China launches another 18 Qianfan internet satellites

12:55 pm

China today successfully launched 18 more Qianfan internet satellites (also called SpaceSail), its Long March 8 rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport.

Though China’s state run press did not reveal the number of satellites launched, other sources said the rocket placed 18 satellites into orbit. If so, there are now 173 Qianfan satellites in space, out of a planned constellation of as many as 12,000. The first phase of the constellation however only requires 648, which China hopes to reach before the end of the year.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

57 SpaceX
28 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 57 to 49.

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Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

SpaceX launches cargo Dragon to ISS

3:11 pm

SpaceX today launched an unmanned Dragon freighter to ISS, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first stage completed its 6th flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. The capsule is also making its sixth flight to ISS, and will dock with the station at 7 am (Eastern) on May 17, 2026.

57 SpaceX
27 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 57 to 48.

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Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

May 15, 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.

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The barren hills west of Jezero Crater

10:56 am

The barren Martian hills west of Jezero Crater
Click for full panorama.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above, cropped and reduced to post here, was created on April 5, 2026 using 46 pictures taken by one of the high resolution camera’s on the Mars rover Perseverance. It also attempts to show this terrain in natural color.

The blue dot on the overview map to the right marks Perseverance’s present location. The green dot indicates where I think the rover was when the panorama was taken. (Note: I think the press release incorrectly lists the Sol number for these dates, but as I am not sure I can only guess.) The yellow lines indicate approximately the terrain seen in the full panorama.

As the press release notes, “the panorama offers one of the richest geological vistas of the rover’s mission, revealing a windswept landscape of diverse rock textures.” It also appears this is the direction the rover is presently headed.

I ask my readers to once again look at this panorama. It shows an utterly barren terrain. There is no life here, and if there ever was it was gone billions of years ago and never did much to shape the landscape. While some at NASA and in the planetary community like to tout the possibility of life on Mars in order to lobby for funding, the reality we see says there is none, and that life will only appear on Mars when humans finally arrive there to build new human societies.

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Leaving Earth cover

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

Intuitive Machines buys British ground station company

9:22 am

The lunar lander startup Intuitive Machines is now in the process of buying the British ground station company that operates antennas used for deep space communications in both Britain and the U.S.

Intuitive Machines announced May 14 that it entered into an agreement to acquire Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd. and its American subsidiary, Comsat. Intuitive Machines will pay 37 million pounds ($49.6 million) for Goonhilly, split equally between cash and stock, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter pending regulatory approvals in the U.S. and U.K.

Goonhilly operates a ground station in Cornwall, England, that includes 30- and 32-meter antennas that have been used for lunar and deep-space communications. Through Comsat, it operates teleports in Southbury, Connecticut, and Santa Paula, California, that have dozens of antennas.

This antenna deal gives the company added flexibility in its future lunar missions. It also gives it a capability it can sell to both the European Space Agency as well as NASA. NASA for example is looking to accelerate in the next few years the number of unmanned lunar landers it will buy from the commercial sector. It also is looking for commercial options to improve its communications capabilities for those missions. Intuitive Machines is now better placed to compete for this work.

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Northrop Grumman completes successful test of new nozzle for its solid-fueled boosters

9:13 am

Unexpected debris falling from rocket at about T-1:00
Nozzle failure during February 12, 2026 Vulcan launch

Northrop Grumman on April 15, 2026 successfully completed a test of a new nozzle design of a GEM solid-fueled booster, the strap-on booster whose nozzle failed on two previous ULA Vulcan rocket launches.

On April 15, the company said Northrop Grumman performed a successful static fire test of a Graphite Epoxy Motor (GEM) 63XL Solid Rocket Booster (SRB). A spokesperson told Spaceflight Now on Thursday that the test served to “demonstrate nozzle design enhancements which were already in work and an advanced propellant technology for future solid rocket motors across their portfolio.”

“The information gathered from this test, along with findings from the investigations will provide critical data to validate analytical models and support Vulcan’s return to flight,” the spokesperson said.

At the moment the Pentagon has grounded all Vulcan launches because of this nozzle issue, and has given several planned Vulcan payloads to SpaceX instead. ULA hopes to resume normal Vulcan flights using GEM boosters before the end of the year, but it also hopes to launch Vulcan sooner without the boosters. It is right now preparing a boosterless Vulcan to do a launch for Amazon, placing an as yet undetermined number of Leo satellites into orbit. It is also possible it will do the same with AST SpaceMobile’s Bluebird satellites.

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Virgin Galactic releases ’26 first quarter financials; stock at new low under $3

8:53 am

The suborbital tourist company Virgin Galactic, that promised much over two decades and delivered little, this week released its ’26 first quarter financial statement, claiming its situation is “strong” with the completion of its “new SpaceShips”.

Two details however contradict this conclusion. First, revenue in the quarter were only $200K, down from $500K earned in the first quarter of 2025. Second, the company’s stock is now trading at under $3 per share, a far cry from the high of $62, when Richard Branson sold the bulk of his holdings and got out when the getting was good. It is also a quarter of the stock’s initial value when first issued in 2019.

The company hopes to resume flights with these new spacecraft later this year, but whether there is any substantial interest in suborbital tourism remains unknown.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

6 comments

China launches five classified satellites

8:39 am

China today successfully placed five classified satellites into orbit, its Kinetica-1 rocket (also called Lijian-1) lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

No word from China’s state-run press where the rocket’s lower stages crashed. The rocket itself is built by pseudo-company CAS Space, which is wholly controlled by a government agency.The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

56 SpaceX
27 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 56 to 48.

SpaceX scrubbed a Starlink launch this morning, rescheduling it to tomorrow. It also hopes to launch a cargo Dragon to ISS this afternoon, a launch that has twice in the past week been scrubbed due to weather.

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May 14, 2026 Quick space links

2:44 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.

  • Video of the launch of Venera 10 on May 14, 1975
    The lander operated for 65 minutes on the surface of Venus, taking the second picture ever of that surface. It worked in conjunction with Venera-9, which launched a week earlier and took the first picture ever of Venus’s surface.
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