A magnificent barred spiral

8:58 am

A barred spiral
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced to post here, was released two weeks ago as the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hubble picture of the week, showing a classic barred spiral galaxy that is estimated to be about 50 million light years away. From the caption:

This galaxy has been nicknamed the ‘Lost Galaxy’ because it’s extremely faint when viewed through a small telescope.

…On full display in this Hubble image are NGC 4535’s young star clusters, which dot the galaxy’s spiral arms. Many of the groupings of bright blue stars are enclosed by glowing pink clouds. These clouds, called H II (‘H-two’) regions, are a sign that the galaxy is home to especially young, hot, and massive stars that are blazing with high-energy radiation. By heating the clouds in which they were born, shooting out powerful stellar winds, and eventually exploding as supernovae, massive stars certainly shake up their surroundings.

The photo was taken as part of a survey of similar nearby galaxies in order to study these H-II regions.

I look at that bar and wonder at the wondrous mystery of the universe, to form such shapes.

It is so far a very slow news day.

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A company that wants to shoot payloads into orbit with a cannon

9:23 am

Link here. The company is called Longshot. It isn’t the only company attempting to do this. I reported on another company, Green Launch, in 2022, but have heard little from it since then.

I leave it to the engineers in my readership to tell me if this company has any chance of success. It seems to me that any payloads it launches would likely have to be dead weight, like water or oxygen or fuel, as the speeds involve would damage delicate instrumentation.

32 comments

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 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 28 Starlink satellites; 1st stage flies for first time

9:14 am

UPDATE: When I wrote this post, several sources stated that the first stage was flying for its thirtieth time. I relied on those sources. As it turns out, they were wrong. The first stage on this launch was flying for its first time. The post below has been rewritten to correct this error.

———————–
SpaceX early this morning successfully placed another 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

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

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

154 SpaceX (a new record)
72 China
15 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 154 to 120.

8 comments

Startup B2Space launches rocket from balloon

10:21 am

The startup B2Space has completed a test flight using a balloon to lift a solid-fueled rocket to high altitude, where the rocket was then launched.

In a 17 November update, the company announced that it had completed a test of its integrated rockoon launch system using a “rocket of lower power than that planned for the commercial version of the system.” The test was conducted from the Port of Vueltas in Valle Gran Rey in the Canary Islands. Its aim was to validate key elements of the company’s rockoon launch system, including the rocket rail alignment and ignition subsystems.

The balloon was launched at 4:00 CET and carried the small rocket to an altitude of 21.5 kilometres, at which point the rocket was launched. Speaking to European Spaceflight, B2Space CTO Valentin confirmed that the ignition system had been successful but did not share any details about the state of the rocket itself. In a 17 November update, the company confirmed that all elements of the launch system had been successfully recovered following the test.

Calling this company a startup is not quite accurate, as it has been around for almost a decade, pushing the idea of a a balloon-launched rocket, dubbed a “rockoon”. The idea itself is not new. If my memory serves me right, it had been tested intermittently in some form as early as the 1950s.

The company hopes to test a larger suborbital version in 2026, followed by an orbital test.

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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.

SpaceX issues 1st statement regarding Superheavy test explosion

9:27 am

Damaged Superheavy
Click for original image.

SpaceX yesterday issued its first update regarding the explosion in the lower half of the Superheavy booster that it had planned to fly on the next orbital test flight.

Booster 18 suffered an anomaly during gas system pressure testing that we were conducting in advance of structural proof testing. No propellant was on the vehicle, and engines were not yet installed. The teams need time to investigate before we are confident of the cause. No one was injured as we maintain a safe distance for personnel during this type of testing. The site remains clear and we are working plans to safely reenter the site.

That no propellant was involved explains why the booster and test pad experienced relatively little damage. They were likely pumping nitrogen through the system to test it, and while something exploded, the gases were not volatile.

The picture to the right is a screen capture from aerial drone flights performed by RGV Aerial Photography and posted on nasaspaceflight.com. I have enhanced it to bring out the details. Note the lack of damage on all sides of the booster at its base. The explosion was clearly confined to the booster, and appears to have occurred from within.

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SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites

1:02 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites, 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:

153 SpaceX (a new record)
72 China
15 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 153 to 120.

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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

November 21, 2025 Quick space links

3:07 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.

  • On this day in 1998, the first module of ISS was launched from Baikonur
    Dubbed Zarya, it was built by Russia but paid for by the U.S., which still owns it. Though it is the oldest module on ISS, it is the Russian Zvezda module, launched two years later, that presently has the stress fractures in its hull from which the station’s atmosphere is leaking, and which threaten the station’s survival in the next four years.
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Bigoted academia upset that Trump won’t allow them to push the racist DEI agenda

12:53 pm

Lysenko with Stalin
Trofim Lysenko (on the left), preaching to Stalin as he destroyed
Soviet plant research by persecuting anyone who disagreed with him,
thus causing famines that killed millions. He is now the role model for
today’s entire science community.

Cue the world’s smallest violin! An article today in the journal Science proves once again that science has nothing to do with what that journal now publishes. The headline:

‘This is censorship.’ Conference requires abstracts to comply with Trump anti-DEI order

It seems scientists submitting abstracts to the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in Texas are upset because the Trump administration will not allow any papers to include any mention of diversity, equity, or inclusion (DEI) as a topic.

The Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), hosted annually by the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) in Texas, last week announced a new requirement for the upcoming 2026 conference: All submitted abstracts must comply with executive orders from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. His 20 January executive order called DEI “illegal and immoral discrimination programs” and terminated both federal DEI programs as well as grant funding for DEI initiatives. The conference policy follows moves earlier this year by LPI’s parent organization, the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), to scrub DEI-related content—including archived LPSC abstracts—from its websites.

Researchers are fuming, saying LPSC is doubling down on its previous decisions, and prioritizing avoiding trouble with the government over intellectual freedom. “This is censorship,” says planetary scientist Paul Byrne of Washington University in St. Louis. “Even if the percentage of people who would normally write a DEI abstract is small, a much larger percent are pissed off.”

In other words, the science community wants to support DEI racial discrimination, because it is designed to favor the racial and sexual groups they favor. To them it is more important to infuse these bigoted ideas into all science, rather than actually report real research about the solar system and planets.
» Read more

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What might be the weirdest crater on Mars

12:44 pm

What might be Mars' weirdest crater
Click for original.

Cool image time! The picture to the right is taken from a global mosaic created from images taken by the wide-view context camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The original source image was probably a photograph taken on February 15, 2020.

I normally begin with an image from MRO’s high resolution camera, but the only images that camera took of this crater did not show it entirely. This context camera shows it in all its glory, what to my eye appears to be one of the weirdest craters I’ve seen on Mars.

First, note its oblong shape — 5.5 miles long and 3.7 miles wide — which appears to narrow to the southeast. It certainly appears that if this crater was caused by an impact, the bolide came in at a very low angle from the northwest, plowing this 700-foot-deep divot as it drove itself into the ground. Research has shown that an impact has to come in almost sideways to do this. Even at slightly higher angles the resulting craters will still appear round.

But wait, there’s more!
» Read more

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Superheavy intended for next test flight damaged during static fire test

9:57 am

Damaged Superheavy
Click for source.

According to video taken by the Labpadre live stream of SpaceX’s operations at Boca Chica, the Superheavy booster that the company was preparing for the next orbital test flight was damaged while it was being fueled for a static fire test.

The video, which I have embedded below, suggests a tank rupture occurred in the booster’s lower section, where its main oxygen tanks are located. Another post-incident image from different source on social media and to the right, shows the hull of that section badly deformed, with the far side not visible apparently blown out. It also appears the test stand experienced no or little damage.

This incident will likely delay the next orbital Starship/Superheavy test flight, but not significantly. SpaceX has more prototype Superheavys in the queue. While it might need to do some quick additional work preparing one, that should’t slow things down by much.

Figuring out what happened to cause this burst tank is more likely to cause a delay. The company needs to identify and fix the issue before it can proceed.
» Read more

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China launches a “communications technology test satellite”

9:33 am

China today successfully launched what its state-run press called a “communications technology test satellite,” its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China.

No other details about the satellite were released. Nor did that state-run press provide any information about where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

152 SpaceX
72 China (a new record)
15 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 152 to 120.

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Moss placed on the outside of ISS for nine months was still capable of reproducing

9:27 am

Graphic from research paper
Graphic from paper.

Scientists have now demonstrated that moss, a bryophyte, can still reproduce despite spending nine months exposed to the harsh vacuum and radiation environment of space on the outside of ISS.

In fact, the researchers found that more than 80% of the spores survived and were able to germinate. You can read their peer-reviewed paper here [pdf].

That the moss could survive is in itself not as surprising as you might think. When the Apollo 12 astronauts brought back pieces from the unmanned Surveyor-3 lander scientists found a single bacterium that survived in space for more than two years. What makes this new result more significant is that moss isn’t simply bacteria, but plant life far more complex. More important, the results found that the moss was far more tolerant of that harsh environment than other lifeforms. From the paper:

In contrast, desiccation-tolerant animals such as tardigrades (Hypsibius dujardini and Ramazzottius varieornatus) and UV-resistant insects’ hydrated larvae undergoing anhydrobiosis (Polypedilum vanderplanki) failed to match the UVC tolerance observed in P. patens spores. Similarly, spores of bacteria and fungi, such as Bacillus subtilis and Aspergillus niger, showed only limited UVC resistance. Thus, these patterns highlight that certain plant structures, namely spores and seeds, tend to exhibit superior UV resistance, likely due to the presence of specialized UV-screening pigments such as flavonoids and carotenoids, which help protect DNA and cellular structures from UV-induced damage.

As the paper notes in its conclusion:

As pioneer plants, bryophytes have the potential to transform regolith into fertile soil, facilitating ecosystem development on other planets, similar to peat moss improving soil fertility on Earth.

That moss isn’t bother significantly by radiation means any greenhouse on Mars need not be shielded as aggressively as previously thought, at least in the initial stages.

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Maritime Launch Services touts a second non-orbital launch from Spaceport Nova Scotia

8:51 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

The competition between Canada’s two proposed spaceports heated up yesterday when the owner of Spaceport Nova Scotia, Maritime Launch Services, announced that the second launch had taken place there, this time by a rocket startup named T-Minus Engineering.

The launch took place at 11:54 AM, and the mission marked an important milestone in advancing the operational readiness of Spaceport Nova Scotia, critical infrastructure that will provide Canada with sovereign launch capability. The launch was conducted from Spaceport Nova Scotia under approved regulatory and safety frameworks. The demonstration strengthened coordination among launch site teams and stakeholder partners, while refining launch operational procedures and the safety and security systems that govern all activities at the spaceport.

The press release provided no details about the launch itself, though this report noted that the rocket failed to reach its goal of 100 kilometers, the altitude considered by most as the edge of space. The rocket, dubbed Barracuda, is solid-fueled and was apparently designed by T-Minus to demonstrate its capability for hypersonic testing.

This was the second suborbital launch from this spaceport. The first, in 2023, was a student test flight. In both cases, the launches were mostly a PR effort to sell the spaceport, which was first proposed in 2016 but has been unable so far to draw any launch customers. Maritime now also faces competition from the Atlantic Spaceport being proposed by a different company, Nordspace.

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Firefly to provide the launch rocket for Kratos’ hypersonic test vehicles

8:36 am

The rocket/lunar lander startup Firefly yesterday announced that it has signed a partnership deal with the hypersonic test startup Kratos.

In August Kratos partnered with the Australian company Hypersonix to build 20 scramjet test vehicles for the Pentagon for hypersonic test flights. Firefly with this new deal will provide the launch vehicle for getting those scramjets into the air at the speeds required. In fact, it appears Firefly is now going to do with its Alpha rocket the same thing that Rocket Lab did with its Electron rocket, revising it for suborbital testing.

Rocket Lab has already completed six successful HASTE launches. It will be interesting how quickly Firefly can get Alpha reconfigured and launched in this manner. Some of that schedule will also hinge on Kratos’ ability to provide the scramjets. The press release makes no mention of schedule.

Firefly’s action here continues the recent shift by many American space startups from rocketry and space exploration to defense work that is only tangentially related to space. It appears they are all diversifying to grab the expected rich contracts the Pentagon is expected to hand out to develop Trump’s proposed Golden Dome defense system. It also appears that many are diversifying because they have doubts the civilian space industry can sustain them, by itself.

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Spanish rocket startup PLD unveils the first qualification unit of its Miura-5 rocket

8:01 am

1st Miura-5 qualification unit
The 1st Miura-5 qualification unit. Click for original.

The Spanish rocket startup PLD yesterday unveiled the first of two full-scale qualification units it is building to test the design of its Miura-5 orbital rocket, scheduled for a first launch sometime in 2026.

The QM1 unit will serve to qualify two key elements of the launcher. Firstly, the MIURA 5 second stage will undergo a destruction test in the United States to validate the functioning of the Flight Termination System. This test will verify the operation of the explosive charges onboard the vehicle, designed to destroy the launcher in the event of an in-flight anomaly.

Secondly, a Wet Dress Rehearsal will be carried out on the rocket’s first stage – a full propellant loading test that replicates all structural load scenarios during the fuelling and pressurisation phase. This test is essential to validate the behaviour of structures under real operational conditions.

By December (next month) the company hopes to complete a second qualification unit for further testing, followed by the flight rocket, which will be shipped to French Guiana for a launch sometime next year.

Right now PLD and Germany’s Isar Aerospace are in the lead in the race to become the first European rocket startup to reach orbit. Isar — which in March attempted one launch that failed — has already shipped the stages to Norway for its second attempt before the end of this year. PLD thus appears to be just behind, though all this could easily change. This is rocket science y’know.

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SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites

8:48 pm

The beat never stops! SpaceX tonight successfully placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The first stage completed its 23rd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

152 SpaceX (a new record)
71 China
15 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 152 to 119.

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November 20, 2025 Quick space links

3:01 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.

4 comments

Cracks on Mars

2:47 pm

A cracking Martian surface

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 20, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The camera team describes these features as “ridges,” which in one sense is entirely true. The features are ridges that rise above the surrounding plain. The problem is that they are also cracks, with most showing a distinct central fissure in their middle.

Such double ridged cracks are reminiscent of the surface of dried mud or paint, when it begins to crack and shrink. The surface on each side of a crack pulls away, rising upward slightly as it does so. Is that what we are seeing here, the drying of this surface?

As always, location is critical to understanding the Martian geology.
» Read more

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The DC swamp proposes beating China in space by creating another bureaucracy here on Earth

1:02 pm

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

My heart be still: A bi-partisan group of senators, led by Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), yesterday introduced legislation they claim will help the U.S. beat China in space by creating a new government agency called the “National Institute for Space Research,” designed to encourage research in space tied to the proposed commercial space stations.

Reports indicate that China is launching new modules to its Tiangong space station to meet growing demands for science and to boost international cooperation and is developing a new-generation crew spacecraft with two variants: one for low Earth orbit (LEO) and one for crewed lunar missions. China has been actively promoting international cooperation through Tiangong, offering countries like Oman, Egypt, Pakistan, and others opportunities to participate in space research largely for free or at an extremely low cost. China has also offered to train foreign astronauts, garnering interest from countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the UAE to train engineers, scientists, and mission operators for satellite development, and to launch services in which Egypt, Algeria, and Argentina are actively involved. This is a part of China’s broader Belt and Road Initiative, where space cooperation is bundled with tech transfer, loans, development projects, and the like.

This underscores strategic and accelerating investment by foreign adversaries in space-based infrastructure, research, and exploration. China’s ability to offer space-based partnerships to other nations allows it to build soft power and potentially shift international norms in space governance and tech standards.

In response, the Space RACE Act would create a National Institute for Space Research, a federally controlled but independently operated entity designed to coordinate and advance U.S. microgravity research in LEO using next-generation space platforms after the retirement of the ISS.

The last thing this bill will achieve is a stronger American space industry. 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).

This is just more pork. It is also symbolic of the stupidity of our elected officials, who still do not really understand the real reasons beyond the on-going renaissance in America’s space effort. It hasn’t been the government that made it happen. It has been the private dreams of competing companies and individuals, figuring out ways they could make money launching rockets, often with the government acting as a major obstacle. Rather than streamline our bloated government to get it out of the way of this new private sector, these senators want to create more government to dictate how that sector functions.

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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Blue Origin announces plans to upgrade New Glenn to match SLS

12:25 pm

New Glenn compared to the Saturn-5
Graphic issued by Blue Origin’s CEO comparing
New Glenn to the Saturn-5. Click for source.

In an update posted today, Blue Origin announced that it is planning to begin upgrades to its New Glenn orbital rocket as soon as its very next launch early in 2026, with those upgrades eventually raising the rocket’s capabilities to that of NASA’s overpriced, cumbersome, and poorly designed SLS rocket.

One of the primary enhancements includes higher-performing engines on both stages. Total thrust for the seven BE-4 booster engines is increasing from 3.9 million lbf (17,219 kN) to 4.5 million lbf (19,928 kN). BE-4 has already demonstrated 625,000 lbf on the test stand at current propellant conditions and will achieve 640,000 lbf later this year, with propellant subcooling increasing the current thrust capability from the existing 550,000 lbf.

The total thrust of the two BE-3Us powering New Glenn’s upper stage is increasing from the original design of 320,000 lbf (1,423 kN) to 400,000 lbf (1,779 kN) thrust over the next few missions. BE-3U has already demonstrated 211,658 lbf on the test stand.

These numbers are a little more than half that put out by the Saturn-5 in the 1960s. New Glenn however has a reusable first stage, so it will cost far less to launch, and will be able to do so frequently. These changes will also make it comparable to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy.

These engine upgrades however are only a start. Blue Origin also plans to offer a second more powerful version of New Glenn by adding two BE-4 engines to the first stage and two BE-3U engines to the upper stage.
» Read more

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Rocket Lab sets new annual launch record for the company

11:00 am

Rocket Lab today set new annual launch record for the company, quickly scheduling and launching a payload for a “confidential commercial customer”, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of the company’s two launchpads in New Zealand.

This was the 15th orbital launch by Rocket Lab in 2025, beating the record of 14 the company set in 2025. Rocket Lab has also launched its HASTE suborbital version of Electron three times, so the company has actually completed the equivalent of 18 Electron launches this year, though three were not intended to reach orbit.

What made this launch unusual is that it was not announced in advance, and took place suddenly without revealing the customer. It is likely the customer was flying a classified military payload. UPDATE on November 26, 2025: That customer was actually the commercial imagery company BlackSky, launching another one of its satellites for its constellation used by both the military and the public. The company did not explain why it wished its identity hidden during the launch.)

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

151 SpaceX
71 China
15 Rocket Lab (a new record)
13 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 151 to 119.

15 comments

ArianeGroup confirms it is targeting about six Ariane-6 launches in 2026

10:46 am

According to an official with ArianeGroup, the company that builds and owns the Ariane-6 rocket, it hopes in 2026 to double the launch rate from 2025, from four this year to as many as eight launches next.

The Group is ramping up production at its sites in France and Germany for this purpose. The main stage will be manufactured in Les Mureaux, France, and the upper stage in Bremen, Germany. The latter is considered the heart and brain of the rocket, as it is responsible for controlling the final flight section and reaching the target.

In Bremen, the Group developed a serial production process – similar to assembly line production in car manufacturing. Six upper stages are to be produced in parallel at the plant in future. Ten to twelve upper stages are to be completed and delivered each year. “The target of around ten missions per year should be achieved by 2027,” said Franzeck.

Franzeck’s prediction matches that made two weeks ago by the head of Arianespace, which manages Ariane-6 for ArianeGroup.

It is likely that these companies will get at least six launches off in 2026. Whether they can achieve eight is less likely, based on their past recent record. Reaching 10 launches in 2027 is probably more certain however. They have a big 18-launch contract with Amazon to launch its Amazon LEO satellites (formerly Kuiper), and there is great pressure to achieve those launches quickly because of Amazon’s FCC license requirements.

After this however the future of Ariane-6 remains uncertain. It is too expense (being expendable) to compete in the present launch market. Few European companies want to buy it, and there are numerous new reusable rockets about to begin operations.

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Webb captures spiraling shells around massive binary star system

10:31 am

Webb's false color image of shells
Click for original.

Using the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to produce a reasonably detailed map of the four shells that surround a triple-star system of two massive Wolf-Rayet (W-R) stars and an as-yet unseen supergiant, produced by the interaction of the winds that come off the two W-R stars combined with the interaction of the third.

The image to the right is that Webb false-color infrared image, combined with the data from the ground-based Very Large Telescope in Chile. It has been reduced to post here. The researchers have also produced a 3D simulation mapping out those shells, which you can view here.

The scientists have dubbed this system Apep after the Egyptian god of chaos. From the conclusion of the research paper [pdf]:

We imaged the colliding-wind W-R binary Apep with [Webb] and [the Very Large Telescope]. The JWST images detected four concentric dust shells with highly regular and detailed structures surrounding Apep. The mean expansion speed of the dust shells is 90 ± 4 mas yr−1 and the mean spacing between neighboring shells is 17.30″ ± 0.17″ [in degree seconds]. The shell spacing and expansion speed together suggest an orbital period of 193 ± 11 years, which is independent of uncertainties on the distance, and that the dust structure observed was produced over the past 700 years.

It is believed that Wolf-Rayet stars are primary candidates to eventually go supernova. The data for this system also suggests this system could produce a gamma ray burst as well. At present the astronomers estimate the distance to this system to be about 15,000 light years, which means such an explosion would likely poses no risk to us. It would however give scientists a great view of the event, better by many magnitudes compared to previous such explosions.

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India tests new and better restart method for upper stage of its biggest rocket

9:58 am

India’s space agency ISRO has successfully tested new restart method for the engine it uses on the upper stage of its LVM rocket, its biggest rocket that it also intends to use for its manned and interplanetary missions.

For future missions, multiple in-flight restarts of the CE20 engine will be required for mission flexibility towards multi-orbit missions. However, with the present configuration, each restart demands an additional start-up gas bottle and associated systems, leading to a reduction in vehicle payload capability. Hence, achieving boot-strap mode start – where the engine builds up to steady operation without external start-up assistance – is essential.

In this regard, a boot-strap mode start test on the CE20 Cryogenic engine was successfully conducted under vacuum conditions in the High-Altitude Test (HAT) facility at ISRO Propulsion Complex, Mahendragiri on 7th November 2025, for a duration of 10 seconds. A multi-element igniter was employed in both the thrust chamber and gas generator to facilitate boot-strap starting. In this test, following the ignition of the thrust chamber, the gas generator was ignited under tank head conditions, and the turbopumps were started without the use of the start-up system. Subsequently, boot-strap mode build-up and steady-state operation of the engine were successfully demonstrated.

In other words, the engine now be restarted numerous times, giving any payload attached much greater flexibility in positioning and orbital maneuvers. For manned missions this means it can be used to reposition the modules for India’s planned space station, maneuver its manned capsule Gaganyaan, and send interplanetary missions to the Moon and beyond.

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NASA releases numerous images of interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas

9:50 am

Comet 3I/Atlas as seen by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

NASA yesterday released a slew of images of interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas, taken by numerous in-space probes at Mars and elsewhere.

The picture to the right, cropped to post here, is probably the one with the most detail, taken by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) from Mars orbit on October 2, 2025. In addition, images were captured by:

None of these pictures show the comet in any great detail. All however confirm once again that it is a comet, not an interstellar alien spacecraft as some idiots in academia have been proposing wildly. The Maven observations in ultra-violet wavelengths for example identified hydrogen and other isotopes coming off the comet as it is heated by the Sun. MRO’s image to the right once again showed the comet’s coma and tail.

Above all, these observations were great engineering experiments for all the science teams, demonstrating that they could point their instruments in an unplanned direction and capture a very faint object quite far away.

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Katalyst picks Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus rocket to launch its Swift rescue mission

9:28 am

Katalyst's proposed Swift rescue mission
Katalyst’s proposed Swift rescue mission.
Click for original image.

The orbital repair startup Katalyst yesterday announced it has chosen Northrop Grumman’s air-launched Pegasus rocket to launch its mission to rescue NASA Gehrels-Swift space telescope.

Unlike typical launch campaigns that take up to 24 months, Katalyst has under eight months to get its LINK spacecraft on orbit to rescue Swift. Swift’s orbital decay demands an urgent mission, launching before atmospheric drag makes recovery impossible. Pegasus is the only system that can meet the orbit, timeline, and budget simultaneously.

Swift’s orbit at 20.6° inclination is difficult to reach from U.S. launch sites, where most small rockets are limited by launch site to inclinations above ~27°. Pegasus, carried aloft by Northrop Grumman’s L-1011 Stargazer aircraft and released midair at 39,000 feet, offers the flexibility to launch from virtually anywhere on Earth, making it one of the few viable systems capable of achieving Swift’s orbit on a highly compressed timeline.

This plan has numerous unusual aspects. First, the decision by NASA in September 2025 to pick Katalyst was a surprise. The company is new, and has never actually flown a repair mission yet. It got the contract basically because it could quickly reshape its first planned demo mission into a Swift repair mission.

Second, Pegasus was originally created in the 1980s as a low-cost rocket by the company Orbital Sciences (now part of Northrop Grumman). Though it initially undercut the prices of the existing rocket companies, in the long run it failed to offer a viable option. It hasn’t launched in almost five years, and has only been used five times in the past sixteen years. Northrop Grumman stopped making it years ago, and presently only has this one last rocket in its warehouse.

Finally, saving Gehrels-Swift is critical. It has been one of NASA’s most successful relatively low-cost space telescopes, designed to quickly target high energetic events like gamma ray bursts in order to capture the optical component of the blast. Its orbit is fast decaying and if not raised it will burn up in the atmosphere by 2029. To save it however requires a unique and improvised solution as it has no grapple attachment. Katalyst’s rescue spacecraft ““will rely on a custom-built robotic capture mechanism that will attach to a feature on the satellite’s main structure–without damaging sensitive instruments.”

To put it mildly, in many ways this might be one of the most daring NASA missions ever flown.

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