Link here.
Lots of work on going, all aimed at not only getting ready for the next test flight of Starship/Superheavy, but to make the facility capable of regular and frequent launches, including construction of a facility that will be able to produce the oxygen and nitrogen needed for the rocket, rather than having to depend on numerous truck shipments.
Both China and the American company ULA successfully completed launches since yesterday.
First, China placed the third satellite in an new Earth observation constellation, its Long March 4B rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China.
Developed by the China Academy of Space Technology, the satellite will join the Ziyuan III 02 and 03 satellites already in orbit to form a high-precision observation constellation. Equipped with a stereoscopic mapping camera, multispectral camera, and laser altimeter, it will capture high-resolution 3D imagery critical for geographic data collection and natural resource management.
It appears however that this constellation is used by China’s military, so I suspect its purposes do not exactly match this description. China’s state-run press also provided no information as to where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.
Next, ULA launched another 27 Leo satellites for Amazon, its Atlas-5 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Amazon now has 181 satellites in orbit, with a requirement to get about 1,600 in orbit by July 2026 to meet its FCC license obligations. As it took about eight months to get those first 181 satellites into space (with SpaceX launching 72), Amazon’s three launch providers, ULA (42 launches), Arianespace (18 launches), and Blue Origin (27 launches), will have to ramp up their launch rate significantly to get even close to meeting those obligations in the next six months. There is also a question whether Amazon can manufacture enough satellites at a fast enough pace for those rockets.
As for the rocket, ULA now has only ten Atlas-5 rocket left in stock, with four reserved for Leo launches and six for Boeing’s Starliner manned capsule.
This was also ULA’s sixth launch in 2025. The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
166 SpaceX
84 China (a new record)
16 Rocket Lab
15 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 166 to 138.
An evening pause: As has become my own tradition, I always begin the Christmas/Hanukkah season’s evening pauses with this particular piece, because it not only speaks to both religions, it is amazingly beautiful to hear.
The video replays her singing the same thing three times. There is a good reason, as she almost appears to have begun singing as a lark, and the acoustics of the church astonish her. The repeats help bring out this amazing quality.
Images taken by Starfish’s camera.
A Mira orbital tug built by the startup Impulse Space has successfully completed rendezvous and proximity operations near a previously launched Mira tug, using software and equipment provided by the startup Starfish Space.
The Remora mission marked an industry first: a fully autonomous rendezvous executed by Starfish with a single lightweight camera system and closed-loop guidance, navigation and control software running on a peripheral flight computer.
Starfish and Impulse conducted the mission using Impulse’s Mira spacecraft that was flown on the Impulse LEO Express 2 mission. Starfish’s payloads enabled Mira to perform close-proximity maneuvers with another Impulse Mira spacecraft on orbit, which had been previously used for the LEO Express 1 mission. During operations in LEO, Starfish software autonomously controlled the LEO Express 2 Mira, guiding the satellite through a series of maneuvers which ultimately brought it to within approximately 1,250 meters of the LEO Express 1 Mira.
The significance of this test is its simplicity. Starfish has now demonstrated rendezvous technology that cubesats can use. Previously such precise maneuvers could only be done by larger satellites using more complex equipment. Starfish has orbital tug contracts using its own Otter tug, and will use this technology on those missions.
Impulse meanwhile demonstrated the maneuverability of its own Mira tug. And both companies demonstrated the ability to put this mission together quickly, in about nine months, and then launch it on a SpaceX rocket.
SpaceX last night successfully placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage completed its 9th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
166 SpaceX (a new record)
83 China
16 Rocket Lab
15 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 166 to 136.
The components for the first Ariane-6 launch in its 18-launch contract with Amazon are now on their way by boat to French Guiana for a launch earlier in 2026.
Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite network, Amazon Leo, reached another milestone this week as Arianespace’s hybrid industrial cargo ship, Canopée, departed from Bordeaux, France, transporting essential components of the Ariane 6 rocket for its first Amazon mission planned for early next year.
…Canopée’s voyage is supporting Amazon Leo’s inaugural mission on Ariane 64—an Ariane 6 variant featuring four additional boosters for maximum satellite launch capacity. The vessel will transport the rocket’s central core stage, upper stage, and other critical components on a weeks-long journey across the Atlantic to the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Once there, the components will undergo final assembly and integration in preparation for the LE-01 mission.
Though Ariane-6 has successfully launched four times, none of those versions were this most powerful version. The plan is for it to place in orbit 32 Leo satellites, some of which Amazon has already shipped to French Guiana.
Arianespace plans six Ariane-6 launches in 2026, though it is unclear how many of these launches will be for Amazon. Amazon, which has about 154 satellites in orbit, needs to get about 1,450 more launched by July to meet its FCC license obligations. Both ULA and Blue Origin say they will be ramping up their launch pace in 2026 to meet this need, but it remains unclear if all three rocket companies can get the job done on time.
As part of its recent push to establish links with as many foreign governments as possible, Vast announced earlier this week the opening of a new Japanese office, to be headed by a retired Japanese astronaut.
In November Vast announced preliminary agreements with Uzbekistan, the Maldives, and Columbia. This new office in Japan continues that trend. The company is clearly marketing its demonstration single module space station Haven-1 to these international customers. None have yet committed to a flight, but expect a lot of action once Haven-1 launches in the spring and is proven operational. The company wants to fly four 30-day manned missions to the module during its three year mission, and if launched successfully these international customers are likely to sign on for flights.
In a message to employees on December 12, 2025, SpaceX’s chief financial officer, Bret Johnson, confirmed the company is considering issuing an initial public offering of stock sometime in 2026, but that nothing has been decided in any way.
His announcement also indicated the reason to do so would be to raise enough funds to “ramp Starship to an insane flight rate, deploy AI data centers in space, build Moonbase Alpha and send uncrewed and crewed missions to Mars.”
I think the question is whether the company is raising enough revenue from Starlink to do what it wants, or whether it now sees a need for more investment capital that it cannot get from either that revenue or private stock sales. If it finds in the coming months the former is sufficient, the stock sale will be put off, probably for several years. If it finds the latter, than we shall see this IPO sometime in 2026.
Now liberty is enlightening the solar system!
Two American companies today successfully completed launches from opposite sides of the globe, and in doing so set a new global benchmark for rocket launches in a single year.
First, Rocket Lab placed a Japanese technology test smallsat into orbit, its Electron rocket taking off from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand. The satelliite, dubbed Raise-4, was built by Japan’s space agency JAXA and carries eight different experimental payloads from a variety of academic and industry entities, including a test of a new solar sail design.
SpaceX then followed, launching another 27 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage completed its 9th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
165 SpaceX (a new record)
83 China
16 Rocket Lab (a new record)
15 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 165 to 136.
More significantly, with these two launches the total number of successful orbital launches in 2025 has now exceeded 300, for a present total of 301. To put the spectacular nature of this number in perspective, until 2020 it was rare for the world to exceed 100 launches in a year, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union. Most often, the total each year ranged between 50 to 80 launches.
Those numbers are now history, and it has been competition and freedom that has made all the difference.
» Read more
The South African government has finally removed the racist rule that required SpaceX to sell 30% of its company to local black citizens before allowing Starlink terminals to be sold in its country.
Instead, the government will allow SpaceX to do what the company had repeatedly offered to do, make substantial investments in “local development programs.”
Starlink has been unable to launch in South Africa for years because the current ICASA rules require telecommunications companies to sell 30% of their equity to historically disadvantaged individuals. Starlink has consistently refused, stating it does not sell equity in any market where it operates.
But now under the new directive, multinational companies that cannot sell equity due to global shareholding structures can instead make substantial investments in local development programs. These equity equivalent investment programs must be worth either 30% of the company’s South African operations value or 4% of annual local revenue. The programs require approval and monitoring by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition.
…Starlink has already outlined plans to invest nearly R2 billion in South Africa. The company proposed investing R500 million to connect approximately 5,000 schools to high-speed internet, benefiting about 2.4 million students.
One of the reasons the government backed down on this issue is that it received more than 19,000 public comments in which 90% blasted the racist quotas and demanded the government approve SpaceX’s proposals.
If you live in South Africa however don’t expect to go out and buy a Starlink terminal tomorrow. Final regulatory approvals will still delay Starlink availability until late 2027, at the earliest.
An evening pause: The official name is the Niland Geyser.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
The leftist anti-Musk activists groups have now appealed the dismissal of their lawsuit against the law allowing more frequent beach closures at Boca Chica for Starship/Superheavy launches.
The lawsuit was filed by Save the Rio Grande Valley (SaveRGV), the Sierra Club, and the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas against Cameron County, the Texas General Land Office, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, and the Texas attorney general. When the case was reviewed by the lower court in Cameron county, it dismissed it entirely, saying the activist groups had no standing and had failed to show any harm from the law.
The activists then appealed to a higher court.
The Thirteenth Court of Appeals found the Plaintiffs have standing and that immunity had been waived for each Defendant. The case was remanded to the trial court to proceed on the merits, but Defendants appealed the Thirteenth Court’s ruling to the Supreme Court of Texas.
Oral arguments before the Supreme Court of Texas will occur on January 13, 2026. In the more rational world of America until two decades ago, the case would be thrown out again, since the law that initially limited these beach closures was legally revised by the state legislature.launches. Just because these leftists don’t like it doesn’t mean they and the courts have the right to cancel legal legislation.
We no longer live in that more rational American world, however. Politics now rule, and it is leftist politics that most often win, regardless of the law or rationality.
