Tag: engineering

Echostar subsidiary Hughesnet now sending its customers to Starlink

8:01 am

Following the purchase by SpaceX of much of Echostar’s spectrum, its subsidiary Hughesnet appears to be on the verge of shutting down as it is now referring its present and future customers to Starlink.

Hughesnet is preparing to refer its own customers to rival Starlink after its parent company, EchoStar, reached a deal to sell radio spectrum to SpaceX. The referral program is mentioned in a 10-Q SEC filing that Hughesnet released on Friday. The 66-page document includes a section about the EchoStar-SpaceX deal and what it means for Hughesnet’s business. “The commercial agreements will also provide for a fee-based referral program that lets us refer existing HughesNet customers and new Starlink customers to SpaceX,” the document says, without elaborating.

The article also notes that the company lacks the cash on hand to function over the next 12 months, and has lost more than half its customer base in the past year.

2 comments

Perseverance moves on

10:30 am

Perseverance panorama, November 16, 2025
Click for high resolution version. For original images, go here, here, and here.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! It appears that during the government shutdown the science team for the Perseverance rover on Mars made the decision to leave an area they had been exploring for the past two months, driving the rover aggressively to the southwest and in a direction that had been unplanned.

The overview map to the right illustrates that move, with the blue dot marking the rover’s present position. The white dotted line indicates its actual travels, while the red dotted line shows the planned route. According to that planned route, the plan had been to move south and back up onto the top of the rim of Jezero Crater. For reasons that the science team has not explained, they decided instead to head to the southwest, away from the crater rim.

The panorama above was created by stitching together three images released today by Perseverance’s left navigation camera (see here, here, and here). The yellow lines on the overview map indicate my guess as to the area covered by this panorama. Note Perseverance’s tracks on the left. I think this panorama shows us the area the rover traveled in this recent move.

Note also the barrenness of the terrain. This is truly an alien world. It has an atmosphere that produces a very faint wind, that over eons can erode things. This is why this exterior wall of the rim of Jezero crater is so relatively smooth. Crater rims are usually places of jagged broken rock, thrown out by the impact. That very thin Martian atmosphere over time has smoothed that terrain.

This landscape also has no life. Except for some spots in the polar regions, it is literally impossible to find any place on Earth so devoid of life.

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Thailand rejects Starlink

9:18 am

Because of local laws forbidding the operation of any foreign-owned telecommunications company in Thailand, its government has rejected any sale of Starlink terminals inside the country.

The Digital Economy and Society Ministry has rejected a proposal from SpaceX to provide Starlink low-orbit satellite internet services in Thailand through a 100% foreign-owned company, citing national security concerns and legal restrictions. “If the company wants to set up a wholly owned firm, there will be no opportunity … to cooperate, as telecom ownership is directly linked to our digital security system,” minister Chaichanok Chidchob said on Friday.

This is the same problem that SpaceX has faced in a number of other third world countries, such as India and South Africa. In South Africa the government demanded SpaceX give up some or all of its ownership rights as well as impose a variety of racial or employment quotas that SpaceX considers unacceptable. Thus, no Starlink. In the case of India, the government insisted that its own telecom companies get a cut. SpaceX then managed to negotiate deals with each, where those companies market the Starlink terminals for SpaceX.

Apparently, no such deal has yet been worked out in Thailand.

Expect a deal eventually, however. The article notes that Thailand’s neighbor Vietnam has a Starlink deal allowing its citizens to sign up without restrictions. That agreement is going to put great pressure on Thailand

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Europe finalizes transfer of Vega-C rocket back to its builder, Italian company Avio

9:05 am

European Space Agency logo

In an agreement signed on November 14, 2025, the European Space Agency (ESA) completed the transfer of the Vega-C rocket, formerly controlled by the government-owned company Arianespace, back to the Italian company Avio.

Following decisions taken by the ESA Council in 2023, the revision of the Launchers Exploitation Declaration (LED) was finalized on 10 July 2025 and the Guiana Space Centre Agreement was signed on 23 October 2025. The LEAs signed today translate the LED mandate to ESA into concrete detailed implementation arrangements between ESA and the launch operators.

The two arrangements signed today – one with Arianespace and ArianeGroup for Ariane 6, and one with Avio for Vega-C – define the roles and responsibilities of each operator and ESA’s role in monitoring its implementation. They also establish the framework for cooperation between the parties to ensure Europe’s continued autonomous access to space through the exploitation of ESA-developed launchers from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

The quote above also details other changes. The Ariane-6 rocket is now controlled by a partnership of Arianespace and ArianeGroup, with the bulk of control by the latter, a private company that owns the rocket. Though Arianespace retains some management rights, its part in the rocket’s future has been reduced significantly.

Meanwhile, ownership and control of the French Guiana spaceport has now been transferred entirely from Arianespace and back to France’s space agency CNES. CNES has been running things more or less for the past year or so, but this makes the change official.

All in all, these agreements continue ESA’s shift in the past two years away from the government-run model, centralized under Arianespace control, to the capitalism model, where the government is merely a customer, buying what it needs from independent, competing, privately-owned companies. While these agreements highlight Avio and ArianeGroup, Europe also has a flock of new rocket startups (Isar, Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD) on verge of their first launches.

If Europe maintains its commitment to this shift, it should see some exciting developments in space in the coming years.

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China begins hurried preparations to launch rescue Shenzhou capsule to Tiangong-3

6:01 am

The Tiangong-3 station, as presently configured
The Tiangong-3 station, as presently configured

According to China’s state run press, it has begun emergency procedures to quickly launch the Shenzhou-22 capsule — originally scheduled to carry the next crew to its Tiangong-3 station in April 2026 — in order to provide the present station crew a lifeboat and a return capsule.

The China Manned Space Agency has started preparations for the launch of an unmanned spacecraft to carry a full cargo load, including provisions for astronauts and equipment for the Tiangong space station, according to a senior engineer. Zhou Yaqiang, who works with the agency’s general technical bureau, told China Central Television on Saturday that all systems involved in the upcoming Shenzhou-22 cargo mission “are busy getting ready for it, testing the rocket and the spaceship and preparing the payloads”.

The Shenzhou-22 spacecraft will be launched in due course to dock with the Tiangong space station, the agency said.

The report provided no details on when this launch would occur, though another Chinese report said getting the rocket (a Long March 2F) and capsule ready in the next 10 to 20 days would be “difficult.”

At the moment, the three astronauts on Tiangong-3 have no lifeboat. Should anything go wrong at the station before that launch they will have no way to get back to Earth, unless they use the damaged Shenzhou-21 capsule still docked to the station. That capsule has cracks in a window, caused by what the Chinese think was an impact from “space debris.” The Chinese have already determined it is not safe for human travel. Thus, using it in an emergency would be a desperate act.

Since the first space station, Salyut-1, was launched and occupied in 1971, this is the first time that a crew has been in space with absolutely no way to get home. The press last year repeatedly claimed the Starliner crew was “stranded” on ISS, but that wasn’t so. They could have always come home on their Starliner craft, as was proven when it returned unmanned with no problems. NASA had simply made the decision to be cautious and wait for the launch of next Dragon to bring them home instead.

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SpaceX launches NASA ocean radar satellite

10:56 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched Sentinal-6B, a NASA radar satellite designed to measure the global sea level, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

The first stage completed its 3rd flight, landing back at Vandenberg.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

150 SpaceX (a new record)
70 China
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 150 to 117.

Note that until SpaceX began to up its launch rate significantly in 2022, the entire global rocket industry — run entirely by governments — never completed more than 135 successful launches in a single year, and usually failed to make 100 launches. SpaceX is now proving that those global numbers over more than a half century were indicative of the failure of those governments. Those governments controlled everything, and so they prevented innovation, competition, and new ideas.

The transition to capitalism and freedom since 2010 has finally begun to open up space for everyone.

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Europe’s Trace Gas Orbiter circling Mars gets images of interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas

4:47 pm

Interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas
Click for movie.

Using Europe’s Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) that is in orbit around Mars, engineers have obtained images of the interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas.

The image to the right is a screen capture of the last image in a movie they created from all the pictures. I have added the arrow to indicate the comet, which underlines the fact that these images really don’t tell us that much about the comet itself. It is hardly more than a few pixels across, with no real detail resolved. However, the data has still been found useful.

Until September, figuring out the location and trajectory of 3I/ATLAS relied on Earth-based telescopes. Then between 1 and 7 October, ESA’s ExoMars TGO turned its eyes towards the interstellar comet from its orbit around Mars. The comet passed relatively close to Mars, approaching to about 29 million km during its closest phase on 3 October.

The Mars probe got about ten times closer to 3I/ATLAS than telescopes on Earth and it observed the comet from a new viewing angle. The triangulation of its data with data from Earth helped to make the comet’s predicted path much more accurate.

While the scientists initially anticipated a modest improvement, the result was an impressive ten-fold leap in accuracy, reducing the uncertainty of the object’s location.

All the data continues to confirm that 3I/Atlas is nothing more than comet, though like all comets unique in its own way. This refined location data will also improve the on-going observations of Europe’s Jupiter probe Juice, presently on its way to Jupiter and in the best position to see 3I/Atlas.

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Two more SpaceX launches

1:15 pm

SpaceX yesterday completed two launches, placing a total of 58 Starlink satellites into orbit.

First, a Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying 29 Starlink satellites. The first stage completed its 8th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Four hours later, a second Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, carrying another 29 Starlink satellites. Its first stage completed its 24th flight, also landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

149 SpaceX
70 China
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 149 to 117.

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I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in

6:01 pm

An evening pause: I think we all take for granted the amount of sophisticated engineering that goes into modern construction. No English, but you don’t need it.

Hat tip Cotour.

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The orbital propulsion module for India’s Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander drifts back into lunar orbit

3:48 pm

When India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft arrived in lunar orbit in August 2023, it separated into three units, the lander, a lunar orbiter, and a propulsion unit used to get everything to the Moon.

While the Vikram lander successfully touched down several hundred miles from the Moon’s south pole and the Chandrayaan-3 orbiter continues to make observations of the Moon, in October 2023 engineers had the propulsion module do a burn that sent it out of lunar orbit and into an Earth orbit that was close to one of the Lagrange points where the gravity of the Earth and Moon are balanced.

Now, three years later, that module has drifted back into lunar orbit, where it has since done two close fly-bys of the surface.

This intricate orbital dance culminated when the module once again entered the Moon’s SOI [sphere of influence] on November 4, 2025, an event marking the transition where lunar gravity dominates its motion.

The first recorded lunar flyby occurred on November 6, 2025, at a distance of 3,740 km from the lunar surface, though it was outside the Indian Deep Space Network’s (IDSN) visibility range. A second, closely monitored flyby took place on November 11, 2025, bringing the module within 4,537 km of the Moon and well within observation capabilities.

These events noticeably altered the satellite’s orbital parameters, expanding its orbit size from 100,000 x 300,000 km to a massive 409,000 x 727,000 km and shifting its inclination from 34° to 22°.

It is not clear what happens next. Having this module in lunar orbit could be an issue for present and later orbiters, as no orbit around the Moon can ever be stable. At some point India’s space agency ISRO needs to properly dispose of this unit, either by sending into the Moon or out of the Moon-Earth system entirely. I am of course assuming it has the fuel to do so.

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China’s Shenzhou-20 crew on Tiangong-3 returns on Shenzhou-21 capsule

11:27 am

The Tiangong-3 station, as presently configured
The Tiangong-3 station, as presently configured

After about a week of analysis, China today announced that the Shenzhou-20 capsule was too badly damaged to bring its crew back from its Tiangong-3 space station.

In making that announcement China finally revealed some details about the damage.

Tiny cracks have been found in the return capsule’s viewport window, which are most probably caused by external impact from space debris, according to the [China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).]

To get that crew home, which had already spent almost seven months in orbit, China had them board the Shenzhou-21 capsule that had only launched two weeks earlier on October 31, 2025 and use it to return to Earth today.

This leaves the present three astronauts on Tiangong-3 without any way to get back to Earth should something go wrong with the station.

China apparently had limited options. It doesn’t have enough docking ports on Tiangong-3 to dock three Shenzhou capsules to it, so one capsule had to undock and leave the station to make room for a replacement capsule.

Undocking Shenzhou-21 however is puzzling. Why didn’t China instead undock the damaged Shenzhou-20 capsule and de-orbit it? Had it done so, the six astronauts would have had only one lifeboat for three, but the docking port would have been opened for a new rescue capsule. There have been indications that China is preparing the next Shenzhou-22 capsule and a Long March 2F rocket for launch, though China has not provided any information about when that launch will occur.

With Shenzhou-21 gone, the three remaining Tiangong-3 astronauts are truly stranded in space, with no way home.

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Amazon renames its proposed internet constellation from Kuiper to Amazon LEO

9:59 am

Amazon today announced that it has renamed its proposed internet constellation from the initial internal code name “Kuiper” to “Amazon LEO, to give “a simple nod” to its location in low Earth orbit.

Our long-term mission remains the same, and we’re making good progress against it. We now operate one of the largest satellite production lines on the planet. We’ve invented some of the most advanced customer terminals ever built, including the first commercial phased array antenna to support gigabit speeds. And we now have more than 150 satellites in orbit [154 to be exact], and customers and partners like JetBlue, L3Harris, DIRECTV Latin America, Sky Brasil, and NBN Co., Australia’s National Broadband Network operator, already signing up to deploy the service.

The company’s FCC license requires it to have 1,600 satellites in orbit by July 2026. To even get close to this number the three launch companies that have Amazon launch contracts, ULA (46 launches total), Arianespace (18 launches), and Blue Origin (27 launches) have got to start launching regularly. ULA has completed three launches, and promises to do many in 2026. Arianespace says it will begin launches in 2026. Blue Origin has said nothing, but the successfully launch yesterday of New Glenn suggests it will also begin Amazon launches in 2026.

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ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket launches Viasat communications satellite

8:40 pm

ULA tonight successfully launched a Viasat communications satellite, its Atlas-5 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

This was the fifth launch for ULA in 2025, matching its count from last year. For the past year the company has repeatedly promised a launch rate of once to twice a month, but as yet to do so. In fact, it hasn’t managed twelve launches in a year since 2016. Hopefully this will change in the coming year.

With this launch, ULA only has eleven Atlas-5s left in stock before the rocket is retired, with five of those launches for Amazon’s Kuiper constellation and six for Boeing’s Starliner manned capsule. While the Kuiper launches will almost certainly happen by the end of 2026, the Boeing Starliner missions are very much in limbo, as that capsule itself remains in limbo with it entirely unclear when it will carry astronauts again for NASA.

As this was only the fifth launch by ULA in 2025, the leader board for the 2025 launch race remains unchanged:

147 SpaceX
70 China
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 147 to 117.

17 comments

Sierra Space finally completes preflight tests of its Tenacity Dream Chaser mini-shuttle

2:56 pm

Tenacity undergoing recent tow tests
Tenacity undergoing recent tow tests.
Click for original image.

Sierra Space today announced that has finally completed the preflight ground tests of its Tenacity Dream Chaser mini-shuttle required prior to launch.

As part of its comprehensive testing campaign, Dream Chaser underwent Electromagnetic Interference and Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMI/EMC) testing at NASA’s Space Systems Processing Facility (SSPF). These tests verified the spacecraft’s ability to operate within expected electromagnetic environments throughout various missions.

The spacecraft also completed rigorous tow testing at KSC and Space Florida’s Launch and Landing Facility. For this phase, a Freightliner Cascadia truck, provided by Daimler Truck North America, towed the spaceplane at high speeds to simulate critical dynamics and validating autonomous navigational parameters during runway landing operations.

Additionally, Dream Chaser successfully demonstrated the ability to receive telemetry and distribute commands between the spacecraft and Mission Control in Louisville, Colorado over NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System network. This key milestone tested the spacecraft’s readiness for real-time command and control during flight operations.

The testing campaign concluded with a post landing recovery rehearsal, which demonstrated the safing of vehicle systems and timely access to sensitive payloads. [emphasis mine]

The electromagnetic and telemetry began more than two years ago — along with standard vibration test — and under normal conditions should have been completed in only a few months. In fact, when that testing began the company expected to launch Tenacity to ISS on a Vulcan rocket sometime in 2024. While the vibration tests completed as expected, the other tests did not. Instead, we waited, and waited, and waited, with no word on the results, suggesting strongly that something had been found that made that launch impossible without significant changes.

The description of the tow tests that I highlighted above add further weight to this speculation. Such tow tests should have been done long before those final electromagnetic, telemetry, and vibration tests. To have to do such tow tests now suggests strongly that those ground tests found something wrong that required changes and further tow tests.

Though NASA has canceled its ISS cargo contract with Sierra using Tenacity, the company says it still plans to launch the mini-shuttle on an orbital demonstration mission late in 2026, with it landing back on a runway at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Don’t put much money on this. This mini-shuttle was first proposed in 2014, and has been repeatedly delayed over and over again. It remains unclear whether it will ever launch.

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New Glenn successfully launches Escapade orbiters AND lands 1st stage

2:29 pm

New Glenn first stage after landing
New Glenn first stage after landing

Blue Origin today successfully placed two the NASA Escapade Mars orbiters into space, its New Glenn rocket launching for the second time from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

More significantly, the company successfully landed the rocket’s first stage on a barge in the Atlantic. New Glenn is now the second rocket company capable of vertically landing and recovering an orbital first stage, after SpaceX.

Several take-aways: First, this first stage recovery took place almost exactly a decade after Blue Origin successfully landed vertically its suborbital New Shepard rocket, and almost a decade after SpaceX successfully did it with its Falcon 9 orbital rocket. It is a shame that it took Blue Origin so long to get to this point. It is also magnificent that it has finally made it happen. The United States now has two reusable rockets, with two more (by Rocket Lab and Stoke Space) expected to launch by next year.

Blue Origin is not likely to reuse this particular first stage, but its recovery will make future reuses likely and soon.

Second, Blue Origin made one interesting broadcast choice that I like. It listed the rocket’s altitude and speed in feet/miles and miles per hour, not kilometers. The engineers might have been using metric, but the audience is American, so using the traditional Imperial numbers is smart. Good for Blue Origin.

Third, Blue Origin’s announcers were once again annoying, distracting, ignorant, and childishly emotional. And they simply would not shut up, preventing the audience from hearing critical reports from mission control. They also seemed oblivious to reality, bragging repeatedly about the ten year gap between the first New Shepard landing and this landing, as if this was somehow a good thing. It was embarrassing to listen to.

The company would do a far better job selling itself by hiring announcers who are more serious and professional. Sadly, I have noted this problem from Blue Origin’s announcers now for almost a decade, with little change.

Finally, this success is a very big deal, both for Blue Origin and the United States. The company is now primed to begin regular launches next year, including the 27 launches Amazon has purchased for its Kuiper constellation.

For the U.S., this finally gives us a solid competitor to SpaceX. And that competition is finally going to force launch prices to drop significantly. SpaceX dropped prices, but not as far as it could because there was no pressure to do so from anyone else. Now there is that pressure.

As this was only the second launch by Blue Origin in 2025, the leader board for the 2025 launch race remains unchanged:

147 SpaceX
70 China
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 147 to 116. Note that ULA hopes to launch its Atlas-5 rocket tonight.

40 comments

Is China preparing to return its stranded astronauts in its damaged Shenzhou capsule?

10:00 am

According to reports from China, it appears they are preparing to return the three-person Shenzhou-20 crew on their damaged Shenzhou-20 capsule on November 14, 2025, rather than launch a replacement capsule as had been rumored previously.

China has issued a temporary airspace restriction over Inner Mongolia for 3:20 to 3:50 a.m. Eastern (0820-0850 UTC, or 4:20-4:50 p.m. Beijing time) Nov. 14, according to a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) published by the Hohhot Flight Information Region under the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

The airspace closure notice matches an area covering the Dongfeng landing site, an area in Inner Mongolia roughly 60 to 90 kilometers to the east-southeast of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, which has been used for all Shenzhou crewed spacecraft returns since 2021.

None of this is confirmed as yet, as China’s state-run press continues to be very secretive about this entire affair. It as yet not released any details about the damage to Shenzhou-20, nor has it been forthcoming with any details about the next steps it plans to take.

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The earliest observations ever of a supernova exploding suggest the blast was bi-polar

9:29 am

Figure 4 from the paper
Click for full graphic. CSM stands for the
circumstellar matter that surrounded the star
prior to eruption.

Using the Very Large Telescope in Chile, astronomers were able to observe a supernova in its very earliest moments after eruption, the earliest yet, and determined the eruption did not flow outward in all directions, but appeared to be bi-polar, as indicated by the cartoon to the right.

To capture the snapshot of the April 2024 supernova, astronomers used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, which was able to look at the polarization, or orientation, of the supernova’s light. Using a technique called spectropolarimetry, the researchers used the light’s polarization to re-create the explosion’s shape in its first moments. Their results showed that the light emanated not uniformly, like the light from a typical star, but elongated, shaped like an olive.

You can read their paper here. The cartoon comes from Figure 4, and is their “most plausible” interpretation of the data.

This bi-polar shape suggests that in the initial stages of the eruption the material shot out the star’s poles, as seen routinely in planetary nebulae as well as other eruptive stars like Eta Carina. The data also suggests the initial explosion was shaped by the circumstellar material surrounding the star. Such material tends to concentrate at a star’s ecliptic, like our solar system, With less material at the poles, the initial blast favored those directions.

Theorists will now use this data point to better refine the models that attempt to explain how supernovae explode.

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German rocket startup Isar Aerospace is getting ready for 2nd launch attempt in Norway

9:15 am

Isar's first launch attempt fails
Spectrum falling seconds after its launch
in March 2025

The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace has now delivered the stages of its Spectrum rocket to Norway’s Andoya spaceport, in preparation for its second launch attempt following the first launch failure in March.

On 13 November, an Isar Aerospace update on its social channels revealed that, just over seven months after its first flight ended in a fireball, the company had returned to its launch facilities at the Andøya Spaceport in Norway in preparation for the rocket’s second flight. While brief, the update stated that the main and upper stages for the flight had arrived at the company’s launch pad and that it was “gearing up for pre-flight testing.” The update did not include an expected launch date.

The company in September had completed its investigation into the March failure, determining the failure was an inability of the rocket to maintain its proper attitude control.

Road closure announcements in Norway suggest that this launch will occur prior to December 21, 2025, but this is decidedly unconfirmed. If the launch takes place then and is successful, Norway’s Andoya spaceport will have become the first European-based spaceport to launch an orbital rocket, beating out the two spaceports in the United Kingdom and the Esrange spaceport in Sweden.

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Space energy startup Star Catcher successfully tests power beaming using lasers

9:02 am

StarCatcher laser transmitting to solar panel
StarCatcher laser transmitting power during Florida tests.

Space energy startup Star Catcher last week successfully completed a demonstration in Florida of its power beaming technology, transmitting energy using lasers to off-the-shelf solar panels used by satellites and spacecraft.

Using an advanced suite of multi-wavelength lasers, the team delivered more than 1.1 kW of electrical power to commercial off-the-shelf solar panels at Space Florida’s Launch and Landing Facility. … During the demonstration, Star Catcher delivered one to ten Suns of optical energy to multiple commercial off-the-shelf single- and triple-junction solar panels commonly used in space, confirming compatibility with standard spacecraft hardware, and validating the company’s approach to “supercharge” satellites with significantly more power via highly concentrated beams of light. Among them was an Astro Digital triple-junction solar panel — the same hardware used on the company’s flight-proven satellite buses — demonstrating readiness to power customer missions in orbit.

Star Catcher also delivered power to several customer payloads representing key market segments such as space data centers, in-space manufacturing, and remote sensing. The systems operated on beamed power as customers conducted live experiments, demonstrating both hardware compatibility and strong interest in this emerging power infrastructure.

Among the demonstrations, Star Catcher wirelessly transmitted energy to Intuitive Machines’ Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) and recharged its onboard batteries.

The company plans to fly an orbital power-beaming demonstration satellite next year. If successful, it will try to raise the investment capital to launch power-beaming satellites in both Earth and lunar orbits by 2030, where they can more efficiently provide power. It already has signed six preliminary agreements with a variety of space-based companies such as Intuitive Machines. In the case of rovers like Intuitive Machines LTV, this technology will be an excellent way to charge batteries in the permanently shadowed craters on the Moon, where direct sunlight will not be available.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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Uzbekistan signs deal to possibly fly astronauts on Vast’s Haven-1 space station

8:28 am

Haven-1 with docked Dragon capsule
Haven-1 with docked Dragon capsule

According to a press release earlier this week from the Uzbekistan government, it has signed an agreement with the American space station startup Vast to possibly fly its astronauts on Vast’s Haven-1 space station, scheduled for launch early next year for a three year mission that will include four two-week manned occupancies.

The parties discussed prospects for long-term cooperation with Vast, including participation in joint scientific research, personnel exchange programs, and the involvement of Uzbek specialists in upcoming missions following the successful launch of the Haven-1 orbital station.

Discussions also covered the potential involvement of Uzbek scientists and engineers in research on artificial gravity, life support systems, and orbital architecture within the framework of the Haven-2 project, the proposed successor to the International Space Station.

Neither Vast nor Uzbekistan apparently made any firm commitments to fly astronauts to Haven-1, but the agreement clearly laid the groundwork for doing so, if not on Haven-1 then on Vast’s follow-up much larger station, Haven-2. At the moment Vast has not yet announced any of passengers or crew for the four Haven-1 manned missions, so there clearly is room for an astronaut from Uzbekistan, assuming it is able and willing to pay the freight.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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