ESA cancels planned upper stage upgrade for Ariane-6

11:48 am

An Ariane-6 rocket launching in 2024
The first Ariane-6 rocket launch in 2024

It appears that back in 2025 but only revealed recently the European Space Agency (ESA) canceled the planned upper stage upgrade for Ariane-6, dubbed Icarus, that the rocket’s builder ArianeGroup had been developing.

This decision has now been confirmed by ESA.

The decision appears to have been partly because of a desire to increase the launch cadence of Ariane-6 in order to meet the demands of its top customer, Amazon, to launch more Leo satellites more frequently. The decision however has impacted a planned ESA mission to the Saturn moon Enceladus, which had relied on the upgrade and Icarus for its mission. Mission planners have now been scrambling to rethink their plans, as the present Ariane-6 is not powerful enough to achieve the intended mission.

According to comments by ESA officials at the second link, the agency is still considering a variety of upgrades to Ariane-6, but those upgrades remain vague, and it appears ESA is not funding them sufficiently anyway.

This whole story hinges on the decision by ESA and Arianespace in 2015 to make Ariane-6 an expendable rocket. It is simply too expensive to compete in the present market of reusable rockets, and thus European satellite customers have been increasingly going elsewhere. If it wasn’t for Amazon’s contract the rocket would have few launch customers, except for ESA’s government launches. For this reason, it appears ESA’s member states don’t want to spend money upgrading it. They’d rather use that cash to help the new rocket startups that will eventually replace Ariane-6 with better and cheaper rockets.

3 comments

Blue Origin might be expanding its operations in Texas

11:28 am

Because of reports in May that Blue Origin is considering building a major manufacturing plant in the town of Hutto north of Austin, both Hutto and county officials have put together incentive packages to convince Blue Origin to make the move.

Snell said Williamson County’s 10-year total incentives include a 100% tax abatement on real property and a 50% abatement on personal property for the first five years and a 50% abatement on real property for the second five years. The agreement also includes requirements for Blue Origin to work with the Hutto school district on a career and technical education program and high school internship requirements.

He said those incentives “match” Hutto’s development agreement. The city of Hutto approved its initial agreement on Aug. 6 and is beginning the process for tax abatement discussions at Thursday night’s City Council meeting.

Blue Origin’s factory would cover about 1.3 million square feet, employ 2,000 people, and bring in as much as $1 billion in investment before completion. Its purpose remains vague, described as focused on “manufacturing, research-and-development, warehouse, and logistics space.”

The company has not yet made a decision, with officials suggesting it is still considering locations in California and Florida. I doubt California is a serious option, considering its anti-business, pro-communist government, but Florida is certainly an option, considering Blue Origin’s launch operations there. The reports however strongly suggest Blue Origin is favoring Texas.

Overall this move also suggests the company might be shifting some of its operations out of Washington state, for the same reasons it will likely avoid California. At a minimum it appears it is not considering these Democratic Party-run states for any major expansion.

Hat tip Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.

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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

Astronomers map fastest orbit so far of a star circling the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole

10:50 am

The orbit of star S301

Using data gathered since 2023 by the GRAVITY instrument on the Very Large Telescope in Chile, astronomers have now mapped the orbit a star circling Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, every 8.7 years that when it zips past on its closest approach is moving more than 15,500 miles per second, about 8% of the speed of light.

The graphic to the right is figure 2 of the research paper [pdf], and shows the orbit as presently tracked. The 2017 location comes from archival data found later by the science team.

A team led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) describes the discovery of a star, dubbed S301. It is unremarkable—apart from its extreme proximity to our local supermassive black hole, which has 4.3 million times the mass of the Sun. If the black hole sat at the center of the Solar System, its event horizon—the threshold beyond which even light cannot escape—would be 17 times the diameter of the Sun. S301 has a very elongated orbit, but every 8.7 years it swings close to the black hole—only slightly farther out than Saturn in this imagined system—reaching a speed that would carry it across the Solar System in a few days.

…The team first spotted S301 in early 2023 during one of its monthly observations with GRAVITY, says MPE’s Stefan Gillessen, one of the lead authors of the Nature paper. Although S301 was 100 times fainter than S2 [the previous speed record-holder orbiting Sagittarius A*], subsequent observations showed it racing away from the black hole. By 2024 its path began to curve, and it slowed as it approached the most distant point in its orbit. “By the end of ’24, we had sort of a rough estimate of the orbit,” Gillessen says. “In late ’25, we were already pretty sure.” The team also searched through archival observations, spotting S301 in 2021 and 2017. With most of its 8.7-year orbit mapped out, “that already beautifully shows Schwarzschild precession,” Gillessen says.

The scientists believe the precession, or shift in S301’s orbit shown in the graphic, is a change imposed each orbit by the spin of Sagittarius A*, and will provide them a method for measuring precisely that spin in the coming years. That shift is similar to the precession in Mercury’s orbit which for decades baffled astronomers until Einstein’s theories of relativity explained it.

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Hypersonic missile startup Castelion raises $1 billion in private investment capital

9:51 am

A new hypersonic missile startup, dubbed Castelion and founded by three former SpaceX executives, has now raised $1 billion in private investment capital.

The Series C financing announced Aug. 19 includes $800 million in equity and a $250 million committed revolving credit facility. The equity round was co-led by JPMorganChase’s Strategic Investment Group, Andreessen Horowitz and funds managed by Carlyle. Lightspeed Venture Partners, Lavrock Ventures, Altimeter, General Catalyst and Interlagos also participated, along with new investor T. Rowe Price Associates. Castelion said the financing values the four-year-old startup at $13 billion.

The funding will be used to expand production of Blackbeard, Castelion’s hypersonic strike missile, at its manufacturing complex in Sandoval County, New Mexico, while accelerating work on a longer-range precision strike weapon and defensive systems for air and missile defense.

The company, founded in 2022, had already raised $350 million in 2025. It already has $500 million in War Department contracts, and hopes to launch its first Blackbeard missile in 2027. Its appeal to the Pentagon is its low cost, about $400k per missile versus the many millions charged by competitors. It also appears Castelion is offering high production rates — based on its founders’ past experience at SpaceX — something the older established companies have not been able to achieve.

These deals also indicate the changing approach to contracting by the Pentagon under Trump. For decades it refused to consider deals with new companies, always favoring the older established big space contractors like Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, etc., a bias that produced little for a lot of money This hidebound approach now appears to be ending, and the benefits appear extensive and ground-shaking, so much so that the investor community is willing to commit a lot of investment capital in such startups.

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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.

Private company and local officials working to establish Arizona landing range for orbital spacecraft

9:24 am

Arizona landing range

A private group called Space Rising is now in discussions with local officials to establish an Arizona landing range for orbital spacecraft near the city of Sierra Vista.

Space Rising, the private group behind the Blueprint, told ABC15 Mornings Anchor Kaley O’Kelley their group is now working with Sierra Vista Mayor Clea McCaa and Tony Boone, the city’s Director of Tourism, Economic Development and Spaceport, as it forms an Arizona Space Economic Development Coalition. The group says the coalition will include major economic development organizations and communities like Sierra Vista and Yuma. One of its initiatives would be focused on bringing a spaceport to one or both locations.

Sierra Vista is already taking a major step toward that goal, pursuing a Federal Aviation Administration Part 433 license to operate a spacecraft reentry site. Sierra Vista says the licensing process could result in approval by early 2027. [emphasis mine]

As the map shows, Sierra Vista is an interior location. It is not likely many rocket companies will have an interest in launching from any spaceport established there. However, a landing range would make great sense, as southeast corner of Arizona is lightly populated and has plenty of open territory controlled by the government that could be utilized for this purpose.

Such a range would also attract a great deal of interest, especially for the recoverable capsule companies such as Varda and SpaceX’s Starfall. At present, there is no place within the United States where such capsules can land. Varda originally wanted to bring its capsules back at the Air Force’s Utah range, but red tape from both the Air Force and the FAA delayed that return for more than six months. The company then switched to bringing its capsules back at the Koonibba range run by Southern Launch in Australia. Since then two other American capsule startups have also signed on with Southern Launch.

By providing a U.S. landing range, Sierra Vista is doing basic capitalism: fulfilling a known need of customers.

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Rocket Lab completes its ninth launch for Japanese radar satellite company Q-Shu

8:59 am

Rocket Lab this morning successfully placed its ninth launch for the Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space (IQPS or Q-shu), its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand. The rocket company has contract for a total of 18 launches with Q-Shu, and now has nine to go.

SpaceX had planned a Starlink launch shortly thereafter, but that launch has been rescheduled for tomorrow morning.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

100 SpaceX
55 China
12 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
10 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 100 to 93.

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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

Louisiana governor to announce SpaceX land purchase next week?

8:46 am

Pecan Island SpaceX facility?
Pecan Island SpaceX facility?

It now appears that Louisiana’s governor Jeff Landry is planning a big event next week when, according to anonymous sources, he will announce the purchase by SpaceX of that 130K acre plot of land presently owned by Exxon and near the unincorporated village of Pecan Island on the state’s south coast.

Gov. Jeff Landry is inviting hundreds of Louisiana elected officials and business leaders to Abbeville next week to announce that Elon Musk’s company SpaceX is planning to build a multibillion-dollar spaceport on a roughly 18-mile stretch of the coast about 45 miles southwest of Lafayette. An invitation, sent via email by the governor’s office and Louisiana Economic Development on Wednesday, said Landry and LED Secretary Susan Bourgeois “cordially invite you to join them in announcing a defining moment for Louisiana’s future.”

The event is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Tuesday [August 25] in Abbeville, the Vermilion Parish seat and the closest city to the site of the planned spaceport.

The invitation didn’t mention SpaceX by name and Landry’s office declined to comment, but sources familiar with the deal said the subject of the announcement is the SpaceX project.

I have speculated that this announcement would not occur until early September, because SpaceX wanted to wait until after the August 31st end date for the comment period on the FAA’s new policy exempting rocket companies from most major environmental laws. It appears Landry and SpaceX have decided that August 25th is close enough to that end date, a decision that probably took place in discussions last week when Musk’s private jet as well as another SpaceX airplane visited Louisiana for one day. They probably decided there was no longer any point in waiting, as the news is largely public knowledge now.

This decision was also probably influenced by a decision by a federal judge on August 18, 2026 to dismiss a lawsuit that had been hanging over the Exxon property.

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August 19, 2026 Quick space links

2:50 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, plus one from reader Nate P. 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.

Note: X now requires log in to view videos with sound. You can get around this by clicking on the three dots at the top right to get the embed code. Ask for the code for an “embedded video.” The video will then be available for watching with sound.

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Katalyst and NASA cancel any attempt to catch and raise the orbit of Gehrels-Swift

12:31 pm

Artist rendering of Link (on left) about to attach to Gehrels-Swift
Artist rendering of Link (on left) about to attach to Gehrels-Swift.
Click for original image.

In parallel announcements today by both the satellite repair startup Katalyst and NASA, due to continuing attitude thruster issues the decision has been made to forego any attempt by Katalyst’s Link spacecraft to grab the Gehrels-Swift space telescope and raise its orbit. From the NASA press release:

Due to an ongoing commercial spacecraft attitude control issue, NASA and Katalyst Space announced Wednesday the LINK spacecraft will not capture or boost an agency satellite to a higher altitude to extend its science mission as planned. However, LINK still will attempt to conduct rendezvous and proximity operations with NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory to demonstrate key capabilities for the future of space exploration.

At the moment it appears NASA expects Gehrels-Swift to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up before the end of the year. Thus, there is not enough time left to mount another rescue mission. The loss of this space telescope is a major blow to the field of astronomy. If the astronomy community was focused on launching similar space telescopes, rather than big ground-based telescopes that simply can’t do as much, a replacement would likely have already been ready for launch. Alas, no such replacement is planned or has even been proposed.

For Katalyst this failure is actually a shining achievement. It managed to quickly reconfigure its planned first demo mission into Link, and get it built and launched in less than six months. The company also showed resilience in dealing with technical problems after launch. As a result it is not surprising that two days ago it was one of three companies to win a Space Force contract to develop satellite technology for rendezvousing with defunct military satellites, grabbing them, and de-orbiting them. Such technology could also be used directly against satellites of hostile powers.

5 comments

Space Force targets replacing its older DMSP weather satellites by 2028

11:40 am

According to a report today at Air and Space Force magazine, the Space Force now intends to maintain its old DMSP weather satellite constellation through 2028, replacing it slowly with two different government-designed smallsat constellations as well as commercial weather satellite constellations.

The service had anticipated decommissioning the three remaining Defense Meteorological Satellite Program spacecraft this year, but a spokesperson told Air & Space Force Magazine that timeline will stretch to 2028 as the Space Force works to field a new constellation of weather satellites.

… The service is in the midst of replacing DMSP with a mix of smaller satellites with disaggregated payloads. The near-term plan is to split DMSP sensors across two programs: the Weather System Follow-on Microwave program, or WSF-M, and the Electro-Optical/Infrared Weather System, or EWS. WSF-M satellites will identify and characterize tropical storms and high winds and measure snow soil and depth, while EWS satellites will carry electro-optical infrared sensors to provide imagery of cloud coverage and forecasts for military planners.

The first WSF-M satellite launched in 2024, but program delays have prevented further launches on time. Similarly, the first EWS satellite won’t launch until this year, and appears to have experienced similar delays. In both cases, these delays are typical of government-designed projects, and are the main reason the Space Force is also, to quote the article:

… exploring options to use commercial spacecraft and data to complement the dedicated military satellites it’s fielding. Last year, it awarded a $44 million contract to Muon Space to modify one of its multispectral imaging payloads for military use and install it on three satellites to support Space Force demonstrations. The service has indicated it is interested in a range of ground and space-based remote sensing technology and is working with other companies to better understand what data and services are commercially available.

In other words, private enterprise is more likely to provide the Space Force the weather information it needs, and do it faster and for less money. What a concept! Who wudda thunk it?

7 comments

“Honeycomb terrain” on Mars

11:24 am

Honeycombs on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on June 30, 2026 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as “honeycomb terrain,” though to think that explains what we are looking at is to live in a fantasy world.

I could easily place this image in my category of Martian “What the heck?!” images, pictures of geological features that defy any clear explanation at all. Near surface ice and glacial activity certainly played a part in forming this geology, as this location is at 39 degrees south latitude, well within the mid-latitudes of Mars where both are found routinely.

Crater impacts also played some part, or at least, some of the round depressions might have been formed by a bolide striking this ice-impregnated ground, causing it to quickly melt, flow, and then refreeze.

But why the swirls? That is a question I have no theory to explain. Nor does a wider look help much.
» Read more

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New images detail damage caused by Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Soyuz-2 rocket factory

9:23 am

Comparing before and after Ukrainian attack
Click for original image.

New satellite images obtained by Business Insider now provide better visual evidence of the damage created by the Ukrainian missile attack on August 15, 2026 on Russia’s Soyuz-2 rocket factory, located in the city of Samara about 550 miles inside Russia.

The pictures to the right show the factory before and after. The top satellite picture was released the day of the attack. Building 106A is the Progress Rocket Space Centre in Samara, which is where the Soyuz-2 and the upgraded not-yet-operational Soyuz-5 rockets are manufactured. Building 106B is the facility where the rockets and payloads are integrated prior to shipment to the launch site. Early reports had suggested both buildings had been damaged, with 106A getting hit more.

The bottom picture, taken by a satellite in the imaging constellation of the American company Vantor and obtained by Business Insider, shows the actual damage, indicated by the arrows. Most of the impacts were in 106A and a building to the south. A wider shot posted at the link shows that building 106B experienced no direct hits.

Based on the damage, I suspect Russia will be able to recover from this attack relatively quickly, though the risk of future Ukrainian attacks to this facility remains, assuming Russia doesn’t move operations. The Ukraine considers Russia’s new Rassvet broadband constellation a military threat. It uses Soyuz-2 rockets to get into orbit, and the Ukrainian has been taking aggressive actions with missiles and drones to prevent their launch.

12 comments

SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites

8:55 am

SpaceX last night successfully placed another 24 Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage (B1097) completed its 12th flight (43 days after its previous mission), landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

This was also SpaceX’s 100th launch in 2026, which set no records, but highlights the company’s remarkable success. For most of the history of space exploration, only the Soviet Union was ever able to do that many launches in a single year, and it only did that because it kept launching cheap, throw-away, short term reconnaissance satellites that were less effective than the long term more sophisticated satellites the U.S. military adopted. The U.S. only managed to reach the century mark in 2023, and that was solely because SpaceX completed 96 launches that year. Since then SpaceX has topped hundred launches each year, and by a lot.

Though it remains unclear if the company will continue this pace when Starship becomes operational, the count is not likely to go down by much, as other rocket companies are on the horizon and will soon begin ramping up operations. The demand is high for getting payloads in orbit, and it appears it will only grow higher in the coming years.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

100 SpaceX
55 China
11 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
10 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 100 to 92.

7 comments

China today finally succeeds in vertically soft-landing a first stage

9:00 pm

Zhuque-3 just prior to touch down

The Chinese pseudo-company Landspace today not only successfully launched its new Zhuque-3 rocket (essentially a copy of SpaceX’s Falcon 9), placing a low-orbit communications satellite into orbit, it also finally succeeded in landing the first stage vertically at a down range landing zone.

The screen capture to the right show the stage just before touch down. As you can see, its resembles closely the Falcon 9, with almost identical grid fins and landing legs. It however is an upgrade in that it uses methane fuel (like Starship) rather than kerosene.

This achievement — along with the successful recovery of the first stage of a Long March 10B government rocket in early July — means in the next year or so China can begin ramping up launches because it will be able to reuse these first stages. Moreover, Landspace will have no ability (as in the U.S.) of protecting its Zhuque-3 technology. Chinese pseudo-companies are just that, fake private companies that work independently to compete for contracts, but are always under the supervision and control of the communist government. We should fully expect this technology to quickly begin appearing on other Chinese rockets.

As that technology begins going into full operation, China will also slowly stop crashing uncontrolled lower stages within China, often at great risk to its own citizens. The Chinese communists did not develop this technology for this reason (it has apparently never cared whether its falling rockets injured innocent civilians), but to lower its launch costs and increase its launch rate. It will now be able to do all these things.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

99 SpaceX
55 China
11 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
10 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 99 to 92.

15 comments

Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine – 1-2-3

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Diane and I recently saw a beautiful live production of “On Your Feet: the story of Emilio & Gloria Estafan,” produced by the Arts Express theater in Tucson. Before this I was completely unaware of their work, other than being vaguely familiar with some songs, though not by name. Though obviously sugar-coated in some ways (especially in its portrayal of the communists in Cuba and the way they destroyed this family’s life), it was it appears a largely accurate and heart-warming story, filled with the Estaban’s great music. Below is one such song, performed live in 1988, hat tip to Diane Zimmerman.

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LRO snaps picture of crater created by Falcon 9 impact on Moon

3:27 pm

Before and after images
Before and after images. Click for original.

The science team for NASA’s Lunar Reconniassance Orbiter (LRO) today released high resolution before and after pictures of the location on the Moon where a Falcon 9 upper stage crashed on August 5, 2026.

They were able to locate the impact point using data provided by South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter, which took the first impact images but from a greater distance and from the side.

The new crater (19.4759°N, 266.7138°E, 511 meters elevation) is 18 meters in diameter and is less than 3 meters deep (constrained with a shadow measurement). The distinctive V-shaped ejecta pattern on the south side of the crater is consistent with natural impactors hitting the Moon at low angles relative to the surface. In this case, the booster impacted at about 31° from horizontal; the forbidden zone (bright area on the south side of the crater) seen here is consistent with low-angle natural impacts. Other spacecraft impacts, such as the large Apollo Saturn S-IVB stage craters, do not always follow the same rules as natural impacts. This deviation may be due to the relatively odd mass distribution within a rocket. Upon impact, most of the booster consists of empty fuel tanks with a very heavy engine at one end. The final shape of the crater and the distribution of ejecta might be affected by the orientation of the booster upon impact (i.e., heavy end down, on its side, light end down, or somewhere in between). If the heavy end hits first, perhaps the crater and ejecta behave more like a natural event.

Why the mixed dark and bright ejecta? The Moon is covered in a layer of soil, known as regolith. Over time, the top portion of the regolith is constantly bombarded by the solar wind, galactic cosmic rays, and micrometeorite impacts. These external forces tend to darken and redden the regolith to a depth of roughly 50 centimeters. As an asteroid, or rocket body, first contacts the regolith, particles are jetted out at high velocity. As the body buries itself and explodes, it throws out deeper subsurface material, forming an ejecta blanket around the crater rim. In the Falcon 9 crater, the darker, streaky material was likely derived from the mature upper 50 centimeters of the regolith. In contrast, the brighter material near the crater rim came from the deeper, immature portion of the regolith (>50 centimeters below the surface).

As noted previously, such impacts have occurred before, and are not of much consequence, other than the scientific data outlined above. When lunar bases are established the issue will be of more concern.

2 comments

August 18, 2026 Quick space links

2:45 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.

Note: X now requires log in to view videos with sound. You can get around this by clicking on the three dots at the top right to get the embed code. Ask for the code for an “embedded video.” The video will then be available for watching with sound.

5 comments

The map that named the New World

1:56 pm

The Fourth Part of the World

One of the great mysteries of the New World is its name. Why were both continents named after a relatively unknown Italian merchant by the name of Amerigo Vespucci, rather than the great explorers who are much more well known for discovering and exploring its shores in the 1490s?

Even as a child I wondered about this mystery. My teachers would describe the voyages of Christopher Columbus, Henry Hudson, Vasco da Gama, Vasco Balboa, etc, but tell us little of Vespucci. Yet North and South America both honor him with his name. Why? How?

I finally got the answer to that question in reading Toby Lester’s 2010 history, The Fourth Part of the World. It not only tells the story of that European discovery of the whole world, beginning in the 12th century (when little was known outside Europe) to the 16th century (when Spanish and Portuguese sailors were circling the entire globe), it also puts that story in the context of map-making, which provided those explorers the information they needed to venture out into unknown seas.

Lester centers his story on one map, created in 1507 by a small somewhat obscure group of cartographers located in the foothills of the Alps near the German-French border, that for the first time put the name “America” on the New World, as shown below.
» Read more

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