Tag: engineering

AST SpaceMobile signs 10-year deal with Saudi Arabia

9:22 am

The American satellite startup AST Spacemobile yesterday signed a ten year $175 million deal with Saudi Arabia’s telecommunications company STC to use is Bluebird satellite constellation provide its phone-to-satellite service to Saudi Arabia.

AST SpaceMobile will integrate its space-based cellular broadband connectivity with stc’s terrestrial infrastructure to expand mobile coverage across Saudi Arabia, as well as select countries in the Middle East and Africa. The partnership aims to eliminate connectivity gaps by delivering 5G and 4G LTE services directly to standard mobile phones without the need of any specialized software or device support or updates, for consumers, enterprises, and government sectors, ensuring seamless voice and broadband access

Under this agreement, the first in the region for AST SpaceMobile, the company will build three ground gateways in Saudi Arabia and establish a Network Operations Center (NOC) in Riyadh to support the network’s operations and service quality. These key infrastructure developments will be instrumental in providing seamless connectivity across the region.

In many ways, this company is the only one that is succeeding in a direct competition with SpaceX. Both companies are launching satellites designed to act as orbiting cell towers for smart phones. Both are now operational to about the same extent. And both are winning contracts in the U.S. and internationally.

With rocketry however no one else is even close to SpaceX. It is a decade since it introduced reusability in rockets, and still no one else has done it. And as for its Starlink internet satellite constellation, only now, five years after that constellation’s first launch, are other satellite constellations beginning to launch. Its 5,000-plus constellation exceeds all other constellations combined.

AST is not only competing with SpaceX, it might even be winning. For that the company deserves great kudos indeed.

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Lawsuit against Amazon for favoring Blue Origin over SpaceX to launch Kuiper satellites gets new hearing

8:01 am

The lawsuit originally filed in 2023 against Amazon because it favored other less reliable rockets, including Blue Origin’s forever-delayed New Glenn, instead of using SpaceX to launch its Kuiper constellation of satellites, got a new hearing yesterday after the suit was dismissed in February.

The suit is now being pursued a pension fund that apparently invested in the Kuiper constellation, and claims Jeff Bezos used his influence to convince Amazon to avoid using SpaceX when it signed launch contracts with ULA, Arianespace, and Blue Origin in 2022, even though none of those rockets were even operational at the time. Even now they appear unable to meet Amazon’s launch requirements.

Amazon has until 2026 to send up the first 1,600 satellites and three more years to launch the next batch. That broader backdrop barely came up during the appeal proceedings, which zoomed in on allegations that the board made no effort to oversee self-dealing by Bezos as he directed billions from Amazon to his own rocket company, Blue Origin, despite SpaceX’s superior capabilities.

Vivek Upadhya, counsel for the pension fund, stressed the “billions of dollars flowing directly from Amazon to a company owned and controlled by Amazon’s CEO and chairman.” The sheer scale of the conflict of interest made the Blue Origin contract “a truly exceptional transaction” requiring attentive board supervision, regardless of the actual role Bezos played in negotiations, according to Upadhya. “Delaware law doesn’t require that directors harbor some innate suspicion” before taking steps to manage conflicts, but the board “failed to lift a finger,” he said.

Following the filing of the 2023 lawsuit, Amazon signed SpaceX to a three-launch contract, which SpaceX has now completed. Meanwhile, only ULA has managed any of the other launches, three also. As for Arianespace and Blue Origin, it is not clear when either will begin doing any Kuiper launches.

It does appear Amazon’s board played favorites here, and did so in a way that was harmful to the company’s bottom line. Whether this can be proved to the satisfaction of the court however is very uncertain.

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The alien landscape of Mars’ north polar ice cap

1:29 pm

The strange terrain of Mars' north polar ice cap
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on August 24, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The camera team labels this simply as a “terrain sample,” which usually means it was not taken as part of any specific research request, but to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule in order to maintain its proper temperature. When they need to do this, they try to find interesting things to photograph, and mostly succeed.

At first glance the picture to the right does not appear that interesting. If anything it shows an endless expanse of mottled terrain, with no features of any interest at all. This sameness however is what makes this picture and landscape intriguing. What caused it to look this way?
» Read more

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SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites

9:43 am

SpaceX once again broke its annual record for successful launches today, placing 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 15th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

141 SpaceX (a new record)
65 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 141 to 107. The U.S. launch total in 2025, now 159, is also a new record.

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Blue Origin officials provide update on their lunar lander program

9:30 am

2023 artist rendering of the manned Blue Moon lander
2023 artist rendering of the manned Blue Moon lander

Link here. According to the article, the company is presently stacking its first unmanned version of its Blue Moon lander, dubbed Blue Moon Mark 1, scheduled for launch now next year.

The 8.1-meter-tall cargo lander will help with ongoing development of their crewed lander, named Blue Moon Mk. 2, which is 15.3 meters tall. Both are powered by Blue Origin’s BE-7 engines, which are being tested on stands in Alabama, Texas and Washington.

…“A big milestone for you to look out for online is that Mk. 1 is three modules that are being stacked as we speak: aft, forward and mid. And once it is stacked in its finished configuration, we will be barging it over to NASA Johnson Space Center Chamber A to do a full up thermal vac campaign,” said [Jacqueline Cortese, Blue Origin’s Senior Director of Civil Space]. “So when you see that on its boat, you will know that big things are happening.”

Both versions of the lander are powered by a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. A key difference though is that Mk.1 can be launched to the Moon with a single launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket while Mk. 2 requires orbital refueling. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted sentence above is important because it illustrates the absurdity of the comments last week by interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy, claiming SpaceX’s program to make Starship a manned lunar lander is “behind”, forcing him to open up the competition to Blue Origin, who might get it done sooner.

One of the big issues used against SpaceX is that Starship will need to be refueled once in orbit to work as a lunar lander, and that technology needs to be developed and tested. The problem with this criticism is that, as noted above, Blue Origin’s manned lunar lander also needs to be refueled.
» Read more

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Startup semi-conductor manufacturer Besxar signs deal to use SpaceX’s Falcon 9 first stage as production platform during its short flight

8:57 am

In what appears to be first, the startup Besxar has signed a deal with SpaceX to fly what it calls its Fabships on the first stage of the Falcon 9 in order to take advantage of the extreme vacuum of space to produce better semi-conductors.

Fabships will be integrated on Falcon 9 first stage boosters and retrieved post launch after the rocket safely returns to land. The campaign marks the first-ever reusable payload program to launch on a SpaceX rocket and will accelerate Besxar’s path toward building the world’s first orbital semiconductor foundry. This flight campaign will debut Besxar’s “Clipper-class” Fabship, engineered for short-duration, quick-turnaround sorties that enable rapid iteration and demonstrate the first phase in Besxar’s broader vision to establish scalable semiconductor production in orbit.

Besxar is pioneering a new class of orbital manufacturing, using the ultra-high vacuum (UHV) of space to produce ultra-pure substrates and precursor materials—the foundational building blocks for AI data centers, quantum computing, nuclear systems, next-generation defense systems, and directed-energy applications. By manufacturing in orbit, Besxar can achieve purity levels and yield efficiencies impossible on Earth, effectively doubling the chip cost-efficiency for next-generation AI workloads.

The deal is for twelve flights, with the first occurring as soon as this year. The deal not only allows Besxar an opportunity to produce a better product it can sell, it gives SpaceX another avenue for profits. It is in fact surprising that SpaceX has not done more deals like this, especially with its Dragon cargo capsule. There is a whole cottage industry now developing using returnable capsules for in-space manufacturing — led by Varda. That SpaceX hasn’t offered Dragon as yet is puzzling. It is possible Dragon is simply too expensive and large at this time, based on the nascent state of this industry. Once investors see profits from the smaller new capsules like Varda’s they will look at Dragon as an option.

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Lockheed Martin completes first flight of X-59 supersonic test plane

8:32 am

My heart be still: Lockheed Martin yesterday completed the first flight for NASA of the X-59 supersonic test plane, designed to produce a much quieter sonic boom.

The X-59 took off from Skunk Works’ facility at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, before landing near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. The X-59 performed exactly as planned, verifying initial flying qualities and air data performance on the way to a safe landing at its new home.

The plane did NOT yet fly at supersonic speeds. It needs to do more flight tests before it attempts that feat. A somewhat uninteresting video of the flight can be seen here. (Hat tip to Jay.)

This NASA program is another example of government waste. NASA issued the company a $247.5 million the contract for this test plane in 2018, after two years of preliminary design work. Seven years later it finally flies once, but not at supersonic speeds.

Meanwhile, the commercial startup Boom Supersonic started at about the same time, raised far less investment capital, and successfully flew a supersonic flight in January 2025 in which it broke that sound barrier three times, with no audible sonic boom.

Boom has already obtained numerous contracts with the airline companies United and Japan Airlines to provide them planes. It is in the process of manufacturing its Overture commercial passenger jet for sale.

Lockheed Martin’s NASA project has no investors and no airlines interested in the test plane. Lockheed Martin itself is not marketing it and has no plans to use the technology commercially. In fact, NASA likely forbids it from doing so.

I am sure these tests will provide data helpful to Boom and the handful of other commercial supersonic startups. At the same time, the entire project is another example of a poor use of taxpayer funds.

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Voyager Space buys satellite electric propulsion company Exoterra

9:04 am

Voyager Space announced yesterday that it has acquired Exoterra, a company that specializes in building electric propulsion engines for satellites.

ExoTerra’s proprietary technology delivers precise maneuvering, extended lifetimes and high efficiency delta-V – essential for spacecraft across national defense architecture layers that must be able to reposition, avoid threats and sustain mission advantage.

…ExoTerra’s Halo thruster technology is proven aboard DARPA Blackjack ACES spacecraft and the company recently supplied York Space Systems with 21 propulsion modules for the Space Development Agency Transport Layer. The company also has contracts with commercial companies and organizations such as NASA.

Voyager Space began as a space station startup, acting as the lead company in the consortium building the Starlab station. Since then it has diversified its operations to make money in other space-related areas. This acquisition appears aimed at increasing Voyager’s ability to win contracts in connection with the military’s Golden Dome project.

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SpaceX launches another 28 Starlink satellites

8:39 am

SpaceX yesterday afternoon added another 28 Starlink satellites to its constellation, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its 17th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. This launch — as will every SpaceX launch for the rest of the year — also set a new annual launch record for both American and SpaceX.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

140 SpaceX
65 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 140 to 107.

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Russia claims to have successfully tested a low-flying nuclear-powered cruise missile

10:30 am

Burevestnik
Artist’s rendering of Burevestnik. Click for source.

According to claims coming from Russia’s state-run press yesterday, it has successfully tested a low-flying nuclear-powered cruise missile, dubbed Burevestnik (“Storm Petrel” in English), that uses a nuclear-powered rocket engine.

Few technical details have been released. The flight itself supposedly lasted fifteen hours during which the missile flew about 8,700 miles, making its average speed about 580 miles per hour. That speed is a little higher than the cruising speed of most airplanes. According to Russia’s state-run press, Burevestnik flies at an altitude of 80 to 300 feet and has an unlimited range.

It appears the missile captures air as it flies, compresses it and then sends it through the nuclear reactor to be heated, which when released as exhaust provides the thrust. If true, this missile is the equivalent of an autonomous airplane that can fly below radar detection anywhere on the globe, and thus a major threat to Russia’s enemies (which is essentially now the whole world).

At the same time, Russia’s ability to design, build and complete any high-tech project has been suspect for decades. Its government makes a lot of promises, but has almost never delivered.

Regardless, this technology bears watching. Expect the defense industry to use this story as a wedge with Congress to get more funding.

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Luxembourg capsule startup Space Cargo signs partnership deal with French startup

9:01 am

The Luxembourg capsule startup Space Cargo today announced it has signed a partnership deal with the French startup Comat to work together to develop Space Cargo’s Bentobox orbital platform for in-space manufacturing, “which offers a pressurized and thermally controlled autonomous environment in orbit to operate industrial payloads and return them to Earth.”

COMAT, an experienced space equipment manufacturer, will provide extensive engineering and manufacturing capabilities in space systems, mechanical structures, and payload equipment to design and produce high-performance hardware for in-space manufacturing activities.

Bentobox is not a fully operational capsule. Its design up to now required it to be launched as part of another company’s returnable capsule. It appears this deal with Comat will provide Bentobox greater capabilities, though it is unclear whether it will allow it to return to Earth on its own.

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Ispace signs deals with companies in India and Japan

8:49 am

The Japanese lunar lander startup Ispace today announced it has signed partnership deals with two different companies, OrbitAid in India and Toyota in Japan.

The startup OrbitAid is India’s first “on-orbit refueling company”. It will provide Ispace’s landers with standardized docking ports as well as refueling capabilities.

The two companies aim to demonstrate the critical capabilities required for mission extension in the cislunar environment, enabling long-duration lunar operations and paving the way for a sustainable lunar economy. The integration of OrbitAID’s SIDRP interface is expected to not only optimize refueling, recharging, and data transmission capabilities but also support ispace’s efforts to enhance the performance and reliability of its landers. By enabling lunar refueling, both companies plan to facilitate deep-space exploration beyond Earth’s orbit.

Toyota meanwhile will provide technical support to Ispace as it develops its own second generation lunar rover, dubbed Lunar Cruiser. Ispace is already prepping a smaller rover that will fly on its next lunar landing mission.

Ispace has been signing on a range of customers and commercial partners in recent months, even though its only two attempts to land on the Moon both failed just before touch down. It has contracts with NASA, ESA, and JAXA for future missions. These new deals appear designed to strengthen and extend its capabilities beyond simply landing on the Moon, but also to provide interplanetary spacecraft as well.

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Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander delayed again

8:01 am

Moon's south pole, with landers indicated

According to an update on the status of Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander posted on October 24, 2025, the company has now delayed the launch from the fall of 2025 to July 2026, apparently because the spacecraft is not yet assembled and its many components are still undergoing testing.

For example, none of Griffin’s four propellant tanks have yet been installed. Nor apparently has its core structure been fully integrated, with “tanks, ramps, attitude control thrusters, and solar panels” only now having completed “fit checks.”

The map to the right indicates the location where Griffin is supposed to land, about 100 miles from the Moon’s south pole. Nova-C, Intuitive Machines first attempt to soft land on the Moon, landed at the green dot, but failed when it fell over at landing. Intuitive Machines second lunar lander, Athena, also fell over when it landed in the same region that is now Griffin’s target landing zone.

Griffin has experienced repeated delays since the contract was issued to Astrobotic in 2020. The mission was originally supposed to launch in November 2023, carrying NASA’s Viper rover. In July 2022 however it was delayed one year to November 2024 because Astrobotic said it needed more time.

Sometime after the failure of Astrobotic’s first lunar lander, Peregrine, in January 2024, NASA once again delayed the Griffin mission, pushing it back another year to November 2025.

In July 2024 NASA canceled Viper, removing it as a payload from Griffin, because Viper was significantly overbudget and would not be ready for that fall 2025 launch. NASA however did not cancel Griffin. It appears however that Astrobotic wasn’t ready either for a launch in November, and thus this further delay.

Whether it will be ready by July remains unknown. Based on Astrobotic’s own update I have serious doubts. For a spacecraft that was supposed to originally launch in 2023, Griffin seems woefully unready now, two years past that date.

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Two more launches, by China and SpaceX respectively

9:22 am

The global launch industry added two more launches to its 2025 launch totals since yesterday. First, China launched what its state-run press described as a Earth imaging satellite, its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China. No information was released as to where the rocket’s lower stages — using very toxic hypergolic fuels — crashed inside China.

Then early today SpaceX placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its 24th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

With this launch, the U.S. set a new annual record for successful launches, 158, beating the record set in 2024. In both years, the record was almost entirely due to SpaceX and its Falcon 9. Rocket Lab’s numbers continue to rise, suggesting the company is about to finally begin launching more than once a month. All the other American rocket companies, especially ULA, have in the past two years failed to deliver the number of launches promised. All continue to promise big numbers in 2026. We shall see.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

139 SpaceX
65 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 139 to 107.

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Japan launches a new upgraded version of its HTV cargo freighter

5:14 pm

Japan today (October 26th in Japan) successfully launched to ISS a new upgraded version of its HTV cargo freighter, its H3 rocket lifting off from its Tanegashima spaceport in southern Japan.

The HTV-X1 carries more than freight. After its cargo is unloaded at ISS it will spend an additional three months flying independently in orbit, where engineers will conduct three additional experiments. JAXA, Japan’s space agency, hopes it can market HTV-X1 for use by the commercial space stations presently being developed. It is also marketing it as a potential orbital capsule that others can use for in-space manufacturing.

This was only the third launch by Japan in 2025, so there is no change to the 2025 leader board:

138 SpaceX
64 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 138 to 106.

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Nova Scotia spaceport wins $10 million credit line from Canadian government

2:36 pm

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

Maritime Launch Services, the startup that has been trying to establish a spaceport in Nova Scotia since 2016, without any success, was this week awarded a $10 million credit line from Canadian government’s Export Development agency (EDC).

EDC is Canada’s export credit agency, established in 1944 to help Canadian businesses of all sizes grow globally through trade financing, insurance, and market expertise. As part of its corporate strategy, EDC is committed to allocating strategic risk capital to developing trade-enabling infrastructure to help Canada become a more resilient, competitive, and secure global trading nation. EDC’s support of Maritime Launch as it develops Spaceport Nova Scotia will significantly strengthen Canada’s position in the defence and security sector, where space is an increasingly vital domain.

….The terms of the agreement provide development funding for Spaceport Nova Scotia’s next phase of construction, including launch pad and infrastructure development required to support future orbital missions.

This award is a bit puzzling, as Maritime has done nothing in the past decade to instill any confidence it is going to fulfill any of its promises. Its original plan, to offer satellite companies a launchpad and a rocket (made by a Ukrainian company) failed in 2022 when Russian invaded the Ukraine. Since the Maritime has struggled to get any other rocket companies interested in launching from Spaceport Nova Scotia.

Meanwhile, a second Canadian commercial spaceport, the Atlantic Spaceport in Newfoundland, was proposed only three years ago. It is developing its own rocket, and has already signed contracts with other companies for its mission control center and tracking stations. In addition, it twice attempted a suborbital test launch of a smaller rocket, though both attempts were scrubbed due to fuel leaks in ground systems.

Whether this grant can jump start Maritime’s spaceport remains an open question. Very clearly, the Canadian government hopes so.

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SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites, sets new annual launch record

2:07 pm

SpaceX this morning successfully launched another 28 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage completed its 19th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

With this launch SpaceX set a new record by a private company for the most successful launches in a single year, beating the record it set last year. In fact, this is the sixth year in a row that SpaceX has reset this particular record. Where once it was difficult for the world’s entire launch industry to complete 100 launches in a year — using government controlled rockets — SpaceX has shown that much greater things can happen if private enterprise, pursing profit, is given its head and allowed to run freely.

This launch also brought the U.S. launch total to 157, which matches the country’s record from last year. Expect a new record to be set before the week is out.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

138 SpaceX
64 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 138 to 105. Japan has a launch scheduled for later today, its H3 rocket carrying Japan’s upgraded HTV-X1 cargo freighter on a mission to ISS.

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SpaceX launches communications satellite for the Spanish government

8:17 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully placed a Spanish communications satellite into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The satellite will provide communications for Spain’s military and government. The first stage completed its 22nd flight, but because of the needs of the payload, there was not enough fuel left for it to land on a drone ship. This was its last flight, the stage falling into the Atlantic. The two fairings completed their 16th and 28th flights respectively.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

137 SpaceX
64 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 137 to 105.

SpaceX has now matched the annual launch record it set last year, and done it with more than two months left to go in 2025. Whether it can reach its goal of about 180 launches this year seems doubtful, but it will definitely come close. It is averaging about 14 launches per month, which means it could complete about 28 to 30 before the end of December.

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October 23, 2025 Quick space links

3:01 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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China launches a “communication technology test” satellite

1:21 pm

Using its most powerful rocket, the Long March 5, China today placed in orbit what its state-run press called a “communication technology test satellite”, the rocket lifting off from China’s coastal Wenchang spaceport.

Though the rocket’s flight path over the ocean meant its lower stages would not crash on land, China did warn the Philippines that some of the drop zones were within its fishing regions, and that fishermen should stay out for about an hour this morning.

China’s state-run press provided no details about the satellite. That it needed a very powerful rocket suggests it is some variation of AST SpaceMobile’s very large Bluebird satellites for providing direct phone-to-satellite service. If so, this is just another example of China copying the work of a private company in the west.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

136 SpaceX
64 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 136 to 105.

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Weird “What the heck?!” pedestal crater on Mars

1:10 pm

A
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on August 26, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). While the full image shows what the camera team labels as the “ridges” that cover this area, the most prominent feature in the whole landscape is this half-mile-wide pedestal crater, sitting about 50 to 100 feet above the surrounding terrain.

What makes this strange butte so weird is the plateau on top, criss-crossed with ridges and hollows in a manner that defies any obvious geological explanation.

Pedestal craters are not uncommon on Mars, and in fact a bunch of others are found throughout this region. The theory for their formation is that they formed when the surface here was much higher. The impact made the crater floor more dense and resistant to erosion, so as the surrounding terrain wore aware the crater ended up being a butte.

However, pedestal craters usually have relatively smooth tops, making this crater another example of a “What the heck?” image.
» Read more

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European companies Airbus, Leonardo, and Thales merge their satellite divisions

9:31 am

The three European aerospace companies Airbus, Leonardo, and Thales today confirmed previous rumors and announced they are merging their satellite divisions into a new company, dubbed Project Bromo, in order to better compete with the giant satellite constellations in the U.S. and China.

The preliminary deal wraps up months of three-way talks and clears the path to create a single company with annual revenue of about €6.5 billion ($7.5 billion). Airbus will own 35% of the group, with the other two partners each holding 32.5% stakes, according to a joint release.

The alliance, dubbed Project Bromo, is seen as a key litmus test for Europe to consolidate its fragmented defense and space industries to better compete with US and Chinese competitors. It aims to unify Europe’s satellite efforts and provide more autonomy in a segment that has become commercially and geopolitically vital.

These companies are coming to this competition very late in the game. SpaceX already has more than 8,000 satellites in orbit, and new constellations by Amazon and several Chinese pseudo-companies have already begun launching satellites. Moreover, this smacks more of a consolidation resulting from these three companies inability to compete, rather than an effort to establish a new company capable of doing so.

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Small fresh impact on Mars’ youngest major lava flow

1:25 pm

Monitoring a fresh impact on Martian lava
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 26, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The camera team labels this “Monitoring New Impact Site.” The fresh impact, indicated by the three dark patches just left and up from center, is actually not that fresh. It was first photographed by MRO on September 27, 2008. This newer picture is to see if anything significant had changed in the subsequent seventeen years.

In comparing the two pictures, the only change that is obvious is that the patches have faded and become less distinct. Nothing else appears different.

The surrounding terrain however is interesting in its own right. The landscape is remarkably flat, though it has that meandering ridge coming out from that lighter patch in the lower right. What are we looking at?
» Read more

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Was it a piece of space junk that broke a United plane windshield in flight last week?

10:33 am

While flying at 36,000 feet last week, the right half of the windshield on a United 737-Max airplane was suddenly hit by something hard and dense, shattering it.

The outer glass fractured. One of the pilots was injured. In photos shared online, the captain appeared to have injuries consistent with shattered glass: his forearm bloodied, shards of broken glass strewn across the flight deck. Scorch marks appeared across the impacted section. Whatever hit the aircraft left no debris, no residue, and no clear explanation.

The crew was able to safely bring the plane back so that everyone could be off loaded.

Though we don’t know what the object was, there is now reasonable speculation that it might have been a piece of space junk falling to Earth. The plane was flying high enough to almost completely eliminate a bird as the cause, and the damage showed no sign of feathers, blood, or tissue. Moreover, the captain reported seeing something metallic just before impact.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has started an investigation. Though space junk could have caused the incident, NASA estimates the odds of such a thing occurring at a trillion to one. It is far more likely there was some internal flaw in the window itself that caused it to catastrophically fail, though even this theory doesn’t fit all the known facts.

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Debris from suspected Chinese rocket discovered in western Australia

9:00 am

Though it has not yet been confirmed, a burned tank has been found in western Australia that is thought to come from the fourth stage of China’s solid-fueled Smart Dragon-3 rocket that lifted off from an ocean platform on September 24, 2025.

Suspected space junk that crashed near an iron ore mine in remote WA has been linked to a Chinese rocket launch, as authorities continue to probe the object’s origin. The smoking [sic] piece of debris was found on Saturday about 30 kilometres east of Newman, on a BHP mine access track.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau and WA Police are investigating, but Flinders University space archaeologist Alice Gorman said she believed the debris was from the fourth stage of a Chinese rocket called Jielong [Smart Dragon].

If that debris is from the September launch, there is no where it was “smoking” when found two days ago. The images of the object simply show it to be well-blackened from its trip. It is also not clear when the object fell to Earth, making pinpointing its source more difficult.

If it is from China’s Smart Dragon-3 rocket, it suggests China has more work to do to keep its rockets’ stages from falling on land. Smart Dragon-3’s launch from an ocean platform just off China’s northeast coast, so one would think the lower stages would all fall in the ocean. In this case it appears the problem is similar to what has happened to some parts of the service module from de-orbiting SpaceX Dragon cargo capsules. The company found that if it allowed the service module to fall on its own, some parts would hit the ground. It has since changed its de-orbit procedures to guarantee this won’t happen any longer.

China needs to do the same. Based on its past record, it is not clear it will make any effort to do so.

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South Korea issues launch license to Korean rocket startup Innospace

8:36 am

Engineering test prototype during tests
Engineering prototype of Hanbit-Nano testing portable
launchpad. Click for original image.

The South Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA) today issued its first launch license for a private South Korean rocket company, clearing the way for the first launch Innospace’s Hanbit-Nano rocket in the next few weeks from Brazil’s Alcantera spaceport.

For the launch, Innospace has set a launch window from Oct. 28 to Nov. 28. The launch window refers to the period during which the actual launch can take place. Initially, it was set for Oct. 28 to Nov. 7, but was extended to Nov. 28 after coordinating launch inspection procedures, mission stability and joint operation schedules with the Brazilian Air Force.

Innospace said the upcoming launch will also mark the first commercial vehicle launch from a Brazilian space center, adding that Brazilian authorities have provided active support to ensure optimal conditions and a stable launch. While the launch site is operated by the Brazilian Air Force, Innospace will use its own independently built launch platform for the mission.

The rocket will carry five smallsats and three other payloads, one of which is from a South Korean beer company.

If successful, Innospace will become the first commercial rocket startup outside the U.S. to get to orbit, excluding the pseudo-companies in China. The launch will also re-open Brazil’s long abandoned Alcantera spaceport, off of its northeast coast. Used only a few times in the 1990s and then shut down when the Brazilian government abandoned its rocket program, Brazil has been trying to get commercial rocket companies to come there now for about five years, with little success.

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The three launches completed today including two major new achievements

12:33 pm

The beat goes on: There were three launches globally today, repeating a pattern we’ve seen several times in the past few weeks, with China completing one launch and SpaceX completing two.

First, China’s solid-fueled Kinetica-1 (Lijian-1) rocket placed three Pakistani satellites into orbit, one of which is what Pakistan’s state-run press claimed was its first multi-spectral environmental satellite. China’s press also provided no information about where Kinetica-1’s lower stages crashed inside China, having launched from its Jiuquan spaceport in the country’s northwest. The rocket itself is supposedly commercial, but it is built by a government agency, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the government state-run press illustrated this by making no mention of this agency in reporting the launch.

Next, SpaceX set a new record for the reuse of a Falcon 9 first stage in placing 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, the rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage, B1067, completed its 31st flight, a new record for a Falcon 9 first stage, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The updated rankings for the most reflights of a rocket:

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

Sources here and here.

Finally, less than two hours later, SpaceX launched another 28 Starlink satellites, 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.

With these two launches, SpaceX has now placed more than 10,000 Starlink satellites into orbit, though a large percentage have been de-orbited over the years as the company has upgraded the satellites. Nonetheless, the number of Starlink satellites presently in orbit far exceeds all the satellites now in orbit for every other planned constellation, combined.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

135 SpaceX
63 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 135 to 104.

In the coming days the global rocket industry will also achieve a number of additional milestones. SpaceX is just two launches short of its record of 137 launches achieved last year, while the U.S. is just three launches short of its own record of 157 launches, also set last year. Similarly, China is just three launches short of its own record of 66 set in 2023.

Globally, the world has presently completed 239 successful launches in 2025, a number only exceeded by the 2024 record of 256. Expect this record also to fall before the end of the year.

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Meandering channel in Mars’ southern cratered highlands

1:25 pm

Meandering channel on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 30, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Dubbed a “channel” by the MRO science team, it shows us a meandering canyon with a floor that seems filled with corroded linear features seen frequently on Earth glaciers. Here, the linear ridges appear broken, in many places missing, and in other places so broken their linear nature disappears.

If this was on Earth and I was a global warming activitist, I would immediately claim that the glacier has been evaporating away due to a warming climate caused by SUVs and Republican intransigence. This however is on Mars, where there are no SUVs or Republicans. So what is going on?
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