August 19, 2025 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
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Category: Points of Information
Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Chet Atkins & Mark Knopfler – I’ll see you in my dreams/Walk of Life
An evening pause: Performed live c2019. I have started the embed after introductions. If you want to see it all, click to begin at the beginning.
Hat tip Doug Johnson.
August 20, 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.
- The view from a Kuiper satellite launched last week by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket
This imagery was captured over a 24-minute period — enough time for the satellite to travel 5,500+ miles in orbit, from over Italy to the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar.
- BlackSky signs seven-figure space domain awareness expansion contract with HEO Space for fully automated non-Earth imaging missions
Essentially, HEO’s software will be used by its customers to task BlackSky’s satellites “to detect, track, characterize, and classify objects in orbit, as well as assess potential threats and predict their effects.”
- BlackSky touts an image of China’s Tiangong space station at a distance of 83 kilometers, taken by one of its satellites
Quite spectacular. The station was above Bulgaria, and the picture was taken on March 13, 2025.
- Webb discovers another new moon orbiting Uranus
It is estimated to be about six miles in diameter, and has an orbit close to the gas giant’s rings. Uranus now has 29 moons, but do not be surprised when that number rises significantly.
- NASA celebrates the Mars helicopter Ingenuity on National Aviation Day, noting it carried a small swatch of material from the Wright Brothers flyer
All told Ingenuity flew 72 times, the first powered, controlled flights on another planet.
- The head of India’s space agency ISRO says its next rocket will be 40 stories tall and carry 75 tons into orbit
He made a lot more promises. We shall see.
Webb discovers another “oldest black hole”
The uncertainty of science: Using the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers now claim they have detected a super-massive black hole at a new record-setting distance that puts it far closer to the Big Bang that cosmologists have predicted.
A global team of astronomers, led by The University of Texas at Austin’s Cosmic Frontier Center, has confirmed the discovery of the most distant black hole ever observed. This black hole resides within a galaxy known as CAPERS-LRD-z9, which existed only 500 million years after the Big Bang.
In other words, the light we see from it has traveled 13.3 billion years, revealing the universe at just 3% of its current age.
The black hole, estimated to have the mass of 300 million suns, sits in the center of one of the mysterious “little red dots” that Webb has discovered in the early universe that remain a mystery. This black hole suggests each is an early galaxy with its own super-massive black holes.
I must note that there is great uncertainty in the claim of a black hole discovery. It is based on the spectroscopic emissions detected by Webb, which had features generally seen only in super-massive black holes in the recent universe. Thus, the scientists are making some large assumptions in concluding those emissions also indicate a super-massive black hole in this little red dot.
We must also note that if this black hole really exists, it confounds the theories of cosmologists as to the formation of the universe. It is too soon after the Big Bang for such a black hole to have formed, according to those theories.
Student suborbital rocket fails in first student attempt to reach space
The first rocket launch from Quebec and the first attempt by a student-built rocket to reach suborbital space unfortunately failed soon after lift-off on August 15, 2025 when the second stage separated prematurely.
The launch was part of a program by the rocketry division of a Canadian educational organization, Space Concordia.
While the launch appeared to start smoothly, it was approximately 23 seconds into the launch that the team reported that “vehicle split apart into 2 pieces.” Space Concordia said “the nosecone (came) tumbling to the ground” and that the airframe coasted “briefly before following suit.”
After the launch, and during the webcast, a representative said the “second stage separated early” and mentioned MaxQ, which is when the rocket will be under maximum aerodynamic pressure. Space Concordia said in a press release, “The team is continuing to review data to find the root cause of the anomaly.”
This student rocketry division has had some success over the years with smaller rockets, winning first prize in 2018 in the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition. This failure simply means it must try again. Either way, it appears it is training a new cadre of Canadian rocket engineers.
Note too that a similar student educational organization in Great Britain, Surrey Space, eventually upgraded its student-built cubesats into a profitable and very successful commercial cubesat manufacturing operation. It is very possible Space Concordia could do the same in Canada with rockets.
Psyche snaps picture of Earth-Moon system
Click for original image.
In a successful test of its cameras and pointing capabilities, the science team operating the probe Psyche — on its way to the asteroid Psyche — were able to snap a picture of Earth-Moon system from about 180 million miles away.
On July 20 and July 23, the spacecraft’s twin cameras captured multiple long-exposure (up to 10-second) pictures of the two bodies, which appear as dots sparkling with reflected sunlight amid a starfield in the constellation Aries.
One of those pictures is shown to the right. The scientists had previously taken similar calibration images of Jupiter and Mars.
To determine whether the imager’s performance is changing, scientists also compare data from the different tests. That way, when the spacecraft slips into orbit around Psyche, scientists can be sure that the instrument behaves as expected. “After this, we may look at Saturn or Vesta to help us continue to test the imagers,” said Jim Bell, the Psyche imager instrument lead at Arizona State University in Tempe. “We’re sort of collecting solar system ‘trading cards’ from these different bodies and running them through our calibration pipeline to make sure we’re getting the right answers.”
The spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at the metal asteroid Psyche in 2029, and will then spend at least two years flying in formation with it.
Scientists link near Earth asteroids Bennu and Ryugu to much larger main belt asteroid
Scientists comparing the spectroscopy of samples returned from the near Earth asteroids Bennu and Ryugu have found they closely resemble the much larger main belt asteroid Polana, suggesting all three formed at the same time and place.
You can read the paper here [pdf] From the press release:
The study compared spectroscopy data from Polana with spacecraft and laboratory data from Bennu and Ryugu samples, discovering similarities in their near-infrared spectrum sufficient to support the theory that they originate from the same parent asteroid. “Very early in the formation of the solar system, we believe large asteroids collided and broke into pieces to form an ‘asteroid family’ with Polana as the largest remaining body,” said SwRI’s Dr. Anicia Arredondo, lead author of the study. “Theories suggest that remnants of that collision not only created Polana, but also Bennu and Ryugu as well.”
While the similarities are great, the paper notes there are differences, possibly from “space weathering, particle size, surface texture, or different compositions.” The scientists believe the differences were caused by the asteroids’ different environments, with the 33-mile-wide and much older Polana in the asteroid belt beyond Mars, and Ryugu and Bennu, both less than a mile wide, orbiting the Sun inside Mars.
It is also possible the asteroids have little to do with each other, and the similar spectroscopy only informs us of some of the more common components of the early solar system.
Proposed Australian commercial spaceport signs land lease
Proposed Australian spaceports.
Click for original image.
After being forced to change locations because of red tape and the refusal of the local aborigine authorities to sign an agreement, the Australian commercial spaceport startup Space Centre Australia has now obtained a land lease for its new location, dubbed Atakani, on the eastern shore of Cape York.
Space Centre Australia Pty Ltd (SCA) has secured a spaceport land lease, signing a multi-decade agreement with the local Traditional Landowners for approximately 300 km² at Billy’s Lagoon, Cape York. The agreement paves the way for the development of the Atakani Space Centre (ASC).
The Binding Term Sheet, signed with the support of Mokwiri RNTBC, marks the first time an Australian-based spaceport has secured a lease and opportunity of this scale. It ensures Traditional Owner access to country for cultural and ceremonial purposes, governance participation through the soon-to-be-established Luthiggi Corporation, and direct involvement in environmental management, cultural heritage monitoring, and operational activities. A royalty framework will deliver long-term economic benefits in addition to the spaceport’s operational revenue.
At the moment it appears the spaceport’s focus will be attracting suborbital launch companies, with the eventual goal to bring orbital rockets to the site.
China launches seven classified satellites
China today successfully placed seven satellites into orbit, its Kinetica-1 (or Lijian-1) rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.
No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China. Its state-run press provided almost no information about the launch, except for trumpeting the fact that it lifted off from the launchpad at Jiuquan that China has built for its pseudo-commercial companies. The rocket itself however is built by pseudo-company CAS Space, which is simply a division created by the government-run Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
101 SpaceX
47 China
11 Rocket Lab
9 Russia
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 101 to 80.
August 18, 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.
- Canadian rocket startup Reaction Dynamics gets a mulit-launch contract for its proposed Auroro-8 rocket
The customer, is a new satellite company Galaxia, which wants to put up its own constellation.
- Stoke Space announces the first launch of its new completely reusable two-stage Nova rocket is set for 2026
No specific date is set but it appears 2026 is the year.
- The next Cygnus freighter has been named after Columbia STS-107 astronaut Willie McCool
McCool was the pilot on Columbia’s last mission that broke up upon re-entry. The launch is tentatively scheduled for mid-September on a Falcon 9 rocket.
- On this day in 1960 film reconnaissance satellite Discoverer 14 was launched
Its re-entry capsule was successfully recovered, bringing back the first orbital reconnaissance film photographs every produced.
Oh by the way, the FAA has approved the August 24th launch of Starship/Superheavy
Increasingly irrelevant in the right places
My headline reflects the sense of utter irrelevance of the FAA in announcing its approval of the launch licence for the tenth test launch of Starship/Superheavy (now scheduled for August 24, 2025) as well as its “closing” of its “investigation” into the failure during test flight nine.
As per the FAA in its statement, “There are no reports of public injury or damage to public property. The FAA oversaw and accepted the findings of the SpaceX-led investigation. The final mishap report cites the probable root cause for the loss of the Starship vehicle as a failure of a fuel component. SpaceX identified corrective actions to prevent a reoccurrence of the event.”
The FAA did not “oversee” SpaceX’s investigation. No one at the FAA has the slightest qualifications for doing so. All its bureaucrats did is sit in and watch, and when SpaceX’s engineers completed their work and “identified corrective actions,” the FAA paper-pushers pushed some paper to rubber stamp those conclusions.
Moreover, unlike during the Biden administration, the FAA did not waste any time or money retyping the SpaceX investigation. They simply approved it as is, and issued the launch license. And they apparently instantly agreed to the schedule proposed by SpaceX. In fact, it appears almost as if SpaceX announced the date before the FAA announced the license approval.
Elections matter. And they would matter less if we had had the sense in the past century to not cede so much power to an unelected federal bureaucracy that is really unfit to do the work we gave them. The goal now should be to take that power away from them, and to do it as quickly as it is humanely possible.
It appears at least when it comes to FAA launch licenses, Trump has made some significant progress towards this goal.
SpaceX launches 24 more Starlink satellites
SpaceX today successfully placed another 24 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vanenberg in California.
The first stage completed its ninth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
101 SpaceX
46 China
11 Rocket Lab
9 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 101 to 79.