to happen for quite some time.

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The United Kingdom’s Labor government to spend £500 million on space

10:07 am

The UK Space Agency, gone but not forgotten
The UK Space Agency, gone but not forgotten

My heart be still! The United Kingdom’s present Labor government yesterday announced it has allocated an additional £500 million ($665 million) on a wide range of space projects, all of which are either new government programs or facilities or direct subsidies to its failing space businesses.

Nowhere in this announcement did government officials address the choking regulations and burdensome licensing requirements that have essentially driven away all space business while bankrupting two different rocket startups, Virgin Orbit and Orbex.

In addition to the £1.7 billion committed to European Space Agency (ESA) programmes in November 2025, the government is allocating more than £500 million to national space programmes:

  • £105 million to develop civil capabilities for in-orbit servicing and manufacturing (ISAM) – an emerging market where the UK has a strong competitive edge and opportunities to deliver significant commercial returns and strengthen national resilience
  • £85 million to develop the National Space Operations Centre, including £40 million to build a new ground‑based sensing network, supporting the 24/7 requirement to protect satellites and manage an increasingly crowded space environment
  • £80 million to deliver the Connectivity in Low Earth Orbit (C-LEO) programme, including for a new £30m funding call opened today to support UK businesses developing smarter satellites, advanced hardware and AI‑enabled data delivery
  • £65 million for the National Space Innovation Programme to accelerate breakthrough technologies and boost commercialisation
  • £40 million for the Unlocking Space Programme to drive market demand for space technology, develop national security capabilities and attract private investment to support the scale up of UK firms
  • £37 million to develop space clusters, building on local strengths and ensuring the benefits of space reach every corner of the UK
  • £20 million to accelerate spaceport infrastructure development in Scotland

The announcement was made in connection with the decision by this Labor government to eliminate the UK Space Agency as a separate bureaucracy, consolidating it into the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). The consolidation was intended to save money and make the government more efficient, but this announcement suggests it is being used to funnel more cash into DSIT’s bureaucracy, simply under a different name.

None of this is going to do much to promote an independent space industry in Great Britain. As long as it continues to take years to get launch licenses, rocket companies are not going to launch from its spaceports. And without those launches, its space industry is going to be seriously handicapped. And dumping cash into these various government programs won’t do much either to promote competition or innovation. All the UK will get is more bureaucracy and government control.

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Does weightlessness cause blood clots?

9:44 am

The uncertainty of science: A new study on Earth using an “dry immersion tank” now suggests that weightlessness could increase the chances that female astronauts could get blood clots during long space missions.

First reported in 2020, an International Space Station mission detected an unexpected blood clot in a female astronaut’s jugular vein. To date, space-health research has had more male participants but with the number of female astronauts on the rise, a new SFU–European Space Agency study examined how microgravity affects blood clotting specifically in women. Key findings

  • 18 female participants experienced five days of continuous simulated microgravity in a European Space Agency (ESA)-sponsored VIVALDI I dry immersion study.
  • Coagulation time (the time it took for blood clots to start forming) was longer.
  • Once started, clots formed faster.
  • Once formed, the strength and stability of the clots was greater

The dry immersion tank is “a specially designed water bath with a waterproof sheet to keep participants dry while floating, and simulating weightlessness.”

The researchers admit these results are very uncertain. For one, none of the clots that occurred during the study were “clinically concerning,” which means they were the kind of clots that the body deals with normally without threat. The researchers also noted in their paper’s abstract that “current published research on this topic is male-centered,” which explains the female focus of this particular research.

This research suggests that blood clots could be an issue on long missions in weightlessness, but the data is sparse and very incomplete. Moreover, based on more than a quarter century of missions longer than six months in space, it appears the one blood clot cited above might have been the only incident so far recorded. And any results using immersion tanks on Earth is questionable, as they are a poor substitute for actual weightlessness in space.

Nonetheless, these results add weight to the need for developing interplanetary spaceships with some sort of artificial gravity. Without it, the health of any passengers going on long missions to other planets like Mars is certainly at risk, not simply from blood clots but from bone loss, vision damage, spinal deformities, and overall loss of cardio-vascular and muscular strength, all issues that have been documented well in space.

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Third launch attempt by Japanese rocket startup Space One fails

8:17 pm

Kairos rocket just after failure

In another attempt to do the maiden launch its orbital Kairos rocket today, the Japanese rocket startup Space One experienced its third launch failure, with the rocket breaking up about a minute after launch.

The screen capture to the right shows the rocket just after failure. The cloud arc in the upper left is the moment some burst occurred. Within seconds it was clear that the rocket was now in several pieces.

The launch attempt, which took place from the company’s own spaceport, Spaceport Kii, on the southern coast of the main island of Japan, was the third failure in a row, all involving failures of the first stage. The first launch in March 2024 blew up mere seconds after launch. The second attempt in December 2024 failed about 90 seconds after launch when the rocket began to spiral out of control.

This third launch appeared more controlled, but it also occurred only a minute after launch.

Whether the company can survive a third straight failure, none of which got even close to main engine cutoff and stage separation, is unknown. The company has some major investors, including Canon, several major Japanese banks, and the government-owned Development Bank of Japan. While they might stick with the company, it would not be surprising if there was a major shake-up in management.

Japan at the moment has no operational launch capability. Space One is its only private rocket startup, while the two rockets belonging to its space agency JAXA, H3 and Epsilon, are both grounded due to launch failures.

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NASA initiates new program to grab talent from the private sector

4:00 pm

Where new talent will now go to wither
Where new talent will now go to wither.

As part of NASA administrator’s effort to remake NASA into a cutting edge agency, “the global leader in space,” the agency in partnership with the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has initiated a new program, dubbed NASA Force, to recruit talent from the private sector for two-year terms, after which they can then try to get a full time job either with NASA or a private aerospace company.

NASA Force will identify and place high-impact technical talent into mission-critical roles supporting NASA’s exploration, research, and advanced technology priorities, ensuring the agency has the cutting-edge expertise needed to maintain U.S. leadership in space.

Tech Force, led by OPM, was established to recruit elite technical professionals into federal service, embed them at partner agencies to modernize systems, accelerate innovation, and strengthen mission delivery. NASA Force represents a focused expansion of that effort, tailored to the unique technical demands of space exploration and aerospace research.

“America’s leadership in space depends on extraordinary talent,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “NASA Force will help us attract the next generation of innovators and technical experts who are ready to solve the toughest challenges in exploration, science, and aerospace technology. This partnership strengthens our workforce and helps ensure the United States remains the global leader in space.”

This program however has things entirely backwards. The last thing any engineer who has just graduated college should do is get a short two-year job at NASA. He or she will learn all the wrong lessons, working for a government agency not interested in efficiency or profit.

Instead, it is essential the first job new engineers get is in the private sector, to learn how to do things fast and efficiently. It Isaacman had the right priorities, he would use this money to fund these jobs in the private sector, so that new graduates will get the right training. Unfortunately, that is not Isaacman’s priority. He wants the government to lead.

Moreover, NASA’s job was never intended to be “the global leader in space.” Its job was to formulate the federal government’s needs in space, and then ask the private sector — the American people — to get the job done. Isaacman instead wants to have NASA do the job, as it did for a half century after Apollo, quite poorly. Only after the agency began relying on private enterprise beginning in 2008, the capitalism model, did things finally start happening again.

The worst aspect of this program is that it will take talent away from the private sector. A lot of good and talented young engineers will gravitate to these NASA positions for the high pay, relatively easy good hours, and prestige. They won’t accomplish much there, and their training will be wrong-headed. Meanwhile, the private sector will lose that talent and have to find it elsewhere, assuming it is available at all.

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March 4, 2026 Quick space links

2:55 pm

As BtB’s stringer Jay is on vacation, here are a few links I spotted that don’t deserve full posts. 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.

5 comments

The mysterious spokes in Saturn’s rings

11:59 am

A bent spoke in Saturn's rings
Click for original.

Cool image time! When Voyager-1 did its fly-by of Saturn in December 1980, its cameras captured something in the gas giant’s rings that no one had predicted or expected, spokes of brightness pointing outward along the surface of the rings at right angles to the planet. Even more puzzling, these spokes actually appeared to rotate around Saturn, always pointing away from it.

The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on March 7, 2007 by the Saturn orbiter Cassini. It shows a close-up of one such spoke, though in this case it is bent. From the press release:

A bright spoke extends across the unilluminated side of Saturn’s B ring about the same distance as that from London to Cairo. The background ring material displays some azimuthal (i.e., left to right) asymmetry. The radial (outward from Saturn) direction is up in this view. A noticeable kink in the spoke occurs very close to the radius where ring particles orbit the planet at the speed of Saturn’s magnetic field. Such a connection is most intriguing to scientists studying these ghostly ring phenomena.

If gravity alone were affecting the spoke material, there would be no kink and the entire spoke would be angled toward right, like the bottom portion. That it bends to the left above the kink indicates that some other force, possibly related to the magnetic field, is acting on the spoke material. The shape might also indicate that the spoke did not form in a radial orientation, thus challenging scientists’ assumptions about these features.

In other words, the spokes exist because of multiple factors, some still unknown, that cause these streaks of brightness in the rings. For some reason, the millions of tiny ice particles that comprise the rings are brightened along these spokes, and it isn’t just gravity that is causing it.

9 comments

South Korean rocket startup Innospace signs another spaceport launch deal

10:18 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

The South Korean rocket startup Innospace, which has attempted one launch of its Hanbit-Nano rocket (a failure), has now signed a launch deal with the proposed Spaceport Nova Scotia, run by Maritime Launch Services.

Maritime Launch Services announced a strategic partnership with South Korean rocket developer Innospace. Under a new Letter of Intent (LOI), the two companies will evaluate hosting the HANBIT launch system at Spaceport Nova Scotia, potentially transforming the Atlantic coast into a primary North American hub for the South Korean firm.

Innospace’s first launch was from Brazil’s long unused Alcantera spaceport on its northeast coast. The company has also signed deals with Portugal’s proposed Santa Maria spaceport, two spaceports in Australia (Southern Launch and Equatorial Launch), and Norway’s Andoya spaceport.

This new deal in Nova Scotia is still preliminary, with the two companies having until the end of the year to finalize the specifics. For Innospace, it appears the company its trying to give itself as many spaceport options as possible. It can also launch from the government spaceport in South Korea, but that provides much more limited orbital flight paths, and presents scheduling difficulties.

For Maritime, this deal might finally get this spaceport off the ground. It was first proposed in 2016, offering satellite companies both a launch site and a Ukrainian-built rocket. That plan fell through when Russia invaded the Ukraine and the rocket became unavailable. Since then Maritime has struggled to convince rocket companies to use the spaceport, all to no avail. It signed some deals, but none has gone anywhere. This deal is its first with a rocket startup that has actually attempted a launch, though that launch was a failure.

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