Foggy Mountain Spaceship – Riders On The Storm
An evening pause: A most interesting cover of the song by The Doors, using new technology. It appears that strange instrument is called a BanjoSynth.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
June 9, 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.
- NASA still uncertain about next Starliner test flight
The agency still doesn’t know if the next flight will be manned or cargo, and is still aiming for a launch in early ’26. Nothing has changed still its last statement at the end of March.
- Analysis of status of ULA’s Vulcan rocket suggests launch cadence in 2nd half of 2025 will be robust, possibly 2x per month
Only the first half of the video has new information. The company says it has 15 rockets in storage ready to fly, and customers screaming for them to get off the ground. We shall see.
- NASA releases image by Mars Odyssey of the giant Martian volcano Arsia Mons
The image is cool, looking at the volcano obliquely as it peeks up through a layer of clouds
- On this day in 1988 astronomers using the Kuiper Airborne Observatory made the first direct observation of Pluto’s atmosphere
That atmosphere comes and goes depending on where Pluto is in its 250-year-long year, orbiting the Sun in a relatively eccentric orbit.
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
The happiest cat I’ve ever known
Misty sleeping in her own unique way.
Last week we had one of those heart-wrenching experiences that no one should ever have. When we woke up on Friday morning we could not find our youngest cat, Misty, anywhere. We searched the house, the yard, checked under and in the shed, walked the grounds around the fenced area endlessly, even walked along a nearby wash.
Misty was nowhere. We immediately passed out notices to all our neighbors as well as listed her as missing on a number of websites that specialize in listing unidentified found pets. All to no avail. As of today there is still no evidence of her anywhere. We have mostly decided that a predator of some kind, a coyote or large bird, somehow got into the yard (protected by a very high fence) and snatched her.
She was only two and a half years old. Her loss is quite painful.
What makes it worse is that she was undoubtedly the happiest cat I have ever known. We originally got her as a kitten in 2022 to be a companion for our other cat, Molly, as well as for ourselves. We had adopted Molly and Emma together in 2013, but Emma had died prematurely in 2021 from kidney failure. We found Molly pining for companionship, and thus went out to find her a kitten.
Misty was part of a litter of six that a woman who lived near us was fostering. We struggled to pick one, but it was Diane who made the decision. “Let’s get the tabby.” Diane then named her Misty.
» Read more
The dusky mountains of Mars
Click for high resolution. For the original images, go here, here, and here.
Click for interactive map.
Cool image time! The panorama above, created from three images taken on June 7, 2025 (here, here, and here) by the high resolution camera on top of the Mars rover Curiosity, looks south and uphill into the Gediz Vallis canyon that the rover had been traveling previously.
The overview map to the right provides context. The blue dot Curiosity’s present position, where it is about to begin a drilling campaign into the first boxwork structures the rover has reached. The white dotted line marks its past travels, while the green dotted line its planned future route. The red dotted line marks a planned route that has been abandoned.
The yellow lines indicate approximately the area covered by the panorama. Because this used the rover’s high resolution camera, the view gives us a detailed look at the mountains on the distant horizon. Though we are looking uphill, the peaks in the distance are merely higher ridges and hills on the flanks of Mount Sharp. The mountain’s peak is out of view, about 25 miles away and about 15,000 feet higher up.
Note the dusty and what appears to be a softened nature of the terrain on these higher peaks. Since entering the foothills of Mount Sharp several years ago, the surface has been extremely rocky and rough, every inch covered in boulders of all sizes. This distant view suggests the ground might become easier to traverse at those higher altitudes. It also appears there will be a lot more dust, coating everything.
The lighting I think is close to natural. Because Mars is farther from the Sun, it doesn’t get as much light. Even during mid-day the light to our Earth-borne eyes would more resemble dusk on Earth.
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.
Axiom charges $70 million per ticket to fly to ISS
Axiom’s assembly sequence for its planned station, initially attached to ISS but subsequently detached
According to this article today about Axiom’s tourist flights to ISS, the company now charges $70 million per ticket, which means that for the AX-4 flight scheduled for launch tomorrow, the revenues from India, Poland, and Hungary total about $210 million.
That money of course doesn’t all end up in Axiom’s pockets. It has to pay SpaceX for the launch and use of the Dragon capsule. It also has to pay NASA some recently imposed high fees to use its astronaut training facilities as well as lease time on ISS.
All told, I suspect Axiom’s profits for these flights is relatively small. The company however has other reasons to fly these missions. It is attempting to win NASA’s big space station construction contract, and these flights to ISS demonstrate the company’s ability to manage such operations while working with NASA. Of the other three space station projects competing for that contract, only Vast is planning to do the same.
This effort by these two companies is part of the reason I rank them first and second for winning that contract.
- Haven-1, being built by Vast, with no NASA funds. The company is moving fast, with Haven-1 to launch and be occupied in 2026 for an estimated 30 days total. It hopes this actual hardware and manned mission will put it in the lead to win NASA’s phase 2 contract, from which it will build its much larger mult-module Haven-2 station..
- Axiom, being built by Axiom, has launched three tourist flights to ISS, with a fourth scheduled for tomorrow, carrying passengers from India, Hungary, and Poland. Though there have been rumors it has cash flow issues, development of its first module has been proceeding more or less as planned.
- Orbital Reef, being built by a consortium led by Blue Origin and Sierra Space. Overall, Blue Origin has built almost nothing, while Sierra Space has successfully tested its inflatable modules, including a full scale version, and appears ready to start building its module for launch.
- Starlab, being built by a consortium led by Voyager Space, Airbus, and Northrop Grumman, with an extensive partnership agreement with the European Space Agency. It recently had its station design approved by NASA, but it has built nothing. This might change once it obtains several hundred million dollars from its initial public offering of stock.
White House issues new orders to streamline federal broadband regulations
As part of its effort to eliminate the red tape imposed by Biden during his term as president, the White House last week issued new orders to streamline the federal broadband regulations as well as cancel those Biden restrictions.
This Trump executive order cancels a number of Biden executive orders that imposed net neutrality, DEI, climate change, and other requirements that added paperwork and cost money and time. Most important of all for rocket companies, this new order aims to streamline the environmental review process on new projects, a process that was expanded exponentially during Biden but had been growing out-of-control for decades, and appeared during Biden to destroy many rocket startups.
Of course, because this executive order was issued by Trump, it will likely be blocked by a federal judge, because only Democratic Party presidential executive orders are allowed in America now.
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
Starlink approved for India
After several regulatory issues that blocked the company during the past few years, SpaceX has finally gotten approval to sell Starlink to customers in India.
The company hopes to initiate service within the next year. There still remain some required license approvals:
Although the licence from the Ministry of Telecommunications clears a major hurdle, the service’s final launch in India will depend on further regulatory clearances, including the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) recommendations on spectrum allocation, which are still pending approval from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
These should be pro forma at this point, since it was the ministry of telecommunications that issued this most recent license. Why would it issue one permit but then block another?
SpaceX launches 26 more Starlink satellites
SpaceX early this morning successfully launched another 26 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its seventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
71 SpaceX
33 China
7 Rocket Lab
6 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 71 to 53.
SpaceX launches another radio satellite for SiriusXM
SpaceX early today successfully launched another radio satellite for SiriusXM, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage completed its eighth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The two fairing halves completed their 5th and 21st flights respectively.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
70 SpaceX
33 China
7 Rocket Lab
6 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 70 to 53.
June 6, 2025 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
» Read more
Alex Ball – The David Bowie Flanger
An evening pause: To start the weekend, let’s learn some of the engineering history behind the sounds of the 1970s.
Hat tip Willi Kusche.
June 6, 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.
- Firefly founder Tom Markusic (pushed out in 2022) is now starting a company building a suborbital space plane
The concept is to provide fast point-to-point transport. Not much info, and he enters an increasingly crowded field.
- China says its Tianwen-2 asteroid probe is operating as expected, and releases the first picture of it
You can see the picture here, showing one of its deployed solar panels, which looks remarkably like the solar panels on the Lucy asteroid probe.
- Video of yesterday’s Long March 6A launch, showing booster and stage separation
Still no word on where those boosters and core stages crashed inside China.
- Video of short static fire test of Superheavy prototype #16 in preparation for test flight 10
No word yet on when that flight will happen.
- Spanish rocket startup PLD touts the engineering on the engines for its Miura-5 rocket
The engine is now entering production leading to full engine qualification testing later this month.