Tag: engineering

China launches three astronauts to its Tiangong-3 space station

9:21 am

China today successfully launched three astronauts to its Tiangong-3 space station, its Long March 2F rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

The Shenzhou capsule docked with the station 3.5 hours after launch. The overall mission is planned as a standard six-month mission, though depending on how the crew fare one will continue and attempt to complete a yearlong mission.

China’s state-run press provided no information on where the rocket’s lower stages and four strap-on boosters (using extremely toxic hypergolic fuels) crashed inside China. That press however made a big deal about how one of the astronauts comes from Hong Kong, no longer free and now under the full thumb of the communist government.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

60 SpaceX
29 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 60 to 52.

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FAA clears New Glenn for launch

12:18 pm

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) yesterday approved the results of Blue Origin’s investigation into the failure of the upper stage of the company’s New Glenn rocket to reach orbit on the rocket’s third launch in April 2026.

The Blue Origin tweet announcing this FAA decision provided little information, saying only this:

The FAA has approved our NG-3 report, and corrective measures have been implemented. Prior to our second GS2 [upper stage] burn, we experienced an off-nominal thermal condition, and, as a result, one of the BE-3U engines didn’t achieve full thrust to reach our target orbit.

Blue Origin says it is preparing for the next New Glenn launch, but provided no information about when. The company is under heavy pressure to up its launch rate, which compared to SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and ULA appears almost pitiful in its slowness. It had had a contract with Amazon to do 27 Leo satellite launches, but that total has been reduced to 24 due to the lack of launches. It is also unable to do any military launches until it flies New Glenn successfully four more times.

Getting New Glenn off the ground successfully and quickly is becoming critical for the company.

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One of the three Chinese astronauts to launch this weekend will do a yearlong mission

12:02 pm

The Tiangong-3 station, as presently configured
The Tiangong-3 station, as presently configured,
with two Shenzou capsules docked to its main hub.

Though the decision won’t be made as to who until the mission is ongoing, one of the three Chinese astronauts scheduled to launch this weekend to China’s Tiangong-3 space station will do a yearlong mission, rather than the standard six month missions that they have been doing since the station became operational.

Chinese astronauts Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Zhiyuan and Li Jiaying (or Lai Ka-ying in Cantonese) will carry out the Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceflight mission. The astronaut selected for the year-long stay will be determined based on how the mission unfolds in orbit, CMSA spokesperson Zhang Jingbo said at a press conference.

During the year-long residency, China will implement its first space-based human body research program to collect crucial data on astronaut exposed to long-duration spaceflight environments, Zhang noted.

I guarantee this is the preliminary to a longer mission that will break the 14.5 month record set by Valeri Polykov on Russia’s Mir station in 1994-95. China’s station program is solid and robust, and even includes plans to double the size of Tiangong-3 in the coming years. There will be nothing preventing them from doing missions even longer, from two to three years, as they develop the knowledge for interplanetary travel.

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SpaceX completes a largely successful 12th orbital test flight of Starship/Superheavy

4:41 pm

Starship and Superheavy in flight

SpaceX today successfully completed its 12th orbital test flight of Starship/Superheavy, with Superheavy lifting off and getting Starship into its preliminary flight path and Starship then firing its engines and getting into a workable orbit that naturally decayed over the Indian Ocean.

There were issues with several Raptor-3 engines, being used in flight on both Superheavy and Starship for the first time. During launch one Superheavy Raptor-3 engines cut off prematurely, forcing the other 32 engines to compensate for the loss. Then, after stage separation (shown in the screen capture to the right) Superheavy’s boost back burn cut off prematurely. As a result, the booster did not come down off the coast for a soft vertical splashdown as planned, but came down in the Gulf, mostly uncontrolled. It did successfully fire some engines for the landing burn, but that splashdown was hard.

As for Starship, it also had one engine shut down prematurely, requiring the other five engines to burn about 90 seconds longer to get the ship up to an acceptable orbit. Because of these engine issues, the engineering team decided to forgo a test restart of one Raptor-3 engine.

Starship then successfully deployed 20 dummy Starlink satellites, followed by two operational Starlink satellites that were modified expressly to provide visual observations of Starship and its heat shield while it is space. Only a few minutes later engineers were able to broadcast those observations, showing Starship as seen from nearby.

Starship then successfully executed its planned maneuver leading to a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

Overall this sets the stage for a quick follow-up. Expect new test flights over the summer and fall, coming almost monthly. The company has made it clear it wants to do a two-week refueling mission with two Starship before the end of the year, as well as begin using Starship to deploy the bigger upgraded Starlink version 3 satellites.

Though this flight did not complete a full orbit, the rocket got Starship into an acceptable orbital path, allowing it to do most of the orbital testing desired. I consider this a success for the 2026 launch race:

60 SpaceX
28 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 60 to 51.

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Watching SpaceX’s 12th Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight

9:59 am

After yesterday’s scrub, SpaceX has now rescheduled the 12th test orbital launch of Starship/Superheavy for later today, with a launch window opening at 5:30 pm (Central).

The upcoming flight will debut the next generation Starship and Super Heavy vehicles, powered by the next evolution of the Raptor engine and launching from a newly designed pad at Starbase.

The flight test’s primary goal will be to demonstrate each of these new pieces in the flight environment for the first time, with each element of the Starship architecture featuring significant redesigns to enable full and rapid reuse that incorporate learnings from years of development and test.

I have once again embedded below several different live streams of the flight.
» Read more

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Starlab gets another investor

9:40 am

Starlab design as of December 2025
Starlab design as of December 2025

The consortium building the Starlab space station today announced that the investment firm 1789 Capital has made a “strategic investment” in the station’s construction, though neither would state the amount of that investment.

Starlab Space Stations and 1789 Capital announced 1789 Capital’s strategic investment in Starlab. The investment reflects mounting confidence that Starlab — the U.S.-led joint venture, next-generation commercial space station — represents a durable and commercially grounded cornerstone of the post-International Space Station (ISS) low-Earth orbit (LEO) economy.

…“America built the space age and must lead the next one,” said Omeed Malik, founder and president, 1789 Capital. “We invest in the next chapter of American exceptionalism, and Starlab is turning that vision into reality.” The firm’s investment in Starlab reflects its thesis that critical infrastructure — from the digital to the orbital — represents a generational opportunity where national interest and investor returns are aligned.

When asked, Starlab’s press office simply said “We are not disclosing the value at this time.” This has been the company’s policy when it comes to private investment. In January 2026 it announced another major investor without disclosing the amount invested.

Nonetheless, this new investment strengthens Starlab’s overall position, even if that support is tentative. In my rankings below of the five stations under development, Starlab, Vast, and Axiom remain essentially tied for first place..
» Read more

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Zvezda module on ISS is leaking once again

8:51 am

According to a report today at Ars Technica, the Zvezda module on ISS is once again leaking station air, despite recent repairs to the stress fractures in its hull that had appeared in recent months to halt the air loss.

After a couple of sources reported this to Ars, NASA confirmed the issue on Thursday. On May 1, after Russian cosmonauts unloaded cargo from the Progress 95 cargo spacecraft, Roscosmos noted a “slow pressure drop” in the PrK module.

“Teams performed data analysis, which indicated a loss of about one pound per day,” NASA spokesperson Josh Finch told Ars. “Roscosmos allowed the pressure in the transfer tunnel to gradually decrease while monitoring the rate. The area now is being maintained at a lower pressure, with small repressurizations as needed. There are no impacts to station operations, and NASA and Roscosmos are coordinating on next steps.”

A loss of one pound of air per day is comparable to the leak rate back in 2019, as shown in the lower right corner of the graphic below. It is also one third the loss rate seen for much of the following five years, which is I suppose good news.

Figure 3 from September Inspector General report
Figure 3 from September 2024 Inspector General report, showing Zvezda’s location on ISS, as well as the station’s leak rate at that time.

At the same time, it suggests once again that every docking to Zvezda puts stress on its hull, and apparently causes either new cracks or the reopening of old ones. In such a situation, a catastrophic failure of the module remains a possibility that cannot be dismissed. NASA closes the hatch between the Russian and American halves of the station whenever there is a docking, but that is only band-aid covering a much more serious problem.

Without question ISS’s life span is impacted by this issue. The sooner the U.S. can replace it with at least one or two of the private commercial stations under development, the better.

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Rocket Lab launches radar satellite for Japanese company Synspective

8:24 am

Rocket Lab early today successfully completed its ninth launch (out of a 27-launch contract) for the Japanese radar satellite company Synspective, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

59 SpaceX
28 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 59 to 51.

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Rocket Lab wins $90 million Space Force contract to build two geostationary satellites

8:01 am

Rocket Lab yesterday announced it has been awarded a $90 million contract by the Space Force to build two geostationary satellites for the military’s “space doman awareness” constellation.

Though Rocket Lab has built and launched a number of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites for both commercial and military customers, these two satellites will be the first in geosynchronous orbit.

Rocket Lab will serve as prime contractor and end-to-end mission provider, responsible for spacecraft design and manufacture, integration of the in-house Heimdall optical payload produced by Rocket Lab Optical Systems, launch integration onto a government-furnished launch vehicle, and on-orbit operations for up to five years following commissioning. The two satellites will be built on Rocket Lab’s Lightning bus, adapted for the thermal, radiation, propulsion, and station-keeping demands of GEO.

Though Rocket Lab is mostly considered a rocket company, it has done an excellent job diversifying its capabilities so as to sell aerospace products across a range of areas. This contract continues that successful trend.

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Starship/Superheavy launch scrubbed at T-40 seconds

4:44 pm

Starship at that hold today
Starship at that hold today

Though SpaceX mission controllers tried several times to restart the countdown when it went into an automatic hold at T-40 seconds due to some technical issues, they eventually decided to scrub the Starship/Superheavy launch today.

At present they expect to try again tomorrow, with a launch window opening at 5:30 pm (central). Expect updates later today or tomorrow.

One trivia fact noted during today’s broadcast. With its new more powerful Raptor-3 engines, Superheavy produces about 18 million pounds of thrust at launch. That is more than twice that of either the Saturn-5 rocket (seven million pounds) or the SLS rocket (8.8 million pounds). And remember, everything about Starship/Superheavy is intended to be reused, with Superheavy already proving its ability to do so.

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An amoeba in space more than a light year in size

12:59 pm

An amoeba in space more than a light year in size
Click for original image.

Time for another cool image. The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was released today by the science team of the 8.1 meter Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. It provides a close-up view of the central blob that forms NGC 1514, a planetary nebula located about 1,500 light years away and nicknamed the Crystal Ball Nebula by Gemini’s PR team.

They might think it resembles a crystal ball, but to my eye this is an amoeba undulating in weightlessness.

Planetary nebulae form when a low- or intermediate-mass star ejects its outer layers near the end of its life, forming a somewhat spherical cloud of gas. They typically have smoother, spherical shapes, making the Crystal Ball Nebula unique for its bumpy shells of gas. As the central star casts away this gas, its inner core is exposed. Radiation from the core energizes the gas, giving it a scorching temperature and chromatic glow. The Crystal Ball Nebula, for example, has an estimated temperature of 15,000 K.

…While it may appear in this image as if there is a single shining light source at the heart of the Crystal Ball Nebula, as Herschel saw, it actually contains two stars. These two stars orbit each other with a period of around nine years — the longest known for any binary pair within a planetary nebula. Scientists believe that one of these stars, which was once several times more massive than our Sun, released its outer layers while in the throes of death. As the progenitor star and its binary companion orbit each other, they mold the expanding shell of gas with their strong, asymmetrical winds, forming the lumpy layers we see today.

The analogy I like to use for this process is that of a blender. The two stars act like the blender’s blades, mixing the outflowing gas from the stars into these spectacular shapes.

The Webb Space Telescope took its own infrared image of this nebula, and showed that its is surrounded by two larger rings of material, also expanding outward.

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