Tag: engineering

ULA’s new management predicts it will achieve 18-22 launches in 2026

10:03 am

Before Tory Bruno resigned as CEO of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) to go work for Blue Origin, he had predicted in August last year that ULA was primed to complete two launches per month for the rest of ’25 and throughout ’26.

That prediction did not happen, as the company was only able to do four launches in the last five months of 2025, and no launches so far in 2026.

Yesterday the new management of ULA insisted that Bruno’s prediction was still reasonable, and that the company will complete between 18 to 22 launches before the end of this year.

Speaking during a virtual media roundtable on Feb. 10, Gary Wentz, ULA’s vice president of Atlas and Vulcan Programs, said the company aims to launch two to four Atlas 5 missions and 16 to 18 Vulcan missions. He said the Vulcan rockets will be split between pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and pad 3 at Vandenberg Space Force Base. “It’s a balance. We’re working with our customers to determine specific priorities and order of missions and in the case of Space Force and NRO (National Reconnaissance Office), to determine which missions they wan to get off with higher priority,” Wentz said. “And as we finalize that over the next about six to eight months out of the mission, then we’ll assign whether or not its going to be an Atlas mission or a Vulcan mission.”

John Elbon, the interim CEO following the departure of Tory Bruno in December, said that the company has a “strong commitment” from their commercial and government customers, citing a backlog of more than 80 missions.

That backlog is mostly split between ULA’s big contract to launch Amazon’s Leo satellites and a variety of different agencies in the Pentagon. Both are desperate to get their satellites into space, and it appears ULA is struggling to figure out how to do it. In its early years (from 2007 to 2016) the company was generally able to average about one launch a month, but since then that launch rate as been less than half that. To not only return to those launch rates from a decade ago but to almost double them will be challenging, to say the least.

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OHB Italia wins $96 million contract to build Ramses probe to visit the asteroid Apophis

9:39 am

Apophis' path past the Earth in 2029
A cartoon (not to scale) showing Apophis’s
path in 2029

The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday announced that it has awarded the aerospace company OHB Italia a $96 million contract to build Ramses probe to rendezvous with the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis when it makes its next close fly-by of Earth in 2029.

This contract is in addition to the $75 million development contract awarded OHB Italia in 2024. According to the company’s press release here:

The launch is scheduled for April 2028, with a rendezvous with Apophis planned for February 2029, approximately two months before its close approach to Earth. The spacecraft will accompany the asteroid until August 2029, in order to observe in detail how Earth’s tidal forces modify its shape, rotation, orbit and surface characteristics.

The initiative also benefits from strong international cooperation. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), drawing on its well-established expertise in asteroid science, will contribute by providing launch service onboard an H3 rocket, the spacecraft’s solar arrays and a Thermal Infrared Imager, further reinforcing the project’s global dimension.

In addition, two cubesats will be launched with Ramses and deployed once the spacecraft reaches Apophis.

This schedule is very tight, which places great pressure on OHB, especially because European space projects are traditionally built slowly after years of planning. ESA almost never does things fast like this.

At the moment, Osiris-Apex (formerly Osiris-Rex) is the only spacecraft that is on its way to Apophis.

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Rocket startup Stoke Space raises an additional $350 million in private investment capital

9:22 am

Stoke's Nova rocket
Stoke’s Nova rocket, designed to be
completely reusable.

The rocket startup Stoke Space yesterday announced that its most recent fund-raising round has raised an additional $350 million in private investment capital above the original target of $510 million.

Stoke Space Technologies, the rocket company developing fully and rapidly reusable medium-lift launch vehicles, announced today an extension of its previous Series D financing, bringing the total amount raised in the round to $860 million. The round was initially announced in October 2025 at $510 million. That funding focused on completing activation of Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., and expanding production capacity for the Nova launch vehicle. Stoke will use the additional capital to accelerate future elements of its product roadmap.

In total the company has now raises $1.34 billion. Though it has been moving steadily towards the first test launch of its totally reusable Nova rocket, it has so far refused to announce any launch dates. Based on all accounts, it appears that launch could occur before the end of this year, but nothing is confirmed.

Stoke’s ability to raise so much capital contrasts sharply with the failure of the British rocket startup Orbex, as noted in my previous post. Investors know that when Stoke is ready to launch from Florida, it will be able to do so, and so they have confidence in the company. With Orbex no one was willing to invest because the investors recognized that red tape was handicapping the company.

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British rocket startup Orbex goes under

9:10 am

Prime rocket prototype on launchpad
The prototype of Orbex’s never-launched Prime rocket,
on the launchpad in 2022

After waiting four years to get the necessary launch licenses from the United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), delays that forced it to abandon its preferred spaceport in Sutherland to go to the SaxaVord spaceport in the Shetland Islands, the British rocket startup Orbex today announced its effort to find a buyer or new financing had failed and it is going into receivership with the goal of selling off its assets.

Orbex has filed a notice of intention to appointment Administrators and will continue trading while all options for the future of the company are explored, including potential sale of all or parts of its business or assets. The notice provides short-term protection and allows the business time to secure as positive an outcome as possible for its creditors, employees and wider stakeholders.

The funding required for Orbex to remain a viable business was sought from a variety of public and private investors during its Series D funding round, which has ultimately failed. Several merger and acquisition opportunities have also been explored, with none resulting in a favourable outcome.

To repeat this company’s sad story, Orbex had hoped to do its first launch from the proposed Sutherland spaceport on the north coast of Scotland in 2022, but was blocked for four years because of red tape. First, the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority would not issue the spaceport and launch licenses. Second, local opposition delayed approvals as well. Those delays ate into the company’s resources, until it became entirely dependent on grants from the UK government (some through the European Space Agency) to keep it afloat.

By 2024 Orbex realized launching from Sutherland was impossible, and it then switched to the Saxavord spaceport in the Shetland Islands. This forced more delays because the company had no facilities there. It had already spent a fortune building everything for Sutherland.

There will be many who will blame this failure on the difficulty of rocket science, but it appears the fault almost entirely lies with the UK government and its odious regulatory regime. Neither Sutherland nor SaxaVord have been able to get anything off the ground, and it appears right now that rocket companies are going everywhere else to find launch sites. New rockets must launch and fail so that they can eventually succeed. The sense I get from the CAA is that it is treating every launch not as a test but as an operational launch that must succeed. Orbex couldn’t meet that standard.

Nor can any other rocket startup. At the moment SaxoVord has only one customer planning to launch, the German startup Rocket Factory Augsburg, but after a static fire explosion in 2024 blocked the launch nothing has happened since. I suspect the company is having problems getting new launch approvals from the CAA.

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China completes launch abort test of Mengzhou capsule; also vertically lands Long March 10A 1st stage in ocean

7:50 am

Long March 10A 1st stage splashing down softly on test flight
Click for source.

China today completed a major test for its future manned lunar program. In launch for the first time the first stage of its new Long March 10A, it not only succeeded in completing a launch abort of its next generation Mengzhou manned capsule — intended not only for its space station but for its manned lunar program — the first stage successfully completed a vertical soft splashdown in the ocean.

The uncrewed vessel took off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Centre on the southern island of Hainan aboard a Long March-10 prototype test rocket at 11am on Wednesday.

The Mengzhou vessel separated from the rocket shortly after launch, before splashing down in the ocean at its designated landing spot, according to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).

The first stage of the Long March-10 rocket also safely splashed down in its designated ocean landing spot, CASC said. The state-owned aerospace contractor developed both the rocket and the crewed spacecraft.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, video of the launch can be seen here. Jay also found two additional images, one showing the stage just before splashdown standing vertical (as shown in the picture to the right) and the other of the stage floating in the water just before it was picked up by a recovery vessel. According to comments at these tweets, it is speculated that the interstage unit that connected the capsule to the stage was either ejected at landing or was torn off when the stage hit the water.

This is a major achievement for China. It gets it closer to being able to use Mengzhou for longer missions to places like the Moon.

The modular Mengzhou spacecraft has two variants: a seven-astronaut near-Earth model designed to support the country’s Tiangong space station and a model with a smaller crew capacity for missions to the moon. The latter is expected to work in tandem with the Lanyue lunar surface lander, designed to carry two astronauts to the moon’s surface.

The soft splashdown of the Long March 10A first stage also gets China closer to its first reuse of a rocket.

I must note that this success is part of a larger story about China’s space industry that is not so hopeful.
» Read more

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Hubble eyes the Egg Nebula

10:48 am

Hubble eyes the Egg Nebula
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a study of “preplanetary nebula,” the initial stages of a planetary nebula that forms as some star types begin dying. From the caption:

Many preplanetary nebulae are relatively dim and hard to spot. They are made of layers of gas ejected by the star, but that star is not yet hot enough to ionise the gas and cause it to glow. The Egg Nebula is relatively unique, easily visible as a sparkling jewelled egg in space. Powerful beams of starlight blast out of the inner cloud, two a-side, giving a breathtaking illumination to this cosmic structure. Fast-moving outflows of hot molecular hydrogen also emerge from within the dust cloud, visible just at the base of the searchlight beams. These outflows glow with infrared light, which is shown in this image by orange highlights.

The central cloud of dust is surrounded by concentric rings, themselves made up from thin, faint arcs of gas. These were created by successive outbursts from the central star, which ejected a little more material from its outer surface every few hundred years. The beams of starlight are reflected by these layers of gas, creating an appearance like ripples on the surface of water. The way that gas molecules reflect and scatter light gives a bluish colour to the arcs. The reflected starlight reveals important details about the central star, which is impossible to view directly in its dusty shell.

Many planetary nebula get their spectacular shapes because they have a binary star system in their center, that act like the blades in a blender as they circle each other, mixing the materials the stars’ eject to form those shapes. Because of those surrounding shells, it is often impossible to determine with the nebula has a single central star, or a binary system.

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First Vulcan rocket arrives at Vandenberg for launch later this year

8:53 am

ULA has now delivered parts of a Vulcan rocket to Vandenberg Space Force Base in California as it prepares for that rocket’s first launch from that spaceport later this year.

ULA’s RocketShip recently docked at the harbor on the South Base with the Vulcan rocket components stowed inside the huge cargo vessel. … Crews spent several days offloading the hardware while mindful of tides that could have delayed the delivery.

…On the first day, workers removed the Vulcan’s Centaur upper stage from the RocketShip, followed by the booster the next day. “We tried to take off the payload adapter and the interstage adapter and, unfortunately, the swells were pretty bad,” Fortson said. After pausing the unloading chores for two days, the swells cooperated so the team didn’t have to wait for the next opportunity for suitable tides a couple of weeks away.

ULA hopes to get the launch off by June 2026, but that schedule will depend on whether the launchpad conversion from the Atlas-5 rocket can be completed. It also depends on whether the payload is ready on time. It appears this launch will be one of ULA’s seven national security launches for the Pentagon, though this is not confirmed.

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Starfish gets a second satellite servicing contract from Pentagon

8:42 am

The orbital tug startup Starfish has now won a second major satellite servicing contract from the military to use its Otter tug to either service or de-orbit defunct military satellites.

The first contract, announced in late January, was from the Space Force’s Space Development Agency (SDA) for $52.5 million. Under that deal, Starfish would fly an Otter in 2027 to dock with a satellite and then de-orbit it.

The new contract, announced February 7, 2026, is with the Pentagon’s APFIT program, designed to encourage “innovative technologies”. It is for an additional $54.5 million, and calls for Otter to dock with a satellite in 2028 and service it rather than de-orbit it.

The Otter is designed to autonomously dock with and maneuver national security satellites, maximizing their operational capabilities while supporting SSC’s [Space Systems Command] need for sustained space maneuver. The spacecraft leverages autonomous rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking technology, allowing it to service satellites that were not originally designed for servicing.

As I noted in January when the first de-orbit contract was announced, while a number of contracts have been issued in the U.S., Europe, and Japan to demonstrate de-orbit technology, that was the first operational de-orbit contract. As for servicing, Northrop Grumman has already succeeded several times in prolonging the life of defunct commercial geosynchronous satellites with its Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV).

Starfish’s Otter however has only successfully demonstrated rendezvous and proximity capabilities on two missions, with a third a failure. As for docking, its Otter Pup tug has flown two missions, with the first failing in 2023 when both spacecraft began spinning unexpected. The second mission is presently ongoing, and was supposed to achieve a docking by now. After completing rendezvous maneuvers in September Starfish has provided no new updates. As far as we know, the docking never occurred or was a failure.

These contracts however suggest it has succeeded. Why else would the military suddenly issue more than $100 million in contracts to the company?

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Has Roscosmos gotten its Baikonur Soyuz-2 launchpad fixed already?

8:18 am

According to a short sentence added today at the end of Anatoli Zak’s ongoing report on the damaged Soyuz-2 launchpad in Baikonur, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos has completed repairs on that pad early.

According to rumors from Baikonur, the new service platform was installed at Site 31 by Feb. 10, 2026.

That’s it. No other information. Furthermore, this follows the last report from a Roscosmos official in late January where he said repairing the pad by March was facing difficulties due to winter weather and delays in getting replacement parts.

The launchpad had become unusable following the last launch in November when a platform used to prepare the rocket fell into the pad’s flame trench. It had not been attached properly.

As this report is based on rumors and very limited information, it must be treated with caution.

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Voyager wins four-year $24.5 million ISS management contract from NASA

8:01 am

The space station startup Voyager Technologies yesterday won a four-year $24.5 million contract from NASA to apparently manage the agency’s missions to ISS.

Under the task-order contract, Voyager will deliver end-to-end mission services spanning payload integration, mission operations, safety and compliance, and post-mission closeout. NASA may add options that extend the scope and value of the agreement over its life, providing Voyager with a multi-year framework for recurring mission execution. Voyager anticipates onboarding three payload missions over the next quarter, reflecting near-term demand and a steady pipeline of task orders supporting ongoing ISS operations.

The company has been doing similar ISS work for NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, though this contract appears to expand that work considerably. This deal provides the company further experience operating space station missions, crucial for the Starlab station that Voyager is listed as the consortium’s lead company.

Of the five stations under development, Axiom has run tourist missions to ISS to demonstrate this capability, Vast is launching its own demo single module station to demonstrate this capability, and now Voyager is doing this work for NASA to demonstrate this capability.

Max Space, which only entered this race late last year, has no such contract or experience, but it has recently partnered with Voyager in other work, and plans to launch its own demo station module in ’27.

The last proposed space station, Orbital Reef, has no such deal as far as I know. Led by Blue Origin (partnered with Sierra Space), this station project continues to show no progress of any kind.

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How Saturn’s moon Enceladus causes an aurora on Saturn

9:38 am

Enceladus orbiting Saturn
Click for original image.

Using data collected by the orbiter Cassini while it orbited Saturn more than a decade ago, scientists now think they have mapped out how the moon Enceladus interacts with Saturn’s magnetic field and helps create an aurora in Saturn’s polar regions.

You can read the paper here. The artist rendering to the right comes from the press release, and shows that interaction. From that release:

The study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, shows how wave structures, known as ‘Alfvén wings’, travel like vibrations on a string along magnetic field lines connecting Enceladus to Saturn’s pole. The initial ‘main’ Alfvén wing is reflected back-and-forth both by Saturn’s ionosphere and the plasma torus that encircles Enceladus’s orbit, resulting complex and structured system. By using a multi-instrumental approach, researchers were able to show that the influence of Enceladus extends over a record distance of over 504,000 km – more than 2,000 times the moon’s radius.

…As well as the large-scale structures, the team found evidence that turbulence teases out the waves into filaments within the main Alfvén wing. This fine-scale structure helps the waves bounce off Enceladus’s plasma torus and reach the high-latitudes in Saturn’s ionosphere where auroral features associated with the moon form.

The white haze below Enceladus in the graphic represents the material that comes out of the “tiger stripe” fractures near its south pole.

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A lava tube on Venus?

9:18 am

Theorized lava tube on Venus

The uncertainty of science: Scientists in Italy have reanalyzed the radar data of Venus by the Magellan orbiter from 1990 to 1992 and concluded that at least one open pit on the side of a shield volcano might be the entrance to a underground lava tube.

You can read their paper here [pdf]. The graphic above comes from figures 2 and 3 of their paper, with the radar image of the pit to the right, and the cartoon to the left their interpretation of that radar data. From the abstract:

Between 1990 and 1992, the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instrument on board the Magellan spacecraft mapped the Venusian surface. By leveraging a SAR imaging technique developed for detecting and characterizing accessible subsurface conduits in the proximity of skylights, we analysed
the Magellan radar images in locations where there is evidence of localized surface collapses. Our analyses reveal the existence of a large and open subsurface conduit in the Nyx Mons region. This feature is hypothesized to be a pyroduct, characterized by a diameter of about 1 km, a roof thickness of at least 150 m and an empty void height of no less than 375 m. The conduit extends in the subsurface for at least 300 meters from the skylight.

To strengthen their conclusions, which are based on a LOT of assumptions, the scientists also compared this radar data with radar data taken of similar-sized lava tube skylights on Earth.

Their conclusion is reasonable, as Venus is a planet of volcanoes, with more than a million detected in radar data. Lava tubes should exist. Nonetheless, their interpretation of the radar data is very uncertain, and must be viewed with a great deal of skepticism.

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FAKE Chandrayaan-2 images of the Apollo 11 and 12 landing sites

8:30 am

Chandrayaan-2 images of Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 landing sites

The pictures to the right are fake, as are the two stories I had linked to in the now crossed-out post below. Both stories included pictures of the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 landing sites that were fake and did not match the actual pictures taken earlier by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

I seem to remember that Chandrayaan-2 had taken pictures of these Apollo landing sites, but I have not been able to find those originals. Either way, the stories below as well as the pictures to the right are fake, and for that reason I have deleted the links to both.

For reasons I don’t understand, two different news outlets in the past two days decided to highlight the 2021 images taken by India’s Chandrayaan-2 lunar orbiter of the Apollo 11 and 12 landing sites, with both outlets claiming these pictures provided third-party verification that those manned lunar landings actually happened.

Those pictures are to the right. They aren’t new, but they are so good I decided they were cool enough to post again.

As for proving the lunar landing happened, that is pure anti-American silliness, sadly too often pushed by ignorant Americans. They should be ashamed. The Apollo landings were possibly the greatest single achievement Americans have ever accomplished. And if not the greatest, the landings rank near the top, and above all they certainly were among our noblest achievement.

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NASA provides update on Artemis-2 repairs for future dress rehearsal countdown

8:01 am

NASA late last night posted an update describing the fuel leak repair work taking place in advance of a second dress rehearsal countdown prior to the launch of the manned ten-day Artemis-2 mission around the Moon.

While teams continue evaluating the cause of the leak, reconnecting the interfaces is expected to be complete on Monday, Feb. 9. Testing is planned to occur at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, to evaluate additional dynamics of the plates. Engineers are reviewing options to test the repair work prior to the next wet dress rehearsal to ensure the seals are performing as expected.

NASA also will update several operations for the next wet dress rehearsal to focus on fueling activities. The Orion crew module hatch will be closed prior to the test, and the closeout crew responsible on launch day for assisting the Artemis II crew into their seats and closing Orion’s two hatches will not be deployed to the launch pad. The crew access arm will not be retracted during the next rehearsal, after engineers successfully demonstrated the ground launch sequencer can retract it during the final phase of the countdown.

Additionally, NASA has added 30 minutes of extra time during each of two planned holds in the countdown before and after tanking operations to allow more time for troubleshooting, increasing the total time of the countdown by one hour. The additional time will not affect the crew’s timeline on launch day.

In other words, the next rehearsal will focus almost entirely on fueling to make sure these issues are resolved.

The agency however has not set a date for that countdown rehearsal. To launch in March, as presently planned, it must occur sometime in the next three weeks, and go perfectly. Otherwise that launch will slip again, and begin to bump up against the end of the launch window on April 6th.

Right now I am betting that second rehearsal will not go perfectly, as this was SLS’s track record leading up to November 2022 first launch. It took five countdowns before the agency was able to get the rocket off the ground without issues.

And if it does go perfectly and Artemis-2 is launched manned, it is essential to note again that it will be flying a manned capsule with a questionable heat shield and an untested life support system.

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China and SpaceX complete launches

2:04 pm

The pause in launches in the past week has now ceased, completely for SpaceX and partly for China.

Yesterday China completed its first launch in more than a week and only its second since it had two launch failures on January 17, 2026. It successfully launched its Shenlong X-37B copycat mini-reusable shuttle on its fourth mission, its Long March 2F rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

No word on how long Shenlong will remain in orbit. All China’s state-run press would reveal is that it is performing “technological verification” in orbit. That state-run press also said nothing about where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

SpaceX today resumed launches after its own weeklong pause, caused as the company investigated why the upper stage on the February 2nd launch did not complete its de-orbit burn as planned. The company has released no information on the results of that investigation, but apparently it was satisfied with the results to resume launches. It successfully placed 25 more Starlink satellites in orbit today, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 13th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The 2026 launch race:

15 SpaceX
7 China
2 Rocket Lab
1 Russia

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India picks landing site for its Chandrayaan-4 lunar sample return mission

10:22 am

Landing sites at the Moon's South Pole

Scientists at India’s space agency ISRO have now picked [pdf] a preliminary landing site for its planned Chandrayaan-4 lunar sample return mission, scheduled to launch in 2028.

[Four] sites of Mons Mouton area was fully characterised with respect to terrain characteristics using high resolution OHRC multiview image datasets and it was found that 1km x 1km area around MM-4 (-84.289, 32.808) contains the less hazard percentage, mean slope of 5°, Mean height of 5334m and most number of hazard free grids of size 24m x 24m. Hence MM-4 can be considered for the potential site of Chandrayaan-4 mission.

The study area of all four sites is indicated on the map to the right by the red dot labeled “Chandrayaan-4”. This mountain, Mons Mouton, is essentially a flat plateau between the numerous craters in the south pole region (many with permanently shadowed craters). Intuitive Machines second lander, Athena, attempted a landing there last year, and tipped over, as did that company’s first lander, Odysseus, both indicated in green. Astrobotic’s Griffin lander (yellow) is targeting this mountain also, hopefully to launch later this year.

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One of Cassini’s first close-up images of Saturn’s rings

12:48 pm

The rings of Saturn
Click for original image.

Cool image time! My exploration of the Cassini image archive continues. The picture to the right, reduced and enhanced to post here, was taken on May 2, 2005 by Cassini soon after it moved into a close orbit of Saturn where it could get high resolution images of Saturn’s rings. This is one of the first.

This is also a raw image that has not been calibrated or validated, to use the science team’s terms. Thus, the white dots scattered across the image could be artifacts that need to be cleaned up, not examples of Saturn’s many moons.

Regardless, the image illustrates the incredible delicacy of these rings, despite the fact that they are gigantic, spanning almost 45,000 miles in width, with a thickness ranging from 30 to 1,000 feet. And yet, there are so many distinct rings they almost resemble an old-fashioned vinyl record.

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A new American satellite constellation gets FCC approval

9:57 am

The satellite startup Logos has won approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for its proposed 4,178 satellite internet constellation.

The Federal Communications Commission partially granted the Redwood City, California-based venture’s constellation proposal Jan. 30, clearing operations in K-, Q- and V-band spectrum under certain conditions while deferring and denying parts of its higher-frequency requests. The satellites would operate across seven orbital shells ranging from 870 kilometers to 925 kilometers above Earth, with inclinations spanning 28 to 90 degrees.

Under FCC rules, Logos must deploy and operate half of the constellation within seven years, with the remainder in place by Jan. 30, 2035.

The company last year raised $50 million in private investment capital, and hopes to launch its first satellite by 2027.

It seems this constellation is coming to the game very late.

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Has the FAA officially approved Starship launches for Kennedy Space Center in Florida?

9:13 am

Proposed Starship/Superheavy launchsites at Kennedy and Cape Canaveral
Proposed Starship/Superheavy launchsites at
Kennedy (LC-39A) and Cape Canaveral (SLC-37)

It appears that though the FAA’s preliminary summary that it issued on January 30, 2026 only suggested it was leaning to approve Starship/Superheavy launches at SpaceX’s LC-39A launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, it now appears that SpaceX is treating it as an official approval, and has begun work re-configuring LC-39A from the launchpad used for manned Falcon 9 launches to a facility for launching both Falcon Heavy and Starship/Superheavy.

The launch pad has seen a pause in action due to SpaceX working to finalize the Starship tower and launch pad on the site. Then on Wednesday, Feb. 4, a crane appeared next to the Falcon 9 launch tower, attaching to the crew access arm.

“For our manifest going forward, we’re planning to launch most of our Falcon 9 launches off of Space Launch Complex 40. That will include all Dragon missions going forward,” said Lee Echerd, senior mission manager of Human Spaceflight Mission Management at SpaceX during the Crew-12 prelaunch press briefing. “That will allow our Cape team to focus 39A on Falcon Heavy launches and hopefully our first Starship launches later this year.”

This Space News article today claims the FAA has issued a final approval for Starship/Superheavy at LC-39A, but it links to that preliminary summary from January 30th, which as far as I can tell is still preliminary and does not include an official approval.

Not that it matters. The FAA appears quite prepared to okay Starship/Superheavy launches at LC-39A, and it now appears SpaceX is proceeding under that assumption.

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Voyager Technologies and Max Space team up to develop inflatable planetary structures

8:01 am

The station designs as of the end of 2025
The station designs as of the end of 2025

The space station startups Voyager Technologies, which is leading the consortium developing Starlab, and Max Space, which is developing its own inflatable Thunderbird station, have now partnered to use their combined talents to develop inflatable planetary structures for habitation and cargo.

In terms of their space stations, they are similar but different. Voyager’s Starlab station will be a single giant module launched on Starship. The consortium building this module had hired the interior decoration company Journey to design the interior, and yesterday showed off a mock-up of that interior.

Max Space’s Thunderbird is an equally large single module but because it uses inflatable technology it will launch on a Falcon 9. The company plans to launch a smaller demo module in ’27 to prove this technology.

Both companies will now use their skills together to begin design work on inflatable habitats that both NASA and SpaceX could use on the planned lunar and Mars colonies.

The phased development path includes ground validation and in-space demonstrations later this decade, with the goal of enabling operational lunar and Mars capabilities aligned with NASA’s exploration timelines. The partnership emphasizes early risk retirement, interoperability and commercial scalability as guiding principles.

In other words, these companies are expanding their business model to sell their products across a wider range of uses. This deal does not change my rankings of the five space stations currently under development, as shown below, but it is an interesting data point that suggests the technology of these space stations can be marketed in many other space-related areas.
» Read more

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Pluto’s implausible atmosphere, as seen in 2015 by New Horizons

2:07 pm

Pluto's implausible atmosphere
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on July 14, 2015 by the camera on the New Horizons probe as it flew past Pluto, the only time a human craft has gotten close to this distant planet. From the link:

These high phase angle images show many artifacts associated with scattered sunlight; the Sun was less then 15 degrees from the center of the LORRI frame for these observations. But the outline of Pluto and its hazy atmosphere are also visible.

To see the atmosphere the light from the planet itself has been blocked out.

What is implausible about Pluto’s atmosphere is the location of the planet, about 3.7 billion miles from the Sun, out in the nether reaches of the solar system. At that distance sunlight is very weak, and produces very little energy. And yet, there is enough energy here to produce an atmosphere of mostly nitrogen gas, with trace amounts of metane and carbon monoxide. Scientists think this atmosphere only exists when Pluto is closer to the Sun in its somewhat oblong orbit, and freezes out the rest of the time. As Pluto was just retreating in 2015 from that closest approach in the last two decades of the 20th century, New Horizons could detect its presence.

But then, we really can’t be sure if this atmosphere truly vanishes when the planet is farthest from the Sun, as we have only so far observed 96 years in Pluto’s 248-year orbit.

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French startup The Exploration Company completes first splashdown tests of Nyx capsule prototype

9:31 am

The French cargo capsule startup, The Exploration Company, has successfully completed the first splashdown tests of a smallscate prototype model of its proposed Nyx capsule.

On 5 February, The Exploration Company announced that it had successfully completed a splashdown test campaign at the National Research Council’s Institute of Marine Engineering (CNR-INM) in Rome.

A 1:4-scale mockup of Nyx, with a mass of around 135 kilograms, was built for the test campaign by Poli Model, a small Turin-based model builder. For reference, the full-scale capsule will be 4 metres wide and stand at 7 metres tall. The subscale model’s exterior was fitted with pressure sensors, accelerometers, and a gyroscope.

The tests were conducted in the CNR-INM facility’s Umberto Pugliese towing tank, a 470-metre-long pool measuring 13.5 metres across and 6.5 metres deep. Between 13 and 28 January, a total of 20 drops were conducted at varying heights and speeds in calm water, which the company explained maximised repeatability.

The company hopes to fly a fullscale demo mission to ISS in 2028, and wants to upgrade Nyx to manned capabilities in the 2030s.

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Israeli weather satellite startup raises $175 million in investment capital

9:17 am

An Israeli weather satellite startup, dubbed Tomorrow.io, has now raised $175 million in investment capital to build an AI-driven constellation of satellites to supplement the smallsat constellation it has already launched.

This financing builds on a proven foundation of execution. Tomorrow.io has completed the full deployment of its first satellite constellation, having launched 13 satellites to space, achieving 60-minute global revisit, while scaling an AI-driven intelligence platform now embedded across critical industries. DeepSky extends this foundation into the next phase of the company’s roadmap, supporting continued commercial growth, expanding data coverage, and unlocking new high-frequency sensing capabilities.

I find amusing this new desire to label all computer programming “AI”, when in many cases it is simply the same software slightly upgraded that these companies have been using for years.

Nonetheless, this story signals the continuing transition in the weather satellite industry from the government/Soviet-style model, where all weather satellites are built and operated by governments, to the capitalism model, where governments and industry buy weather data from privately built, launched, and maintained commercial constellations.

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Astronomers use SphereX infrared space telescope to study interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas

8:32 am

False color images of SphereX infrared data
False color images of SphereX infrared data.
Click for original.

Using NASA’s SphereX infrared space telescope, astronomers have now detected a range of new molecules in the coma surround interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas as that coma brightened and grew in December 2025 following the comet’s closest approach to the Sun in the fall.

You can read the research paper here. From the press release:

In a new research note, mission scientists describe the detection of organic molecules, such as methanol, cyanide, and methane. On Earth, organic molecules are the foundation for biological processes but can be created by non-biological processes as well. The researchers also note a dramatic increase in brightness two months after the icy body had passed its closest distance to the Sun, a phenomenon associated with comets as they vent water, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide into space.

In every way this interstellar object continues to behave like an ordinary comet, which is actually quite profound. It tells us the rest of the universe is not that different than our solar system.

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German rocket startup Isar Aerospace opens new rocket testing facility at Esrange spaceport

8:03 am

Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe
Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe

Though the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace is using Norway’s Andoya spaceport to launch its Spectrum rocket, it is now expanding significantly its testing facilities at Sweden’s Esrange spaceport to the east.

European space company Isar Aerospace is significantly expanding their testing operations with SSC Space at Esrange Space Center in Sweden, opening a second test site to support the development and production of its ‘Spectrum’ rocket. The new facility will enable testing of 30+ engines per month, along with expanded integrated stage testing capabilities, increasing testing capacity and enabling faster development.

Launching from Esrange is a problem because of its interior location, but testing engines there, close to Germany and the Andoya spaceport makes great sense.

Isar had hoped to make its second attempt to complete the first orbital launch of Spectrum in January, but postponed the launch until March to deal with a valve issue.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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SpaceX wants revisions to federal rural grant program that has awarded it $733 million

4:05 pm

SpaceX is presently asking for changes in the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program that awards grants to companies that provide internet in rural areas and has already awarded the company $733 million in grants.

BEAD was part of the Biden administration’s bipartisan infrastructure act – originally a $42 billion program to bring broadband internet to areas of the country with little or no broadband access. The Trump administration eliminated other infrastructure act programs, and cut BEAD outlays to $21 billion, along with rule changes to allow satellite providers.

SpaceX applied for BEAD funds in 2025. The company won $733 million worth of BEAD projects nationwide, including $109 million in Texas.

Initially the Biden administration awarded SpaceX almost a billion dollar grant, because its Starlink constellation was the only broadband outlet actually doing the job. Then Musk began to campaign for Republicans, and suddenly the Biden administration pulled that grant, saying absurdly that SpaceX was failing to provide its service to rural areas, when that was exactly what it was doing.

Now SpaceX wants BEAD to ease some of its requirements, and wants these grant funds upfront.

I say, this whole BEAD program is a waste of taxpayer money and a perfect example of crony capitalism. I’m glad Trump cut it in half, but that wasn’t good enough. It should be shut down entirely. SpaceX doesn’t need this handout. It is making money hand-over-fist on its own.

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One of Saturn’s many weird moons

11:47 am

Saturn's moon Atlas
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on April 13, 2017 by the orbiter Cassini as it began it last close loops around Saturn before diving into its atmosphere to burn up.

Those close loops allowed it to get good close-up images of a few of the tiny moons that orbit in or close to the gas giant’s rings. On the right is one of those pictures, of the moon Atlas, taken from a distance of about 10,000 miles.

The moon’s weird ravioli shape is thought to be caused by the accretion of dust and ice from the nearby rings along Atlas’s equator.

Scientists also found the moon surfaces to be highly porous, further confirming that they were formed in multiple stages as ring material settled onto denser cores that might be remnants of a larger object that broke apart. The porosity also helps explain their shape: Rather than being spherical, they are blobby and ravioli-like, with material stuck around their equators. “We found these moons are scooping up particles of ice and dust from the rings to form the little skirts around their equators,” Buratti said. “A denser body would be more ball-shaped because gravity would pull the material in.”

Atlas itself is about 25 miles wide and about 11.5 miles thick, at its thickest point. I suspect if you tried to walk on it you would sink into the accumulated dust and ice, as it is likely no more dense as newly fallen snow.

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Commercial changes at France’s French Guiana spaceport

9:41 am

French Guiana spaceport
The French Guiana spaceport. The Diamant launchsite is labeled “B.”
Click for full resolution image. (Note: The Ariane-5 pad is now the
Ariane-6 pad.)

Once France’s space agency CNES regained control of its spaceport in French Guiana several years ago from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) commercial pseudo-company Arianespace, it has moved aggressively to make that spaceport attractive to the new European rocket startups.

Beginning in 2022, it began to sign deals with every one of those rocket startups to allow them to establish launch facilities at the spaceport using several long abandoned pads, including the French Diamant rocket site not used for decades as well as the Soyuz launch site unused due to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

CNES decided to standardize Diamant for multiple rocket companies, while leasing the Soyuz site to one.

In a news story today, it appears the startup MaiaSpace, a wholly owned subsidiary of the much larger aerospace company ArianeGroupk, has shifted its launch plans at French Guiana. Initially it was going to launch its rocket from the Diamant pad. In 2024 however it won the contract to use the Soyuz pad, and it has now withdrawn its plans to use Diamant entirely.

CNES has therefore put out a call to the European rocket industry to fill this slot at Diamant. At present Isar Aerospace, PLD Space, Rocket Factory Augsburg, and Latitude have agreements to use Diamant, though only Latitude and PLD had done any development work on their facilities there.

As far as I know, these companies comprise the entire cadre of new European rocket startups, so I don’t know what other users CNES hopes to find. Furthermore, CNES had wanted to standardize the launch site for everyone, and the companies had balked at that idea. PLD got a deal to use its own pad at Diamant. I suspect the reason Isar and Rocket Factory have done little there is because they want their own facilities as well.

Either way, French Guiana is moving the direction of supporting competitive commercial operations, and that is a very good thing.

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