Category: Points of Information

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

Starfish gets a second satellite servicing contract from Pentagon

8:42 am

The orbital tug startup Starfish has now won a second major satellite servicing contract from the military to use its Otter tug to either service or de-orbit defunct military satellites.

The first contract, announced in late January, was from the Space Force’s Space Development Agency (SDA) for $52.5 million. Under that deal, Starfish would fly an Otter in 2027 to dock with a satellite and then de-orbit it.

The new contract, announced February 7, 2026, is with the Pentagon’s APFIT program, designed to encourage “innovative technologies”. It is for an additional $54.5 million, and calls for Otter to dock with a satellite in 2028 and service it rather than de-orbit it.

The Otter is designed to autonomously dock with and maneuver national security satellites, maximizing their operational capabilities while supporting SSC’s [Space Systems Command] need for sustained space maneuver. The spacecraft leverages autonomous rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking technology, allowing it to service satellites that were not originally designed for servicing.

As I noted in January when the first de-orbit contract was announced, while a number of contracts have been issued in the U.S., Europe, and Japan to demonstrate de-orbit technology, that was the first operational de-orbit contract. As for servicing, Northrop Grumman has already succeeded several times in prolonging the life of defunct commercial geosynchronous satellites with its Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV).

Starfish’s Otter however has only successfully demonstrated rendezvous and proximity capabilities on two missions, with a third a failure. As for docking, its Otter Pup tug has flown two missions, with the first failing in 2023 when both spacecraft began spinning unexpected. The second mission is presently ongoing, and was supposed to achieve a docking by now. After completing rendezvous maneuvers in September Starfish has provided no new updates. As far as we know, the docking never occurred or was a failure.

These contracts however suggest it has succeeded. Why else would the military suddenly issue more than $100 million in contracts to the company?

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Has Roscosmos gotten its Baikonur Soyuz-2 launchpad fixed already?

8:18 am

According to a short sentence added today at the end of Anatoli Zak’s ongoing report on the damaged Soyuz-2 launchpad in Baikonur, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos has completed repairs on that pad early.

According to rumors from Baikonur, the new service platform was installed at Site 31 by Feb. 10, 2026.

That’s it. No other information. Furthermore, this follows the last report from a Roscosmos official in late January where he said repairing the pad by March was facing difficulties due to winter weather and delays in getting replacement parts.

The launchpad had become unusable following the last launch in November when a platform used to prepare the rocket fell into the pad’s flame trench. It had not been attached properly.

As this report is based on rumors and very limited information, it must be treated with caution.

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Voyager wins four-year $24.5 million ISS management contract from NASA

8:01 am

The space station startup Voyager Technologies yesterday won a four-year $24.5 million contract from NASA to apparently manage the agency’s missions to ISS.

Under the task-order contract, Voyager will deliver end-to-end mission services spanning payload integration, mission operations, safety and compliance, and post-mission closeout. NASA may add options that extend the scope and value of the agreement over its life, providing Voyager with a multi-year framework for recurring mission execution. Voyager anticipates onboarding three payload missions over the next quarter, reflecting near-term demand and a steady pipeline of task orders supporting ongoing ISS operations.

The company has been doing similar ISS work for NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, though this contract appears to expand that work considerably. This deal provides the company further experience operating space station missions, crucial for the Starlab station that Voyager is listed as the consortium’s lead company.

Of the five stations under development, Axiom has run tourist missions to ISS to demonstrate this capability, Vast is launching its own demo single module station to demonstrate this capability, and now Voyager is doing this work for NASA to demonstrate this capability.

Max Space, which only entered this race late last year, has no such contract or experience, but it has recently partnered with Voyager in other work, and plans to launch its own demo station module in ’27.

The last proposed space station, Orbital Reef, has no such deal as far as I know. Led by Blue Origin (partnered with Sierra Space), this station project continues to show no progress of any kind.

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February 9, 2026 Quick space links

2:45 pm

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.

  • Musk: SpaceX has for the moment shifted focus from Mars to the Moon
    This really isn’t that big a news story. SpaceX’s contracts to land NASA astronauts on the Moon using Starship was going to force the company to do a lot of Moon work. That work is also great for developing the engineering needed by the Mars colony to follow. Even if Musk didn’t declare this change it would have happened naturally.
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How Saturn’s moon Enceladus causes an aurora on Saturn

9:38 am

Enceladus orbiting Saturn
Click for original image.

Using data collected by the orbiter Cassini while it orbited Saturn more than a decade ago, scientists now think they have mapped out how the moon Enceladus interacts with Saturn’s magnetic field and helps create an aurora in Saturn’s polar regions.

You can read the paper here. The artist rendering to the right comes from the press release, and shows that interaction. From that release:

The study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, shows how wave structures, known as ‘Alfvén wings’, travel like vibrations on a string along magnetic field lines connecting Enceladus to Saturn’s pole. The initial ‘main’ Alfvén wing is reflected back-and-forth both by Saturn’s ionosphere and the plasma torus that encircles Enceladus’s orbit, resulting complex and structured system. By using a multi-instrumental approach, researchers were able to show that the influence of Enceladus extends over a record distance of over 504,000 km – more than 2,000 times the moon’s radius.

…As well as the large-scale structures, the team found evidence that turbulence teases out the waves into filaments within the main Alfvén wing. This fine-scale structure helps the waves bounce off Enceladus’s plasma torus and reach the high-latitudes in Saturn’s ionosphere where auroral features associated with the moon form.

The white haze below Enceladus in the graphic represents the material that comes out of the “tiger stripe” fractures near its south pole.

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A lava tube on Venus?

9:18 am

Theorized lava tube on Venus

The uncertainty of science: Scientists in Italy have reanalyzed the radar data of Venus by the Magellan orbiter from 1990 to 1992 and concluded that at least one open pit on the side of a shield volcano might be the entrance to a underground lava tube.

You can read their paper here [pdf]. The graphic above comes from figures 2 and 3 of their paper, with the radar image of the pit to the right, and the cartoon to the left their interpretation of that radar data. From the abstract:

Between 1990 and 1992, the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instrument on board the Magellan spacecraft mapped the Venusian surface. By leveraging a SAR imaging technique developed for detecting and characterizing accessible subsurface conduits in the proximity of skylights, we analysed
the Magellan radar images in locations where there is evidence of localized surface collapses. Our analyses reveal the existence of a large and open subsurface conduit in the Nyx Mons region. This feature is hypothesized to be a pyroduct, characterized by a diameter of about 1 km, a roof thickness of at least 150 m and an empty void height of no less than 375 m. The conduit extends in the subsurface for at least 300 meters from the skylight.

To strengthen their conclusions, which are based on a LOT of assumptions, the scientists also compared this radar data with radar data taken of similar-sized lava tube skylights on Earth.

Their conclusion is reasonable, as Venus is a planet of volcanoes, with more than a million detected in radar data. Lava tubes should exist. Nonetheless, their interpretation of the radar data is very uncertain, and must be viewed with a great deal of skepticism.

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FAKE Chandrayaan-2 images of the Apollo 11 and 12 landing sites

8:30 am

Chandrayaan-2 images of Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 landing sites

The pictures to the right are fake, as are the two stories I had linked to in the now crossed-out post below. Both stories included pictures of the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 landing sites that were fake and did not match the actual pictures taken earlier by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

I seem to remember that Chandrayaan-2 had taken pictures of these Apollo landing sites, but I have not been able to find those originals. Either way, the stories below as well as the pictures to the right are fake, and for that reason I have deleted the links to both.

For reasons I don’t understand, two different news outlets in the past two days decided to highlight the 2021 images taken by India’s Chandrayaan-2 lunar orbiter of the Apollo 11 and 12 landing sites, with both outlets claiming these pictures provided third-party verification that those manned lunar landings actually happened.

Those pictures are to the right. They aren’t new, but they are so good I decided they were cool enough to post again.

As for proving the lunar landing happened, that is pure anti-American silliness, sadly too often pushed by ignorant Americans. They should be ashamed. The Apollo landings were possibly the greatest single achievement Americans have ever accomplished. And if not the greatest, the landings rank near the top, and above all they certainly were among our noblest achievement.

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NASA provides update on Artemis-2 repairs for future dress rehearsal countdown

8:01 am

NASA late last night posted an update describing the fuel leak repair work taking place in advance of a second dress rehearsal countdown prior to the launch of the manned ten-day Artemis-2 mission around the Moon.

While teams continue evaluating the cause of the leak, reconnecting the interfaces is expected to be complete on Monday, Feb. 9. Testing is planned to occur at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, to evaluate additional dynamics of the plates. Engineers are reviewing options to test the repair work prior to the next wet dress rehearsal to ensure the seals are performing as expected.

NASA also will update several operations for the next wet dress rehearsal to focus on fueling activities. The Orion crew module hatch will be closed prior to the test, and the closeout crew responsible on launch day for assisting the Artemis II crew into their seats and closing Orion’s two hatches will not be deployed to the launch pad. The crew access arm will not be retracted during the next rehearsal, after engineers successfully demonstrated the ground launch sequencer can retract it during the final phase of the countdown.

Additionally, NASA has added 30 minutes of extra time during each of two planned holds in the countdown before and after tanking operations to allow more time for troubleshooting, increasing the total time of the countdown by one hour. The additional time will not affect the crew’s timeline on launch day.

In other words, the next rehearsal will focus almost entirely on fueling to make sure these issues are resolved.

The agency however has not set a date for that countdown rehearsal. To launch in March, as presently planned, it must occur sometime in the next three weeks, and go perfectly. Otherwise that launch will slip again, and begin to bump up against the end of the launch window on April 6th.

Right now I am betting that second rehearsal will not go perfectly, as this was SLS’s track record leading up to November 2022 first launch. It took five countdowns before the agency was able to get the rocket off the ground without issues.

And if it does go perfectly and Artemis-2 is launched manned, it is essential to note again that it will be flying a manned capsule with a questionable heat shield and an untested life support system.

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China and SpaceX complete launches

2:04 pm

The pause in launches in the past week has now ceased, completely for SpaceX and partly for China.

Yesterday China completed its first launch in more than a week and only its second since it had two launch failures on January 17, 2026. It successfully launched its Shenlong X-37B copycat mini-reusable shuttle on its fourth mission, its Long March 2F rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

No word on how long Shenlong will remain in orbit. All China’s state-run press would reveal is that it is performing “technological verification” in orbit. That state-run press also said nothing about where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

SpaceX today resumed launches after its own weeklong pause, caused as the company investigated why the upper stage on the February 2nd launch did not complete its de-orbit burn as planned. The company has released no information on the results of that investigation, but apparently it was satisfied with the results to resume launches. It successfully placed 25 more Starlink satellites in orbit today, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 13th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The 2026 launch race:

15 SpaceX
7 China
2 Rocket Lab
1 Russia

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Isaacman issues directive to shift power back to NASA and away from private sector

11:51 am

Jared Isaacman, in announcing this directive
Jared Isaacman, in announcing this directive

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman yesterday issued a major three-part directive which he claimed would save more than a billion dollars at NASA while allowing the agency to “regain its core competencies in technical, engineering, and operational excellence”.

The plan could actually backfire, however, as it appears to shift power and control back to NASA and away from private sector.

First, Isaacman wants to eliminate much of the outside contracting NASA now relies on, bringing that work back into the agency itself. Second, he wants eliminate “restrictive clauses that prevent us from doing our own work and addressing intellectual property barriers that have tied our hands.” Third, he wants to “restore in-house engineering,” having more work done by NASA engineers instead of depending on outside contractors.

To some extent, there is value in all these changes, because in many cases NASA employees use the policy of using contractors to outsource their entire work load, so they can sit and do practically nothing.

Overall however this directive could very well squelch the present renaissance in commercial space, because it will put NASA much more in control of everything. Rather than simply being a customer buying the products built and owned by the private sector (ie, the American people) — the capitalism model — the directive demands that NASA run things, the centralized Soviet-style top-down government model.

This aspect is best illustrated by the second part of his directive. Many contractors, such as SpaceX, do not wish to reveal everything about their product designs to NASA, because then it becomes public and can be stolen by their competitors. By requiring companies to release all proprietary data, those companies will no longer own that data, and thus will no longer be as easily able to benefit from its development. This will discourage private investment. It will also once again centralize development at NASA. Rather than getting multiple ideas and innovation from multiple companies, everything will funnel into the ideas NASA managers and engineers come up with.

Isaacman has come to this directive after spending his first two months as administrator delving into how the agency is operating. But he has gotten the solution entirely backwards. Rather than centralize and expand the work done inside NASA, thus justifying its large workforce that Isaacman has found isn’t doing much, wouldn’t it be better to simply eliminate those government jobs entirely? Trim NASA down to its essentials, and let the American people, not the government, come up with what they need and want in space.

Isaacman is not doing this however. Instead, he is apparently working to rebuild the NASA empire, so that it can once again design all, own all, and control all. That was how things were during the shuttle era, and the result was that for almost a half century, America went nowhere in space.

My doubts and concerns about Isaacman and his priorities, which started during his first nomination hearings, have only increased. Despite being a man who made billions in the free private sector, he increasingly appears to be someone eager to build a government empire to laud over everyone.

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India picks landing site for its Chandrayaan-4 lunar sample return mission

10:22 am

Landing sites at the Moon's South Pole

Scientists at India’s space agency ISRO have now picked [pdf] a preliminary landing site for its planned Chandrayaan-4 lunar sample return mission, scheduled to launch in 2028.

[Four] sites of Mons Mouton area was fully characterised with respect to terrain characteristics using high resolution OHRC multiview image datasets and it was found that 1km x 1km area around MM-4 (-84.289, 32.808) contains the less hazard percentage, mean slope of 5°, Mean height of 5334m and most number of hazard free grids of size 24m x 24m. Hence MM-4 can be considered for the potential site of Chandrayaan-4 mission.

The study area of all four sites is indicated on the map to the right by the red dot labeled “Chandrayaan-4”. This mountain, Mons Mouton, is essentially a flat plateau between the numerous craters in the south pole region (many with permanently shadowed craters). Intuitive Machines second lander, Athena, attempted a landing there last year, and tipped over, as did that company’s first lander, Odysseus, both indicated in green. Astrobotic’s Griffin lander (yellow) is targeting this mountain also, hopefully to launch later this year.

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February 6, 2026 Quick space links

2:54 pm

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.

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One of Cassini’s first close-up images of Saturn’s rings

12:48 pm

The rings of Saturn
Click for original image.

Cool image time! My exploration of the Cassini image archive continues. The picture to the right, reduced and enhanced to post here, was taken on May 2, 2005 by Cassini soon after it moved into a close orbit of Saturn where it could get high resolution images of Saturn’s rings. This is one of the first.

This is also a raw image that has not been calibrated or validated, to use the science team’s terms. Thus, the white dots scattered across the image could be artifacts that need to be cleaned up, not examples of Saturn’s many moons.

Regardless, the image illustrates the incredible delicacy of these rings, despite the fact that they are gigantic, spanning almost 45,000 miles in width, with a thickness ranging from 30 to 1,000 feet. And yet, there are so many distinct rings they almost resemble an old-fashioned vinyl record.

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A new American satellite constellation gets FCC approval

9:57 am

The satellite startup Logos has won approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for its proposed 4,178 satellite internet constellation.

The Federal Communications Commission partially granted the Redwood City, California-based venture’s constellation proposal Jan. 30, clearing operations in K-, Q- and V-band spectrum under certain conditions while deferring and denying parts of its higher-frequency requests. The satellites would operate across seven orbital shells ranging from 870 kilometers to 925 kilometers above Earth, with inclinations spanning 28 to 90 degrees.

Under FCC rules, Logos must deploy and operate half of the constellation within seven years, with the remainder in place by Jan. 30, 2035.

The company last year raised $50 million in private investment capital, and hopes to launch its first satellite by 2027.

It seems this constellation is coming to the game very late.

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Has the FAA officially approved Starship launches for Kennedy Space Center in Florida?

9:13 am

Proposed Starship/Superheavy launchsites at Kennedy and Cape Canaveral
Proposed Starship/Superheavy launchsites at
Kennedy (LC-39A) and Cape Canaveral (SLC-37)

It appears that though the FAA’s preliminary summary that it issued on January 30, 2026 only suggested it was leaning to approve Starship/Superheavy launches at SpaceX’s LC-39A launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, it now appears that SpaceX is treating it as an official approval, and has begun work re-configuring LC-39A from the launchpad used for manned Falcon 9 launches to a facility for launching both Falcon Heavy and Starship/Superheavy.

The launch pad has seen a pause in action due to SpaceX working to finalize the Starship tower and launch pad on the site. Then on Wednesday, Feb. 4, a crane appeared next to the Falcon 9 launch tower, attaching to the crew access arm.

“For our manifest going forward, we’re planning to launch most of our Falcon 9 launches off of Space Launch Complex 40. That will include all Dragon missions going forward,” said Lee Echerd, senior mission manager of Human Spaceflight Mission Management at SpaceX during the Crew-12 prelaunch press briefing. “That will allow our Cape team to focus 39A on Falcon Heavy launches and hopefully our first Starship launches later this year.”

This Space News article today claims the FAA has issued a final approval for Starship/Superheavy at LC-39A, but it links to that preliminary summary from January 30th, which as far as I can tell is still preliminary and does not include an official approval.

Not that it matters. The FAA appears quite prepared to okay Starship/Superheavy launches at LC-39A, and it now appears SpaceX is proceeding under that assumption.

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Russia launches classified nine satellites

8:46 am

Russia yesterday successfully placed nine classified military satellites into orbit, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northeast Russia.

The rocket’s flight path took it over the Arctic, where all its lower stages fell harmlessly. As for the satellites:

Based on these orbital parameters, it appeared that upon forming its initial near-circular orbit at an altitude just below 330 kilometers, the Fregat released one (main) payload (Object 2026-023A). The space tug then maneuvered to a near 500-kilometer orbit, where it released the rest of its passengers (Objects B, C, D, E, F, G, H and J).

The 2026 launch race:

14 SpaceX
6 China
2 Rocket Lab
1 Russia

Launches in the past week have dropped practically to zero, for what appear to be technical and political reasons. SpaceX has paused launches as it investigates why the upper stage on its last launch on February 2, 2025 did not correctly do its de-orbit burn. China meanwhile seems to have partly done the same after losing two rockets in launches in mid-January, a Long March 3B and the Ceres-2. There have been no launches of its workhorse Long March 3B rocket since then, while the Ceres-2 launch was that rocket’s maiden flight for the pseudo-company Galactic Energy. Since then there have been no launches by any of China’s pseudo-companies. It could be the new government agency in charge of all these fake companies has imposed its will and paused them all while the Ceres-2 failure is investigated.

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Voyager Technologies and Max Space team up to develop inflatable planetary structures

8:01 am

The station designs as of the end of 2025
The station designs as of the end of 2025

The space station startups Voyager Technologies, which is leading the consortium developing Starlab, and Max Space, which is developing its own inflatable Thunderbird station, have now partnered to use their combined talents to develop inflatable planetary structures for habitation and cargo.

In terms of their space stations, they are similar but different. Voyager’s Starlab station will be a single giant module launched on Starship. The consortium building this module had hired the interior decoration company Journey to design the interior, and yesterday showed off a mock-up of that interior.

Max Space’s Thunderbird is an equally large single module but because it uses inflatable technology it will launch on a Falcon 9. The company plans to launch a smaller demo module in ’27 to prove this technology.

Both companies will now use their skills together to begin design work on inflatable habitats that both NASA and SpaceX could use on the planned lunar and Mars colonies.

The phased development path includes ground validation and in-space demonstrations later this decade, with the goal of enabling operational lunar and Mars capabilities aligned with NASA’s exploration timelines. The partnership emphasizes early risk retirement, interoperability and commercial scalability as guiding principles.

In other words, these companies are expanding their business model to sell their products across a wider range of uses. This deal does not change my rankings of the five space stations currently under development, as shown below, but it is an interesting data point that suggests the technology of these space stations can be marketed in many other space-related areas.
» Read more

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Pluto’s implausible atmosphere, as seen in 2015 by New Horizons

2:07 pm

Pluto's implausible atmosphere
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on July 14, 2015 by the camera on the New Horizons probe as it flew past Pluto, the only time a human craft has gotten close to this distant planet. From the link:

These high phase angle images show many artifacts associated with scattered sunlight; the Sun was less then 15 degrees from the center of the LORRI frame for these observations. But the outline of Pluto and its hazy atmosphere are also visible.

To see the atmosphere the light from the planet itself has been blocked out.

What is implausible about Pluto’s atmosphere is the location of the planet, about 3.7 billion miles from the Sun, out in the nether reaches of the solar system. At that distance sunlight is very weak, and produces very little energy. And yet, there is enough energy here to produce an atmosphere of mostly nitrogen gas, with trace amounts of metane and carbon monoxide. Scientists think this atmosphere only exists when Pluto is closer to the Sun in its somewhat oblong orbit, and freezes out the rest of the time. As Pluto was just retreating in 2015 from that closest approach in the last two decades of the 20th century, New Horizons could detect its presence.

But then, we really can’t be sure if this atmosphere truly vanishes when the planet is farthest from the Sun, as we have only so far observed 96 years in Pluto’s 248-year orbit.

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French startup The Exploration Company completes first splashdown tests of Nyx capsule prototype

9:31 am

The French cargo capsule startup, The Exploration Company, has successfully completed the first splashdown tests of a smallscate prototype model of its proposed Nyx capsule.

On 5 February, The Exploration Company announced that it had successfully completed a splashdown test campaign at the National Research Council’s Institute of Marine Engineering (CNR-INM) in Rome.

A 1:4-scale mockup of Nyx, with a mass of around 135 kilograms, was built for the test campaign by Poli Model, a small Turin-based model builder. For reference, the full-scale capsule will be 4 metres wide and stand at 7 metres tall. The subscale model’s exterior was fitted with pressure sensors, accelerometers, and a gyroscope.

The tests were conducted in the CNR-INM facility’s Umberto Pugliese towing tank, a 470-metre-long pool measuring 13.5 metres across and 6.5 metres deep. Between 13 and 28 January, a total of 20 drops were conducted at varying heights and speeds in calm water, which the company explained maximised repeatability.

The company hopes to fly a fullscale demo mission to ISS in 2028, and wants to upgrade Nyx to manned capabilities in the 2030s.

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Israeli weather satellite startup raises $175 million in investment capital

9:17 am

An Israeli weather satellite startup, dubbed Tomorrow.io, has now raised $175 million in investment capital to build an AI-driven constellation of satellites to supplement the smallsat constellation it has already launched.

This financing builds on a proven foundation of execution. Tomorrow.io has completed the full deployment of its first satellite constellation, having launched 13 satellites to space, achieving 60-minute global revisit, while scaling an AI-driven intelligence platform now embedded across critical industries. DeepSky extends this foundation into the next phase of the company’s roadmap, supporting continued commercial growth, expanding data coverage, and unlocking new high-frequency sensing capabilities.

I find amusing this new desire to label all computer programming “AI”, when in many cases it is simply the same software slightly upgraded that these companies have been using for years.

Nonetheless, this story signals the continuing transition in the weather satellite industry from the government/Soviet-style model, where all weather satellites are built and operated by governments, to the capitalism model, where governments and industry buy weather data from privately built, launched, and maintained commercial constellations.

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Astronomers use SphereX infrared space telescope to study interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas

8:32 am

False color images of SphereX infrared data
False color images of SphereX infrared data.
Click for original.

Using NASA’s SphereX infrared space telescope, astronomers have now detected a range of new molecules in the coma surround interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas as that coma brightened and grew in December 2025 following the comet’s closest approach to the Sun in the fall.

You can read the research paper here. From the press release:

In a new research note, mission scientists describe the detection of organic molecules, such as methanol, cyanide, and methane. On Earth, organic molecules are the foundation for biological processes but can be created by non-biological processes as well. The researchers also note a dramatic increase in brightness two months after the icy body had passed its closest distance to the Sun, a phenomenon associated with comets as they vent water, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide into space.

In every way this interstellar object continues to behave like an ordinary comet, which is actually quite profound. It tells us the rest of the universe is not that different than our solar system.

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German rocket startup Isar Aerospace opens new rocket testing facility at Esrange spaceport

8:03 am

Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe
Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe

Though the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace is using Norway’s Andoya spaceport to launch its Spectrum rocket, it is now expanding significantly its testing facilities at Sweden’s Esrange spaceport to the east.

European space company Isar Aerospace is significantly expanding their testing operations with SSC Space at Esrange Space Center in Sweden, opening a second test site to support the development and production of its ‘Spectrum’ rocket. The new facility will enable testing of 30+ engines per month, along with expanded integrated stage testing capabilities, increasing testing capacity and enabling faster development.

Launching from Esrange is a problem because of its interior location, but testing engines there, close to Germany and the Andoya spaceport makes great sense.

Isar had hoped to make its second attempt to complete the first orbital launch of Spectrum in January, but postponed the launch until March to deal with a valve issue.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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SpaceX wants revisions to federal rural grant program that has awarded it $733 million

4:05 pm

SpaceX is presently asking for changes in the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program that awards grants to companies that provide internet in rural areas and has already awarded the company $733 million in grants.

BEAD was part of the Biden administration’s bipartisan infrastructure act – originally a $42 billion program to bring broadband internet to areas of the country with little or no broadband access. The Trump administration eliminated other infrastructure act programs, and cut BEAD outlays to $21 billion, along with rule changes to allow satellite providers.

SpaceX applied for BEAD funds in 2025. The company won $733 million worth of BEAD projects nationwide, including $109 million in Texas.

Initially the Biden administration awarded SpaceX almost a billion dollar grant, because its Starlink constellation was the only broadband outlet actually doing the job. Then Musk began to campaign for Republicans, and suddenly the Biden administration pulled that grant, saying absurdly that SpaceX was failing to provide its service to rural areas, when that was exactly what it was doing.

Now SpaceX wants BEAD to ease some of its requirements, and wants these grant funds upfront.

I say, this whole BEAD program is a waste of taxpayer money and a perfect example of crony capitalism. I’m glad Trump cut it in half, but that wasn’t good enough. It should be shut down entirely. SpaceX doesn’t need this handout. It is making money hand-over-fist on its own.

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February 4, 2026 Quick space links

2:58 pm

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.

24 comments

One of Saturn’s many weird moons

11:47 am

Saturn's moon Atlas
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on April 13, 2017 by the orbiter Cassini as it began it last close loops around Saturn before diving into its atmosphere to burn up.

Those close loops allowed it to get good close-up images of a few of the tiny moons that orbit in or close to the gas giant’s rings. On the right is one of those pictures, of the moon Atlas, taken from a distance of about 10,000 miles.

The moon’s weird ravioli shape is thought to be caused by the accretion of dust and ice from the nearby rings along Atlas’s equator.

Scientists also found the moon surfaces to be highly porous, further confirming that they were formed in multiple stages as ring material settled onto denser cores that might be remnants of a larger object that broke apart. The porosity also helps explain their shape: Rather than being spherical, they are blobby and ravioli-like, with material stuck around their equators. “We found these moons are scooping up particles of ice and dust from the rings to form the little skirts around their equators,” Buratti said. “A denser body would be more ball-shaped because gravity would pull the material in.”

Atlas itself is about 25 miles wide and about 11.5 miles thick, at its thickest point. I suspect if you tried to walk on it you would sink into the accumulated dust and ice, as it is likely no more dense as newly fallen snow.

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A nice summary of all space-based research of reproduction in space

10:12 am

Regulatory recommendations by these scientists
Click for original.

Link here to the press release. The paper itself can be read here.

The paper is an excellent summary of practically all the research that has been done in space and on the ground studying the impact of the harsh environment of space on reproduction. It notes above all that we really know very little despite this research, because the risks to the newborn have precluded direct study. From the paper’s abstract:

Despite over 65 years of human spaceflight activities, little is known of the impact of the space environment on the human reproductive systems during long-duration missions. Extended time in space poses potential hazards to the reproductive function of female and male astronauts, including exposure to cosmic radiation, altered gravity, psychological and physical stress, and disruption to circadian rhythm.

This review encapsulates current understanding of the effects of spaceflight on reproductive physiology, incorporating findings from animal studies, a recent experiment on sperm motility, and omics-based insights from astronaut physiology. Female reproductive systems appear to be especially vulnerable, with implications for oogenesis and embryonic development in microgravity. Male reproductive function reveals compromised DNA integrity, even when motility appears to be preserved. This review examines the limited embryogenesis studies in space, which show frequent abnormal cell division and impaired development in rodents.

In the paper’s conclusion, these academics sadly revert to type, and propose the establishment of an international regulatory framework for controlling this issue, as shown in the graphic to the right. This is empty foolishness, because such regulations will only do more harm than good, stifling research while failing to accomplish anything.

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Commercial changes at France’s French Guiana spaceport

9:41 am

French Guiana spaceport
The French Guiana spaceport. The Diamant launchsite is labeled “B.”
Click for full resolution image. (Note: The Ariane-5 pad is now the
Ariane-6 pad.)

Once France’s space agency CNES regained control of its spaceport in French Guiana several years ago from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) commercial pseudo-company Arianespace, it has moved aggressively to make that spaceport attractive to the new European rocket startups.

Beginning in 2022, it began to sign deals with every one of those rocket startups to allow them to establish launch facilities at the spaceport using several long abandoned pads, including the French Diamant rocket site not used for decades as well as the Soyuz launch site unused due to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

CNES decided to standardize Diamant for multiple rocket companies, while leasing the Soyuz site to one.

In a news story today, it appears the startup MaiaSpace, a wholly owned subsidiary of the much larger aerospace company ArianeGroupk, has shifted its launch plans at French Guiana. Initially it was going to launch its rocket from the Diamant pad. In 2024 however it won the contract to use the Soyuz pad, and it has now withdrawn its plans to use Diamant entirely.

CNES has therefore put out a call to the European rocket industry to fill this slot at Diamant. At present Isar Aerospace, PLD Space, Rocket Factory Augsburg, and Latitude have agreements to use Diamant, though only Latitude and PLD had done any development work on their facilities there.

As far as I know, these companies comprise the entire cadre of new European rocket startups, so I don’t know what other users CNES hopes to find. Furthermore, CNES had wanted to standardize the launch site for everyone, and the companies had balked at that idea. PLD got a deal to use its own pad at Diamant. I suspect the reason Isar and Rocket Factory have done little there is because they want their own facilities as well.

Either way, French Guiana is moving the direction of supporting competitive commercial operations, and that is a very good thing.

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February 3, 2026 Quick space links

2:47 pm

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.

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