Category: Points of Information

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

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s high resolution camera takes its 100,000 picture

1:54 pm

Oblique view
Click for original image.

Cool image time! On October 7, 2025, the science team that operates HiRISE, the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), took its 100,000th picture since entering Mars orbit in March 2006.

The objective of this observation is to better resolve sand dunes and the rocky material underneath them. These dark, eroded rocks may be the source for some of these Syrtis Major sand dunes. Our image was suggested by a high school student enrolled in the Jefferson County Executive Internship program in Colorado in 2023, one of many public outreach programs the HiRISE Team engages in.

To celebrate this accomplishment and the fantastic geology of the scene, students and staff in the HiRISE Photogrammetry lab constructed this digital terrain model. This oblique image highlights the hummocky mounds of the plains that border Jezero Crater, which are among the oldest on Mars.

That oblique image, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, is to the right. The location is about 50 miles to the southwest of Jezero Crater where the rover Perseverance landed.
» Read more

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Astronomers propose a new explanation for “Bright Blue Outbursts”

1:16 pm

Among the number of quick transient events discovered by the new automated survey telescopes on the ground and in space that have been built in the past two decades are something astronomers have labeled “bright blue outbursts”, bright flashes of blue and ultraviolet light that appear quickly and then fade away, leaving behind X-ray and radio emissions.

There are several theories as to what causes these flashes, but none are accepted whole-heartedly. Now a team of astronomers have looked at one flash and proposed a new theory.

This curious class of objects is known as luminous fast blue optical transients (LFBOTs), and with slightly more than a dozen discovered so far, astronomers have debated whether they are produced by an unusual type of supernova or by interstellar gas falling into a black hole.

Analysis of the brightest LFBOT to-date, named AT 2024wpp and discovered last year, shows that they’re neither. Instead, a team led by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, concluded that they are caused by an extreme tidal disruption, where a black hole of up to 100 times the mass of our Sun completely shreds its massive star companion within days.

… “The sheer amount of radiated energy from these bursts is so large that you can’t power them with a core collapse stellar explosion — or any other type of normal stellar explosion,” says Natalie LeBaron, UC Berkeley graduate student and first author on the paper presenting the Gemini data [1]. “The main message from AT 2024wpp is that the model that we started off with is wrong. It’s definitely not just an exploding star.”

The researchers hypothesize that the intense, high-energy light emitted during this extreme tidal disruption was a consequence of the long parasitic history of the black hole binary system. As they reconstruct this history, the black hole had been sucking material from its companion for a long time, completely enshrouding itself in a halo of material too far from the black hole for it to swallow.

Need I mention that this theory, while better explaining the data, remains unconfirmed and decidedly uncertain.

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France and U.S. militaries complete rendezvous maneuvers in orbit

9:21 am

According to a statement by France’s military, the U.S. and France have successfully completed planned rendezvous maneuvers by two of their satellites in orbit.

These operations also apparently included the United Kingdom.

While the neither the US nor its allies have made public the satellites involved in any of the joint RPOs, the private space tracking firm COMSPOC said Sept. 19 that the maneuvers with the UK involved a US Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) neighborhood watch bird. The GSSAP satellite, USA 271, began moving on Sept. 5 and on Sept. 12 stopped just 13 kilometers (8.1 miles) from the UK’s SKYNET 5A military communications bird, the firm explained.

COMSPOC also watched the Franco-American pas-de-deux, which a company spokesperson told Breaking Defense involved another GSSAP, USA 324, and France’s SYRACUSE 3A. The satellites performed three sets of maneuvers: Nov. 11-14; Nov. 22-23; and Nov. 28-29, according to COMSPOC’s observations. “In all these movements, SYRACUSE 3A seems to lead and USA 324 seems to follow as the maneuvers performed by USA 324 is lagged by a day,” the spokesperson said, with the closest approach being about 25.1 kilometers (15.6 miles). [emphasis mine]

I have highlighted the distances above because these military maneuvers are actually quite unimpressive when compared with similar recent commercial rendezvous and proximity tests in orbit. The just completed Impulse/Starfish test for example got within 1.25 kilometers. And in 2024 Japan’s Astroscale did proximity operations within 50 meters of an old abandoned upper stage.

I suspect the best thing these militaries could do is to stop wasting money trying to do this themselves, and just hire the commercial companies instead. They’d do much better.

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Two launches early today

9:02 am

Both China and the American company ULA successfully completed launches since yesterday.

First, China placed the third satellite in an new Earth observation constellation, its Long March 4B rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China.

Developed by the China Academy of Space Technology, the satellite will join the Ziyuan III 02 and 03 satellites already in orbit to form a high-precision observation constellation. Equipped with a stereoscopic mapping camera, multispectral camera, and laser altimeter, it will capture high-resolution 3D imagery critical for geographic data collection and natural resource management.

It appears however that this constellation is used by China’s military, so I suspect its purposes do not exactly match this description. China’s state-run press also provided no information as to where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

Next, ULA launched another 27 Leo satellites for Amazon, its Atlas-5 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Amazon now has 181 satellites in orbit, with a requirement to get about 1,600 in orbit by July 2026 to meet its FCC license obligations. As it took about eight months to get those first 181 satellites into space (with SpaceX launching 72), Amazon’s three launch providers, ULA (42 launches), Arianespace (18 launches), and Blue Origin (27 launches), will have to ramp up their launch rate significantly to get even close to meeting those obligations in the next six months. There is also a question whether Amazon can manufacture enough satellites at a fast enough pace for those rockets.

As for the rocket, ULA now has only ten Atlas-5 rocket left in stock, with four reserved for Leo launches and six for Boeing’s Starliner manned capsule.

This was also ULA’s sixth launch in 2025. The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

166 SpaceX
84 China (a new record)
16 Rocket Lab
15 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 166 to 138.

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Updates on the status of two Mars missions, Maven and Escapade

7:59 pm

NASA today posted two separate updates on the status of two of its missions to or at Mars.

First, it appears there is an issue with one engine on one of the two Escapade orbiters on their way to their parking orbit where they will await the right moment to head to Mars.

During trajectory correction maneuvers for NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft on Dec. 8 and Dec. 12, the mission operations team noticed low thrust during the burn for one of the spacecraft. The team is working to identify the cause and will attempt a trajectory correction maneuver in the coming weeks.

The other spacecraft has successfully completed its two trajectory correction maneuvers, as planned. Both spacecraft are operating normally otherwise, and currently there are no long-term impacts from the trajectory correction delay.

While not the best news, this issue does not at this moment appear critical.

The second update however was even more negative. It appears engineers have not yet been able to re-establish contact and control of the Mars orbiter Maven.

To date, attempts to reestablish contact with the spacecraft have not been successful. Although no spacecraft telemetry has been received since Dec. 4, the team recovered a brief fragment of tracking data from Dec. 6 as part of an ongoing radio science campaign. Analysis of that signal suggests that the MAVEN spacecraft was rotating in an unexpected manner when it emerged from behind Mars. Further, the frequency of the tracking signal suggests MAVEN’s orbit trajectory may have changed. The team continues to analyze tracking data to understand the most likely scenarios leading to the loss of signal. Efforts to reestablish contact with MAVEN also continue.

It appears the loss of Maven is also impacting communications with the two Mars rovers Curiosity and Perseverance. While NASA has use of three orbiters at present, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and Europe’s Trace Gas Orbiter, to relay data from the ground to Earth, the loss of Maven reduces that communications network by 25%. Engineers are revising plans to make up some of the loss, but operations for both rovers will be for the time being reduced somewhat.

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December 15, 2025 Quick space links

2:50 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.

  • Walk through of the Zhuque-3 landing site & debris field
    Though in Chinese, it provides a very good close look. The stage missed the center of the landing zone by only a bit, and that’s likely because the engines failed. The tweet suggests the next attempt will be in six months.
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An Impulse tug using Starfish equipment has successfully completed autonomous rendezvous maneuvers

9:42 am

Remora rendezvous
Images taken by Starfish’s camera.

A Mira orbital tug built by the startup Impulse Space has successfully completed rendezvous and proximity operations near a previously launched Mira tug, using software and equipment provided by the startup Starfish Space.

The Remora mission marked an industry first: a fully autonomous rendezvous executed by Starfish with a single lightweight camera system and closed-loop guidance, navigation and control software running on a peripheral flight computer.

Starfish and Impulse conducted the mission using Impulse’s Mira spacecraft that was flown on the Impulse LEO Express 2 mission. Starfish’s payloads enabled Mira to perform close-proximity maneuvers with another Impulse Mira spacecraft on orbit, which had been previously used for the LEO Express 1 mission. During operations in LEO, Starfish software autonomously controlled the LEO Express 2 Mira, guiding the satellite through a series of maneuvers which ultimately brought it to within approximately 1,250 meters of the LEO Express 1 Mira.

The significance of this test is its simplicity. Starfish has now demonstrated rendezvous technology that cubesats can use. Previously such precise maneuvers could only be done by larger satellites using more complex equipment. Starfish has orbital tug contracts using its own Otter tug, and will use this technology on those missions.

Impulse meanwhile demonstrated the maneuverability of its own Mira tug. And both companies demonstrated the ability to put this mission together quickly, in about nine months, and then launch it on a SpaceX rocket.

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SpaceX launches another 29 Starlink satellites

9:13 am

SpaceX last night successfully placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 9th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

166 SpaceX (a new record)
83 China
16 Rocket Lab
15 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 166 to 136.

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House joins Senate in proposing a new space bureaucracy here on Earth

11:52 am

Gotta feed those DC pigs!
Gotta feed those DC pigs!

In mid-November a bi-partisan group of senators introduced legislation they claimed would help the U.S. beat China in space by creating a new government agency called the “National Institute for Space Research.”

The absurdity of creating a new agency to do this was obvious. Don’t we already have something called NASA that is tasked with this job? As I noted then, “This is just pork.”

Rather than funding real research or development in space, this legislation simply creates another Washington government agency supposedly functioning independent of presidential or even congressional oversight (a legal structure the courts have increasingly declared unconstitutional).

Well, it appears two congress critters in the House have decided they had to keep up with the Jones in the Senate, and have now introduced their own variation of this legislation.

Yesterday, Congresswoman Valerie Foushee [D-North Carolina], Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, and Congressman Daniel Webster [R-Florida] introduced H.R. 6638, the Space Resources Institute Act, bipartisan legislation which directs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Administrator and the Secretary of Commerce to report to Congress on the merits and feasibility of establishing a dedicated space resources institute relating to space resources, the surface materials, water, and metals often found on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids.

The bill would give NASA 180 days to submit its report.

This is just more junk from Congress that will do nothing but distract NASA from its real business, fostering a new American aerospace industry capable of colonizing the solar system for profit. Note too that like the Senate bill, this House bill is a bi-partisan effort in stupidity.

As I said in reporting on the Senate version of this proposal, “Ugh. There are times I wish I didn’t have to read the news from DC. It almost always depresses me.”

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Software issue forces Russia to delay Proton launch until next year

11:28 am

Because of a software issue detected once the rocket was arrived in Baikonur, Russia has been forced to delay one of its last Proton launches from next week until next year, with the new launch date undetermined.

[O]n Dec. 13, 2025, final checks revealed a problem in the Block DM-03 upper stage which forced to postpone the launch, Roskosmos announced. According to the Zakryty Kosmos Telegram channel, a software issue will require the return of the rocket back to the processing building and the disassembly of the payload section. The potential need to ship the onboard avionics back to the manufacturer would likely push the mission well into 2026.

Proton has largely been retired, though it appears it has some undetermined number of military and government launches left on its manifest. In 2023 there were discussions to restart its assembly line, but nothing since has been announced.

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Components for the first Ariane-6 Amazon’s Leo launch shipped to French Guiana

11:20 am

The components for the first Ariane-6 launch in its 18-launch contract with Amazon are now on their way by boat to French Guiana for a launch earlier in 2026.

Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite network, Amazon Leo, reached another milestone this week as Arianespace’s hybrid industrial cargo ship, Canopée, departed from Bordeaux, France, transporting essential components of the Ariane 6 rocket for its first Amazon mission planned for early next year.

…Canopée’s voyage is supporting Amazon Leo’s inaugural mission on Ariane 64—an Ariane 6 variant featuring four additional boosters for maximum satellite launch capacity. The vessel will transport the rocket’s central core stage, upper stage, and other critical components on a weeks-long journey across the Atlantic to the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Once there, the components will undergo final assembly and integration in preparation for the LE-01 mission.

Though Ariane-6 has successfully launched four times, none of those versions were this most powerful version. The plan is for it to place in orbit 32 Leo satellites, some of which Amazon has already shipped to French Guiana.

Arianespace plans six Ariane-6 launches in 2026, though it is unclear how many of these launches will be for Amazon. Amazon, which has about 154 satellites in orbit, needs to get about 1,450 more launched by July to meet its FCC license obligations. Both ULA and Blue Origin say they will be ramping up their launch pace in 2026 to meet this need, but it remains unclear if all three rocket companies can get the job done on time.

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