Europe tests a new engine design aimed at nothing

10:57 am

ESA: where projects go to die
The European Space Agency:
home of dead-end projects

The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that it has successfully completed a static fire test program of a new rocket engine, dubbed Greta, that uses alternative fuels in order to save the environment.

Greta uses hydrogen peroxide and ethanol as propellants, a more sustainable alternative with a lower carbon footprint compared to monomethyl hydrazine propellant used by most traditional rocket engines in this thrust range.

Greta was ignited multiple times from July to November 2025 and showed stable operations, including controlled shutdowns. During the test campaign the engine fired continuously for over 40 seconds at a time. Greta was tested on a new, low-cost and versatile mobile test stand with instruments measuring data such as pressure and temperature, which will be used to further optimise the engine.

The problem is that this engine is not being built for any specific rocket or spacecraft. As the press release notes vaguely, “This type of engine could be used on lunar landers or on kick stages, such as Astris that is being developed for Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket.”

In other words, this is a test program only, and could very well end up on the scrap heap once completed, because it belongs to no private company aimed at making profits.

NASA did these kinds of projects for decades, all for naught. The agency would make a splash with its press release, the propaganda press would extol blindly the wonders that have been achieved, and then the project would complete and get quietly shelved, stored somewhere in the government archives (possibly in the same place they put Indiana Jones’ Ark of the Covenant).

ArianeGroup is building this engine for ESA, so there is a small chance the company might decide to use it in a future rocket or spacecraft, but only if it makes sense financially. And there is no indication that this engine’s development is tied to financial concerns, in the slightest. For example, the program only calls for another round of static fire engine tests — using “parts for the flight-like motor design” — in 2027, more than a year hence. At that pace the engine will be obsolete before tests are completed.

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New analysis suggests Moon’s magnetic field shifted multiple times from weak to strong to weak

10:03 am

The uncertainty of science: A new analysis of Apollo lunar samples suggests that the Moon’s magnetic field actually shifted back and forth from strong to weak, with it being weak most of the time.

The problem scientists have had since the Apollo missions is that the Apollo samples, which all came from the relatively flat mare regions, tended to exhibit evidence of a strong past magnetic field, even though the Moon’s size and make-up suggested its field should have always been weak. This new research offers a solution:

The research team analysed the chemical makeup of a type of lunar rock – known as the Mare basalts – and found a new correlation between their titanium content and how strongly magnetised they are. Every lunar sample which had recorded a strong magnetic field also contained large amounts of titanium – and the samples containing less than 6 wt.% titanium were all associated with a weak magnetic field.

This suggests that the formation of high-titanium rocks and the generation of a strong lunar magnetic field are linked. The researchers believe that both were caused by melting of titanium-rich material deep inside the Moon, temporarily generating a very strong magnetic field.

Because the Mare basalts were an ideal landing site for the Apollo missions, due to being relatively flat, the astronauts brought back far more of the titanium-rich basalts (containing evidence for a strong magnetic field) than are representative of the lunar surface. As a result, large numbers of these rocks have been analysed by scientists back on Earth, and this was previously interpreted to mean that the lunar magnetic field was strong for long periods of its history.

Instead, the limited number of samples, all from the same regions, biased the conclusions. The scientists predict that future missions to more places on the Moon will confirm their findings.

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Genesis cover

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

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


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

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

SLS is back in the Vehicle Assembly Building

9:43 am

Last night NASA yesterday successfully completed the roll back of its SLS rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).

The SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis II mission arrived at the Vehicle Assembly Building from Launch Pad 39B at approximately 8 p.m. EST Feb. 25, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. While in the assembly building, technicians will troubleshoot the helium flow issue to the rocket’s upper stage, replace batteries on the rocket’s upper stage, core stage, and solid rocket boosters as well as service its flight termination system.

NASA officials have not said what will happen next, once that helium flow problem is resolved. I suspect NASA administrator Jared Isaacman will insist on another wet dress rehearsal to not only test the rocket’s troublesome fueling system, but to also test the helium system used to drain the tanks afterward.

If so, it is very unlikely a launch can occur prior to April 6th, when the present launch window closes. The odds of there being no issues on the next dress rehearsal are slim, based on SLS’s past record, and even if all goes well, the time margins are very very tight, allowing for no delays of any kind.

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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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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.

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

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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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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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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