Space Force suspends use of ULA’s Vulcan rocket

9:36 am

Space Force officials yesterday made it official, that it has suspended all further military launches using ULA’s Vulcan rocket, due to the nozzle failure in one of the rocket’s solid-fueled strap-on boosters during the last launch on February 12, 2026.

The Space Force is pressing pause on all military launches on United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket as officials investigate a recent anomaly they say could take “many months” to resolve.

That means launch plans for a GPS III satellite slated to fly on the brand new rocket next month are in flux, according to Col. Eric Zarybinsky, program executive officer for assured access to space. “I’m going to look for every flexibility I have to make sure that I can deliver warfighter capability as quickly as possible,” Zarybinsky told reporters at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium here. “I’ve got a number of tools in my toolkit to do that, but until this anomaly is all over, we will not be launching National Security Space Launch missions on Vulcan.”

Though the rocket was able to get the payload to its proper orbit, despite the problem, this was the second Vulcan launch where a strap-on booster, built by Northrop Grumman, experienced a nozzle failure. In addition, another nozzle failure had occurred during a static fire test in 2025.

Prior to the February launch the Space Force had already shifted two launches from ULA’s Vulcan to SpaceX’s Falcon 9. At the moment ULA has seven military Vulcan launches scheduled for this year. Expect a considerable number to shift to SpaceX.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket might also become an option, but the company must complete two more launches before the Space Force will certify it for national security launches. Considering that company’s slow pace in doing anything, it does not appear it will be able to take advantage of this situation.

ULA meanwhile had hoped to complete 18 to 22 launches in 2026, the majority using Vulcan. This decision by the Space Force likely means the company won’t complete more than five launches this year, most of which using its soon-to-be-retired Atlas-5 rocket.

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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 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

February 25, 2026 Quick space links

2:48 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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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.

The shoreline of Pluto’s frozen nitrogen sea

11:10 am

The shoreline of Pluto's frozen nitrogen sea
Click for full resolution. For original
images go here and here.

Cool image time! In my continuing exploration of the New Horizons’ image archive, I keep finding things that I do not remember ever seeing before. The two New Horizon pictures used to create the panorama to the right (here and here) were taken by the spacecraft only thirteen minutes before its closest approach to Pluto at 7,800 miles on July 14, 2015. It shows the Al-Idrisi mountains — thought to be made up of frozen ice as hard as granite — and the frozen nitrogen sea that pushes against those mountains and squeezes them into their jumbled shape. For scale, the image is estimated to be fifty miles wide.

In December 2015 the science team released a small section of one of two images, focused specifically at that nitrogen sea shoreline, noting:

Great blocks of Pluto’s water-ice crust appear jammed together in the informally named al-Idrisi mountains. Some mountain sides appear coated in dark material, while other sides are bright.

The team however did not release this wider panorama produced by both images, which I think gives a better perspective of what we are looking at.

I posted an even wider shot of this shoreline on January 29, 2026. If you look closely at that picture, you can spot the features to the right, but much smaller seen from a greater distance.

For the larger context, below is a wide shot of Pluto indicating the part of the planet where this image is located.
» Read more

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SLS begins trip back to Vehicle Assembly Building

9:12 am

NASA’s SLS rocket today began its long slow journey from the launchpad back to Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) so that engineers can safely troubleshoot the failure of helium to properly flow into the tanks of the rocket’s upper stage following the dress rehearsal countdown last week.

NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II mission began rolling off the launch pad at 9:38 a.m. EST, Feb. 25, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Rolling from Launch Pad 39B to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA Kennedy is expected to take up to 12 hours.

At this time NASA officials have not yet determined whether they will need another wet dress rehearsal countdown. There are concerns however that the movement to and from the VAB might be contributing to the fuel leaks that have plagued previous rehearsals and countdowns, and if so, those concerns almost guarantee the need to do another countdown rehearsal once the helium issue is fixed and the rocket is back on the launchpad.

Officials are also reviewing potential future launch dates both in late April as well as May and June. The present window closes on April 6, though there is one launch opportunity on April 30th. Nothing has been decided as yet.

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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

Two SpaceX launches since yesterday

8:41 am

The beat goes on! Since yesterday SpaceX completed two Starlink launches, placing a total of 54 Starlink satellites in orbit on opposite coasts.

First, the company yesterday afternoon launched 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its 10th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Then early this morning SpaceX placed another 25 Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage completed its 11th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The 2026 launch race:

24 SpaceX
8 China
2 Rocket Lab
2 Russia
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)

As it did in both ’24 and ’25, SpaceX in ’26 so far has more launches than the entire rest of the world combined.

Rocket Lab has a suborbital launch scheduled for later today, lifting off from Wallops Island in Virginia and carrying an Australian hypersonic test vehicle. This won’t count in the totals above, but I will report the results after launch.

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Medical company making artificial retinas buys payload slots on Starlab

8:01 am

Starlab design as of December 2025
Starlab design as of December 2025

The medical company LambdaVision announced yesterday that has booked payload slots and commercial space on Starlab in order to manufacture “protein-based artificial retinas.”

LambdaVision leverages microgravity to improve the layer-by-layer production process of their artificial retina through alternating layers of the protein bacteriorhodopsin and a polymer, supported by a membrane of a synthetic fiber that has long been used by the medical community. Reduced gravity in an LEO environment improves homogeneity, stability, and performance of thin films like the protein-based artificial retina. By using proteins similar to the visual pigment rhodopsin naturally found in our eyes, LambdaVision’s protein-based artificial retina mimics the light-absorbing properties of human photoreceptors replacing the function of these damaged cells in the retinas of blind patients.

Starlab is the giant single module space station being built by a consortium led by Voyager Technologies that will be placed in orbit by a Superheavy/Starship launch.

While NASA allowed this kind of medical research on ISS, it never allowed the companies to manufacture any products on ISS for later sale on Earth. The new private space stations are decidedly opposed to that government restriction, and thus they are attracting customers like LambdaVision because they will allow it to make money on what it produces. The press release notes that while this first project is aimed at producing artificial retinas to restore vision in patients, the technology will be applicable to “sensitive biosensors, optical systems, tissue engineering, and drug delivery applications.”

In my rankings below of the five commercial American space station projects under development, the first three are basically tied, the fourth is simply late to the game, and the last, Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef, is hardly out of the starting gate.
» Read more

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February 24, 2026 Quick space links

2:56 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.

  • One of the largest known stars has changed color
    The star is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud 160,000 light years away, and has a diameter believed to be 1,500 times that of the Sun. What is happening is not really understood, but the possibilities are fascinating,
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The weird landscape of Mars’ death valley

11:19 am

Taffy terrain
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on October 28, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labels this “bands near mesa,” an apt description. What we are looking at is a geological feature unique to Mars, but also unique to only one particular place on Mars, the planet’s death valley, the place in Hellas Basin with the lowest relative elevation of any spot on Mars.

The feature is called taffy terrain. According to a 2014 paper, the scientists posit that this material must be some sort of “a viscous fluid,” naturally flowing downward into “localized depressions.” Those localized depressions however happen to also be at the very basement of Mars.

Note how in some spots the bands appear to have been stripped off, exposing small hollows in which dust has become trapped over time to form ripple dunes.
» Read more

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The exterior of Gaudí’s church masterpiece now complete after 144 years of construction

10:05 am

The Basilica towering over Barcelona
The Basilica towering over Barcelona

The exterior of the Basílica de la Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain, was finally completed this week, 144 years after construction began on architect Antoni Gaudí’s greatest creation.

Last week saw the upper arm of this roughly 56-ft (17-m) tall cross fitted with the help of a giant crane. That final piece, which is nearly 15 ft (4.5 m) tall, completes the grouping of the six central towers of the church – and brings the basilica’s height to a dizzying 566 ft (172.5 m).

Interestingly, the cross was built in Germany using white enameled ceramic tiles, stone interior and glass that were made in the Spanish region of Catalonia. It was then transported in parts back to Barcelona by ferry and trucks, and finally assembled at the church.

Though more work is required in the interior of the church, for the first time in its history all outside cranes will be removed and it will be visible unobstructed.

More information about Gaudi and this church can be found here. I also posted an evening pause about this monumental work of art in 2023.

25 comments

Chinese astronauts provide their perspective on the cracked Shenzhou-20 window

9:49 am

Shenzhou-20 after return
Shenzhou-20 after its return to Earth. The damaged
window can be seen on the right. Click for original image.

The Chinese Shenzhou-20 crew this week gave a detailed interview describing their discovery and inspection of the cracks in the window of their Shenzhou-20 capsule.

Chen Dong, commander of the Shenzhou-20 crew, first noticed the damage to the window while conducting final checks on the return capsule. The believed culprit: space debris striking the window. …As mission commander for Shenzhou-20, Chen said he was the one who went for checking out the return craft. During that work, “I spotted something like a triangular on the viewport,” he said. “My first thought was whether a small leaf had somehow stuck to the outside of the window,” said Chen. “But then I quickly realized that couldn’t happen because we were in space. How could there possibly be a fallen leaf there?”

Chen pointed out the window anomaly to his two other colleagues also in ready mode for the return trek to Earth. Wang, who served as the flight engineer on the Shenzhou-20 mission, had previously worked as an aerospace technician involved in the construction of China’s space station before becoming an astronaut. “I wasn’t really nervous, actually. The outermost layer of the viewport is a protective layer, and inside it there are two pressure-bearing layers, and we are safe as long as the cabin pressure doesn’t change,” said Wang.

Using a 40x microscope, they determined that some of the cracks had penetrated through the window’s outermost layer.

As of today however China has yet to release images of the cracks, or if they have, no western media source has found and released them.

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Webb tracks Uranus’ atmosphere over 15 hours

9:27 am

Uranus and its atmosphere
Click for original image.

Using the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers on January 19, 2025 were able to observe Uranus for fifteen straight hours, tracking the atmosphere’s temperature and structure more completely than ever before.

You can read the peer-reviewed paper here. The false color image to the right, reduced to post here, is just one slice of that dataset. We are looking down at Uranus’ pole, as the rotational tilt is so severe the planet rotates on its side as it orbits the Sun. The grey circles on the outside are the planet’s faint rings. The orange blobs I think are aurora that rotate around the pole at high latitudes, as shown in this video. The orange represents the upper atmosphere.

Led by Paola Tiranti of Northumbria University in the United Kingdom, the study mapped out the temperature and density of ions in the atmosphere extending up to 5,000 kilometres above Uranus’s cloud tops, a region called the ionosphere where the atmosphere becomes ionised and interacts strongly with the planet’s magnetic field. The measurements show that temperatures peak between 3,000 and 4,000 kilometres, while ion densities reach their maximum around 1,000 kilometres, revealing clear longitudinal variations linked to the complex geometry of the magnetic field.

…Webb’s data confirm that Uranus’s upper atmosphere is still cooling, extending a trend that began in the early 1990s. The team measured an average temperature of around 426 kelvins (about 150 degrees Celsius), lower than values recorded by ground-based telescopes or previous spacecraft.

Two bright auroral bands were detected near Uranus’s magnetic poles, together with a distinct depletion in emission and ion density in part of the region between two bands (a feature likely linked to transitions in magnetic field lines). Similar darkened regions have been seen at Jupiter, where the geometry of the magnetic field there controls how charged particles travel through the upper atmosphere.

There is great uncertainty in these conclusions, mostly because the observations are for such a short time. It is like trying to understand the Earth’s climate after looking at it for only one day.

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February 23, 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.

One comment

Saturn’s moon Enceladus, as seen during Cassini’s last close fly-by

1:22 pm

Enceladus as seen during Cassini's last close fly-by
Click for original.

Cool image time! On December 19, 2015 the Saturn orbiter Cassini made its last close fly-by of the moon Enceladus, known best for the many geysers detected on its surface venting water and other carbon-based materials.

The picture to the right, reduced and enhanced to post here, shows that the entire face of this
Saturn’s moon Enceladus, as seen during that fly-by. The moon itself is only about 310 miles across.

Its icy surface is evident, as are the many fractures, some meandering almost like rivers. Interestingly, for some reason there are a lot more craters in the lower hemisphere, while the upper hemisphere is more completely covered with fractures.

The black outline indicates the approximate area captured by the two close-up images below.
» Read more

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Webb imaged a star before it went supernova

11:14 am

Webb detection of a supernova progenitor
Click for original image.

One of the biggest challenges facing astronomers for more than four centuries has been the detection of a star prior to its going supernova. Until very recently, no such detection had ever happened, and so astronomers could only guess at the kind of stars or binary systems that might result in these gigantic stellar explosions.

In recent years the improvement in telescopes, both in orbit and on the ground, has produced some successes, whereby the progenitor star was imaged in archival imagery and found after the explosion. The sample however has been small, and the data limited to only a few wavelengths.

Now, the Webb Space Telescope has made its first detection of a supernova progenitor, in the infrared. That image is to the right, showing the star prior to the June 2025 supernova explosion.

By carefully aligning Hubble and Webb images taken of NGC 1637, the team was able to identify the progenitor star in images taken by Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) in 2024. They found that the star appeared surprisingly red – an indication that it was surrounded by dust that blocked shorter, bluer wavelengths of light. “It’s the reddest, most dusty red supergiant that we’ve seen explode as a supernova,” said graduate student and co-author Aswin Suresh of Northwestern University.

This excess of dust could help explain a long-standing problem in astronomy that could be described as the case of the missing red supergiants. Astronomers expect the most massive stars that explode as supernovas to also be the brightest and most luminous. So, they should be easy to identify in pre-supernova images. However, that hasn’t been the case.

One potential explanation is that the most massive aging stars are also the dustiest. If they’re surrounded by large quantities of dust, their light could be dimmed to the point of undetectability. The Webb observations of supernova 2025pht support that hypothesis.

You can read the peer-reviewed paper here [pdf].

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First visual detection of another star’s heliosphere

9:38 am

A baby star's heliosphere
Click for full image.

Using both the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have made the first visual detection of another star’s heliosphere, in both X-rays and in the infrared.

The image to the right, cropped to post here.

Astronomers have nicknamed the HD 61005 star system the “Moth” because it is surrounded by large amounts of dust patterned similarly to the shape of a moth’s wings when viewed through infrared telescopes. The wings are formed from material left behind after the formation of the star, similar to the Kuiper Belt in our own solar system. Observations of these wings with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope showed that the interstellar matter surrounding HD 61005 is about a thousand times denser than that around the Sun.

The wings are the points to the left and right. The star’s young heliosphere, which they dub an “astrosphere,” is the purple glow above and below. From the caption:

In this composite image of HD 61005 in the inset, X-rays from Chandra (purple and white) have been combined with infrared data from Hubble (blue and white). Chandra reveals a bright source of X-rays in the center of the image, which is the star itself surrounded by the star’s astrosphere. The wing-like structure sweeping away from the star in the infrared image is dusty material that remained behind after the formation of the star. These wings have been swept backwards as they fly through space.

As this star and its solar system are very young, what we have is a very dusty accretion disk interacting with a very temperamental baby star.

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NASA to return SLS to assembly building tomorrow Wednesday

9:10 am

UPDATE: Due to weather, the roll back to the VAB is now delayed until Wednesday, February 25, 2026.

Original post:
————————
According to its most recent update, NASA is now planning on rolling its SLS rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) no sooner than tomorrow, February 24, 2026, in order to begin its investigation into the helium flow issue in the rocket’s upper stage that has now delayed any launch until April at the earliest.

Returning to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy is required to determine the cause of the issue and fix it.

Teams are reviewing the exact time to begin the approximately 4 mile, multi-hour trek. The quick work to begin preparations for rolling the rocket and spacecraft back to the VAB potentially preserves the April launch window, pending the outcome of data findings, repair efforts, and how the schedule comes to fruition in the coming days and weeks.

The present launch window closes on April 6, 2026. For a launch to occur, NASA engineers need to identify and fix the flow issue. They will also need to test it, which suggests they will have to do some form of fueling test once the rocket is returned to the launchpad.

All of this takes time. First we have one week to get back to the VAB. Then at least a full two weeks in the VAB to identify and fix the upper stage. Then another week to roll the rocket back to the launch pad. And then another week to do another fueling test on the launchpad. That brings us to the beginning of April.

In other words, NASA has no time margin at all. If anything takes just a little longer than planned, it will not make the April launch window.

None of this is a surprise. SLS in its first launch attempt in 2022 missed its spring launch window due to similar issues and ended up launching six months later (after more launch scrubs). I predicted it would happen again now. NASA at this moment has not revealed any later launch windows, so we don’t yet know how long a delay to expect if it misses this window. Based on 2022, I suspect the delay would be until the fall.

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Exolaunch integrates five satellites in Isar’s Spectrum rocket

8:53 am

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

Exolaunch, which specializes in preparing and integrating satellites onto rockets for satellite companies, has now completed the integration of the five satellite payloads that will fly on the second launch attempt of the German startup Isar Aerospace.

The launch is presently scheduled for March 19, 2026, lifting off from Norway’s Andoya spaceport, and is Isar’s second attempt to complete an orbital launch. The first, in March 2025, failed mere seconds after launch due to a loss of attitude control.

The payloads are as follows:

  • CyBEEsat for Technische Universität Berlin (Germany)
  • TRISAT-S for University of Maribor (Slovenia)
  • STS1 for Technische Universität Wien (Austria)
  • Platform 6 6UXL for Endurosat (Bulgaria)
  • FramSat1 for Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway).

These are all cubesats and are all likely student projects, willing to risk their launch on an untested rocket because the cost is low.

Of the half dozen or so rocket startups in Europe, Isar appears in the lead. Both PLD and Rocket Factory Augsburg say they will attempt a launch in 2026, but neither has set a date. And both will be trying for their first time, unlike Isar.

It also appears that Andoya is in the lead in the race to be the first European spaceport to complete an orbital launch. The spaceports in the United Kingdom started almost a decade earlier, but have been stymied by government red tape. Norway in turn moved fast to make its regulations simple and fast.

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SpaceX launches 28 more Starlink satellites on 2nd launch today; sets new 1st stage reuse record

9:36 pm

SpaceX this evening completed its second launch today, placing 28 more Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first stage (B1067) completed its 33rd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. With this flight, B1067 has tied the space shuttle Atlantis for the second most reused launch vehicle on record.

39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
33 Falcon 9 booster B1067
31 Falcon 9 booster B1063
30 Falcon 9 booster B1071
29 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle

Sources here and here.

The 2026 launch race:

22 SpaceX
8 China
2 Rocket Lab
2 Russia
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)

As it did in both ’24 and ’25, SpaceX in ’26 so far has more launches than the entire rest of the world combined.

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Problem pops up during SLS roll back after wet dress rehearsal countdown

9:33 am

Not so fast! According to an update posted by NASA today, during the process to roll back the SLS rocket from the launchpad following the wet dress rehearsal countdown two days ago, crews suddenly detected “interrupted helium flow” in the upper stage that appears to be of some concern.

NASA is taking steps to potentially roll back the Artemis II rocket and Orion spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after overnight Feb. 21 observing interrupted flow of helium in the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket’s interim cryogenic propulsion stage. Helium flow is required for launch.

Teams are actively reviewing data, and taking steps to enable rollback positions for NASA to address the issue as soon as possible while engineers determine the best path forward. In order to protect for troubleshooting options at both Pad B and the VAB, teams are making preparations to remove the pad access platforms installed yesterday, which have wind-driven constraints and cannot be removed during high winds, which are forecasted for tomorrow. This will almost assuredly impact the March launch window. NASA will continue to provide updates. [emphasis mine]

The helium flow is likely used to fill the tanks as the actual and dangerous fuel is pumped out. They need to drain those tanks in order to roll the rocket from the launchpad. If it has stopped flowing, it means they can’t drain the tanks as planned.

During launch the helium is also likely pumped into the tanks to maintain pressure as the fuel burns. If during launch the helium stopped flowing it would almost certainly result in a failed launch.

This issue not only impacts the tentative March 6th launch date that NASA announced yesterday, if a fix is not found quickly it almost certainly means no launch can occur before this launch window closes on April 6th.

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SpaceX launches 25 more Starlink satellites

9:19 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully placed another 25 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.f

The first stage (B1063) completed its 31st flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific, moving it up in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicles:

39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
32 Falcon 9 booster B1067
31 Falcon 9 booster B1063
30 Falcon 9 booster B1071
29 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle

Sources here and here.

The 2026 launch race:

21 SpaceX
8 China
2 Rocket Lab
2 Russia
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)

As it did in both ’24 and ’25, SpaceX in ’26 so far has more launches than the entire rest of the world combined.

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February 20, 2026 Quick space links

3:02 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.

12 comments

India negotiating a possible Gaganyaan docking at ISS

11:17 am

India's Bharatiya Antariksh Station as outlined in 2024
India’s Bharatiya Antariksh Station as outlined in 2024.
Click for original image.

The head of India’s space agency ISRO, it is negotiating with NASA about doing a variety of manned space operations in conjunction with NASA, including a possible Gaganyaan docking to ISS.

According to a presentation by Isro chairman V Narayanan reviewed by TOI [Times of India], the future cooperation areas span three key areas of collaboration between the two nations’ space agencies.

The first involves comprehensive training of ISRO personnel, including astronauts, at NASA facilities across multiple domains, including robotics systems, extravehicular activity (EVA), extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) systems, resource management, space medicine and spaceflight operations, LEO and lunar mission control operations, rendezvous and docking procedures, and payload and science operations.

An important initiative outlined is the uncrewed docking demonstration of India’s Gaganyaan Orbital Module with the US Orbital Segment of the ISS — this would mark a significant technological milestone for India’s human spaceflight programme.

The third area focuses on cooperation in docking, berthing, and inter-operability systems.

It is clear ISRO wishes to get training from NASA for its manned missions. It also makes sense for it to make sure its Gaganyaan’s docking systems are compatible with ISS, Dragon, Starliner, Soyuz, and even China’s station.

Doing a test unmanned docking at ISS would also provide ISRO valuable experience in preparation for its own Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS). Its first module is presently scheduled for launch in 2028, with the entire station assembled by 2035.

None of this however has been finalized. If India were to do a docking at ISS, it would like have to wait until 2029, after the two tourist missions assigned to Axiom and Vast. ISS has a limited number of available ports, and I suspect a port really won’t be available until after those missions.

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Scientists: When a SpaceX upper stage burns up in the atmosphere, it burns up in the atmosphere!

10:12 am

Chicken Little rules!
Chicken Little rules!

We’re all gonna die! In making the first direct measurement of the plume caused by the vaporization of the lithium in a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage as it burned up in the atmosphere, scientists now claim the pollution for those upper stages as well as the coming launch of tens of thousands of satellites is going to seriously harm the environment.

You can read their paper here. From its conclusion:

Beyond this single event, recurring re-entries may sustain an increased level of anthropogenic flux of metals and metal oxides into the middle atmosphere with cumulative, climate-relevant consequences. After oxidation and heterogeneous uptake on alumina and other metal-oxide particles, aluminium and co-injected species could perturb stratospheric ozone chemistry, modify high-altitude aerosol microphysics through new particle formation, growth, and coagulation, and thereby influence radiative balance. Key unknowns include emission inventories for rockets and satellites, lack of a systematic observational survey of mesospheric metals, altitude-time ablation profiles, chemical lifetimes, particle size-composition distributions, and transport pathways into the lower stratosphere. Addressing these uncertainties will require coordinated, multi-site observations (including resonance-fluorescence and elastic lidars, in situ sampling, and satellites), together with whole-atmosphere chemistry-climate modelling to connect event-scale injections to long-term impacts.

The problems with this study, and its conclusions, are numerous. First of all, this first direct detection of the lithium plume is really no discovery at all. We know the rocket’s upper stage carried lithium. We know it burned up in the atmosphere. It is plainly obvious that lithium would end up as vapor in the upper atmosphere where stage burned up. This detection simply measured what we already knew.

Second, the amount detected is really insignificant. At about 60 miles elevation the numbers rose from 3 lithium atoms per cubic centimeter to 31 during the stage’s burn-up, numbers that will quickly dissipate at these high altitudes. We are not talking big numbers.

Finally, the threat from debris from upper rocket stages is only a temporary problem. As the demand to launch more satellites grows — which it will — the demand to recover and reuse the upper stages will grow as well. Already two American companies, SpaceX and Stoke Space, are developing rockets that will be completely reusable.

The mentality of these scientists is the same “Chicken Little” view of life held by the establishment science community for decades, from climate to industry to Covid to any human endeavor. “Everything humans do is bad! We must ban it now before it destroys us all!” And none of their cries of panic ever carry any larger context or reasonable perspective.

Sadly, this same attitude permeates the mainstream propaganda press. They don’t question such studies, they instead reprint their claims in bold, without any skepticism. We are thus ill-served by our so-called “independent and free” press.

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First unmanned Gaganyaan mission facing delay

9:33 am

Artist rendering of India's Gaganyaan capsule
Artist rendering of India’s Gaganyaan capsule

Though this is not yet confirmed, sources inside India’s space agency ISRO are saying that the first unmanned Gaganyaan orbital test mission, presently targeting a March launch, is likely to be delayed in order to do additional safety checks, following the two consecutive launch failures of the agency’s PSLV rocket.

After the dual PSLV setbacks, there is zero appetite for risk at Isro. Every component, fitting, system, and subsystem of Gaganyaan is being re-examined in minute detail to ensure mission success.

The PSLV, traditionally regarded as Isro’s workhorse launcher, suffered rare back-to-back failures over the past two years, prompting a comprehensive review of quality assurance and mission readiness protocols across launch vehicles. While Gaganyaan is slated to fly aboard the Human-Rated Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (HLVM3), an upgraded version of the GSLV Mk-III, the recent setbacks have cast a shadow over the broader launch ecosystem.

The actual manned mission is presently scheduled for early next year, after a series of unmanned orbital test flights are completed in ’26. This schedule is significantly later than ISRO’s original schedule. When the program was first proposed in 2018, ISRO said the manned mission would happen in 2022.

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