Tag: competition

Japanese rocket startup Space One to attempt third orbital launch this weekend

10:39 am

Japanese spaceports
Japanese spaceports indicated by red dots

The Japanese rocket startup Space One has now scheduled the third launch attempt of its Kairos rocket for this coming Sunday, March 1, 2026, lifting off from its private Spaceport Kii launchpad.

Space One said Friday that it would launch the No. 3 unit of its Kairos small rocket carrying artificial satellites on Sunday morning. The Tokyo-based space development startup canceled the initially scheduled launch on Wednesday, citing a forecast for unfavorable weather conditions.

According to Space One, the Kairos No. 3 unit is set to lift off from the company’s Spaceport Kii launch site in the town of Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture, between around 11 a.m. and 11:20 a.m. on Sunday. The rocket will carry five satellites, including one developed by the Taiwan Space Agency.

The two previous launch attempts, in March and December 2024, both failed almost immediately after launch.

A success now by this private company is crucial for Japan, as its government-owned H3 and Epsilon rockets are both grounded due to launch failures.

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China outlines plans for manned space program

10:26 am

China’s state-run press today outlined a short update on the status of its manned space station program as well as its planned manned lunar landing, still targeting a 2030 launch.

For the space station, these are its upcoming plans:

China is scheduled to launch two crewed missions and one cargo spacecraft mission for its space station operation in 2026, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA). An astronaut from the Hong Kong or Macao special administrative region is expected to carry out a space station flight mission as early as this year, the CMSA noted.

One astronaut from the Shenzhou-23 crew will conduct a year-long in-orbit stay experiment, the CMSA said.

I am willing to bet that China is planning an even longer station mission that will break Valeri Polyakov’s 14.5 month record mission, set in the 1990s on Mir.

As for China’s lunar landing plans, nothing new was announced:

China is targeting a crewed lunar landing by 2030. The development of major flight products, including the Long March-10 carrier rocket, the Mengzhou crewed spacecraft, and the Lanyue lunar lander, is proceeding smoothly. Key tests have been completed, including the zero-height abort test for the Mengzhou spacecraft, the landing and takeoff test for the Lanyue lunar lander, the static fire test and the low-altitude demonstration and validation test for the Long March-10 rocket system, and the maximum dynamic pressure escape test for the Mengzhou spacecraft system.

In 2026, the country will intensify efforts to advance the construction of supporting facilities and equipment for the lunar mission at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in southern Hainan Province, as well as the development of ground support systems.

China has not yet outlined a program of missions leading up to that lunar landing. Like Apollo and now Artemis, it makes sense to do low orbit rendezvous and docking tests of these various spacecraft before heading to the Moon. It also makes sense to do these same tests first in lunar orbit, before landing. Expect China to announce such a program soon, for launch in the 2027-2029 timeframe.

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SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites; another booster reaches thirty flights

9:01 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first stage (B1069) completed its 30th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. With this flight, B1069 becomes the fourth SpaceX first stage to fly thirty times:

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

Sources here and here.

The 2026 launch race:

25 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’s suborbital launch from two days ago had been scrubbed due to weather, and is now 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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NASA’s corrupt Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel: NASA must be bigger and have more control!

11:36 am

Orion's damaged heat shield
Orion’s damaged heat shield after 2022 flight.
ASAP “Move along! Nothing to see here.”

NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) today released its annual report, and once again it demonstrated why I have been calling it corrupt and a waste of money for years.

The report can be read here [pdf], but let me warn you that its findings have nothing to do with ASAP’s original purpose (created after the 1967 Apollo 1 launchpad fire that killed three astronauts), to look at NASA projects to make sure the agency is not ignoring specific safety issues.

Instead, as it has done repeatedly in recent years, the panel focused on management goals and larger strategic issues, and as usual concluded that the best way to do things is to make NASA bigger with more control over the entire space industry.
» Read more

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites

9:04 am

SpaceX early today successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its 26th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic, within the territorial waters of the Bahamas for the second time.

The 2026 launch race:

20 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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NASA on Starliner: Too much freedom caused the failure!

2:59 pm

Starliner docked to ISS
Starliner docked to ISS in 2024.

NASA today released its final investigation report on the causes behind the Starliner thruster issues during that capsule’s only manned mission in ISS, issues that almost prevented the spacecraft from docking successfully and could have left it manned and out-of-control while still in orbit.

You can read the report here [pdf]. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman made it clear in his own statement that the Starliner incident was far more serious than originally let on.

“To undertake missions that change the world, we must be transparent about both our successes and our shortcomings. We have to own our mistakes and ensure they never happen again. Beyond technical issues, it is clear that NASA permitted overarching programmatic objectives of having two providers capable of transporting astronauts to-and-from orbit, influence engineering and operational decisions, especially during and immediately after the mission. We are correcting those mistakes. Today, we are formally declaring a Type A mishap and ensuring leadership accountability so situations like this never reoccur. We look forward to working with Boeing as both organizations implement corrective actions and return Starliner to flight only when ready.”

A Type A mishap is one in which a spacecraft could become entirely uncontrollable, leading to its loss and the death of all on board. Though Starliner was NOT lost, for a short while as it hung close to ISS that result was definitely possible. Its thrusters were not working. It couldn’t maneuver to dock, nor could it maneuver to do a proper and safe de-orbit. Fortunately, engineers were able to figure out a way to get the thursters operational again so a docking could occur, but until then, it was certainly a Type A situation.

The report outlines in great detail the background behind Starliner’s thruster issues, the management confusion between NASA and Boeing, and the overall confused management at Boeing itself, including its generally lax testing standards.

The report’s recommends that NASA impose greater control over future commercial contracts, noting that under the capitalism model that NASA has been following:
» Read more

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Chinese pseudo-company Landspace targeting April-June for 2nd Zhuque-3 launch

10:24 am

Zhuque-3 at launch
Screen capture from China’s
state-run press of the first Zhuque-3
launch on December 2, 2025.

The Chinese pseudo-company Landspace now hopes to make its second orbital launch and recovery attempt of its Zhuque-3 rocket sometime in the April-June ’26 time frame.

The first launch in December ’25 was a success, getting its upper stage into its planned orbit. The attempt to vertically land the first stage however failed. The stage came down almost precisely on its target landing pad, but the engines failed and so it crashed instead of landing softly.

Officials say that they also hope to begin reusing the first stage quickly, if it should land successfully, with the first reuse planned for late this year. The rocket itself has about two-thirds the capacity of SpaceX’s Falcon 9, and is being marketed to launch the half-dozen giant satellite constellations China is presently attempting to place in orbit.

Since the beginning of this year there has been a decided pause of news from China’s pseudo-companies. I have speculated this dearth of the normal stream of PR announcements might be related to a power-play by the new government agency created last year to supervise these pseudo-companies. It also could simply be the government has told them to tone it down a bit. Better to sell actual achievement than empty plans.

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Engine problems for Japan’s lunar lander company Ispace

9:27 am

According to company officials, the Japanese lunar lander company Ispace is having issues with the engine is has been developing for its next (and third) lander mission — a joint project with the American company Draper — problems that have now delayed the mission from ’26 to ’27.

In an earnings call discussing its fiscal third-quarter financial results this month, ispace executives said issues with development of the new VoidRunner engine could delay the company’s next lander mission. VoidRunner is a joint project between ispace’s U.S. subsidiary and Agile Space Industries, a U.S. space propulsion company, announced in May 2025. It replaced an Agile Space engine originally planned for use on the Apex 1.0 lander that ispace U.S. is developing.

Changing the engine required modifications to the lander design, Ispace said at the time, delaying its use on a mission led by Draper for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, program from 2026 to 2027. That mission to the lunar farside is designated Mission 3 by Ispace.

Ispace has made two attempts to land on the Moon. In both cases, the mission worked perfectly until the last moments, resulting in a crash rather than a soft landing. In the first case software had the engines shut down when the spacecraft was still about three miles above the ground, while in the second case the spacecraft’s laser range-finder provided incorrect altitude data.

It presently has contracts for three more missions, the one for NASA working with Draper, a second for Japan in ’28, and a third for Europe in ’29. That it has had to replace the engines on the first (and might have to do it on the second) is a very bad sign. Usually it is best practice to build and test the engine first, get it right, and then build the spacecraft or rocket around it. Replacing an engine usually signals larger design problems that are difficult if not impossible to fix.

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UAE extends mission of its Al-Amal Mars orbiter

8:57 am

Deimos with Mars in the background
Al-Amal’s 2023 image of Deimos, the first good
picture of the moon ever taken. Click for full movie.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) yesterday announced it is extending the mission of its Al-Amal Mars orbiter (“Hope” in English) to 2028, significantly beyond its initial planned mission of two years.

Launched in July 2020, the Hope Probe successfully entered Mars orbit in February 2021 after a seven-month interplanetary journey, marking a historic achievement as the first Arab nation to reach the Red Planet. Originally designed as a two-year mission to observe and study Mars’ atmosphere, the probe has far exceeded expectations. Since reaching Mars, it has gathered around 10 terabytes of scientific data, shared through more than a dozen datasets with research institutions worldwide.

The probe itself was mostly built by American engineers and organizations, as part of a deal to train UAE students. Once in operation around Mars, the UAE and those students took over almost all operations. It orbits Mars in a very wide orbit, allowing it to study global weather and atmosphere conditions, such as dust storms.

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Bahamas allows SpaceX to resume Falcon 9 landings inside Bahamian waters

8:49 am

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Bahamas (CAAB) this week announced that it is allowing SpaceX to resume Falcon 9 landings inside Bahamian waters.

In a statement, CAAB said that one landing is scheduled for Wednesday night between 5:00 pm and 9:30 pm (local time). “All requisite regulatory and environmental reviews and clearances have been completed in accordance with established aerospace safety and operations protocols,” CAAB said, reminding the population that, depending on weather and atmospheric conditions, “one or more sound booms may be heard during the landing sequence”.

SpaceX had completed one landing in February 2025, but the CAAB then paused further landings two months later, claiming it wanted to do a full environmental review.

There was also the issue of a SpaceX $1 million donation to the University of the Bahamas. Maybe the CAAB wanted to wait until the check cleared.

As should be expected, a fringe of anti-Musk activists began screaming “environmental disaster” and getting the full support of the propaganda press. The claim is utterly stupid, considering SpaceX has landed hundreds of Falcon 9s in the past decade harmlessly.

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A realistic plan to send a spacecraft to interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas

8:01 am

Scientists have devised a mission profile that could actually get a spacecraft close to Comet 3I/Atlas sometime around 2085.

…the team found that an intercept could be achieved via a Solar Oberth maneuver, but the launch would have to occur in 2035 to achieve optimal alignment between Earth, Jupiter and 3I/ATLAS. The flight duration would be 50 years (though Hibberd notes that this could be reduced marginally). “2035 is optimal because the alignments of the celestial bodies involved (i.e. the Earth, Jupiter, Sun, and 3I/ATLAS) are the most propitious to reach 3I/ATLAS with a minimum Solar Oberth propulsion requirement from the probe, a minimum performance requirement for the launch vehicle, and a minimum flight time to the target,” he said.

The Solar Oberth maneuver has the spacecraft fire its engines at the moment it is zipping past the Sun at its closest and fastest, taking full advantage of that gravitational velocity.

You can read their paper here [pdf] As they note in their conclusion, this entire mission is based on using “a Starship Block 3 upper stage fully-refuelled in Low Earth Orbit.” It assumes that by 2035 Starship will be flying routinely and cheaply, and could be purchased at a reasonable cost for such a mission.

Or maybe donated in the name of science by some billionaire who happens to care about making the human race multi-planetary. Know anyone?

Personally, I wonder it this mission profile could be adapted to reach the first known interstellar object, Oumuamua. 3I/Atlas appears to simply be a comet. Though a visit would be of value it would not Earth-shaking. Oumuamua however was not a comet, but more importantly it was strange in every way. Though astronomers in 2019 declared based on the available data that it was definitely not an alien spaceship, that conclusion remains very uncertain. As I wrote at the time:

…for anyone to assume there is any certainty to this conclusion would be a grave mistake. It is merely the best guess, based on the available but somewhat limited data. The data however does not preclude more exotic explanations. Nothing is certain.

To me this object should get top priority.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.

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Rocket Factory Augsburg getting close to launch

9:16 am

Screen capture of test failure
Screen capture from video of test failure in 2024.
Note the flame shooting out sideways.

The German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg appears to finally be getting close to launching its RFA-1 rocket after a static fire test explosion in 2024 seriously delayed its plans.

Speaking to European Spaceflight in early February, Rocket Factory Augsburg CEO Prof. Dr. Indulis Kalnins, who replaced Dr. Stefan Tweraser in April 2025, explained that the rocket’s first stage is in the process of being transported from Augsburg in Germany to the launch site on Unst. The rocket’s upper stage, which has received upgrades to its single Helix engine and the associated control software, is expected to follow in the next few weeks.

On 10 February, the company announced that the new umbilical tower had been raised, standing at 52 metres high. The tower will support and stabilise the rocket and provide propellant, power, and data connections. The company has begun commissioning the repaired and upgraded launch pad. The only element still to be added is the water tanks for the water deluge system. Kalnins, however, stressed that the company is taking its time with all pre-flight testing.

It appears my speculation that the company had not yet received its launch licenses from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) was wrong. Those licenses were issued in January 2025, only five months after the static fire launchpad explosion. For the CAA to respond that quickly is quite surprising. Maybe it decided it shouldn’t kill a third rocket company trying to launch from the UK.

Right now the race to be the first orbital rocket launched from a European spaceport is coming down to Rocket Factory and its German competitor Isar Aerospace. Isar is gearing up to make its second attempt to launch its Spectrum rocket from Norway’s Andoya spaceport in March.

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Fairing from India’s Bahubali rocket launched in December found in Maldives

9:00 am

A man fishing off an uninhabited island in the Maldives discovered what appears to be pieces from the fairing used by India’s LVM3 rocket, also dubbed Bahubali, when it launched AST SpaceMobile’s sixth Bluebird satellite in December.

A similar discovery was made on December 28, 2025 in Sri Lanka. In both cases it is theorized that the material came from the fairings of the December Bahubali launch.

I am unable to determine the flight path of the Bluebird launch, but the location of this debris suggests it headed strongly south from India’s east coast spaceport. The fairing pieces then drifted south and west to reach the Maldives after two months.

SpaceX routinely recovers its fairing and resuses them, which due to the fairing’s basic shape has turned out to be relatively straightforward. They have the shape of a boat’s hull, and after parachuting softly down can simply float on the surface until they can be picked up. It is absurd no one else does this.

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SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites

8:42 am

SpaceX in the early morning hours today successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its 10th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The 2026 launch race:

19 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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Chinese pseudo-company raises $729 million

10:35 pm

The Chinese pseudo-company rocket startup Ispace announced on February 13, 2026 that it has raised $729 million in new investment capital.

Beijing Interstellar Glory Space Technology Ltd., also known as iSpace, announced the D++ funding worth 5.037 billion yuan Feb. 12, following a D+ round of $98 million (700 million yuan) in September 2025. The round appears to be the largest disclosed funding round so far for a Chinese launch startup, eclipsing the previous rounds secured by Space Pioneer ($350 million) and Galactic Energy ($336 million) in 2025.

A press statement outlines a hybrid syndicate of numerous funding round participants, incgovernment industrial funds, state-linked strategic ecosystem investors, municipal and provincial investment vehicles and private equity. This follows a trend of strong strategic investment in space companies in China over the past couple of years since the central government identified commercial space as a strategic emerging industry and key driver of high-tech development. Co-leads Tongchuang Weiye and existing shareholder Jingming Capital represent market-oriented investors focused on advanced manufacturing and aerospace, and were joined by repeat backing from private equity players such as CDH Baifu and Ganquan Capital. [emphasis mine]

It is hard to determine how independent these Chinese investment firms are from the government. I suspect the communists are closely involved in some manner or another.

The press release made no mention of a timeline for when Ispace will attempt the first launch and recovery of its Hyperbola-3 rocket. It had previously targeted a 2025 launch, but that never happened.

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FAA confirms “no significant impact” to environment for Starship/Superheavy at Boca Chica

9:42 am

The FAA today released [pdf] its final environmental assessment reviewing SpaceX’s request to expand operations of Starship/Superheavy at Boca Chica, confirming that it has determined there will be “no significant impact” to environment.

The 2022 PEA and April 2025 Tiered EA examined the potential for significant environmental impacts from Starship-Super Heavy launch operations at the Boca Chica Launch Site and defined the regulatory setting for impacts associated with Starship-Super Heavy. The areas evaluated for environmental impacts in this Tiered EA include noise and noise‐compatible land use; aviation emissions and air quality; hazardous materials, solid waste, and pollution prevention; and socioeconomics. In each of these areas, the FAA has concluded that no significant impacts would occur as a result of the Proposed Action.

The approval will allow SpaceX to do 25 launches per year (three of which are at night). The approval also appears to lay the groundwork for bringing Superheavy back not only to Boca Chica, but to Florida. It also lays the groundwork for bringing Starship back to Boca Chica after completing an orbital flight, to be caught by the tower chopsticks.

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