Tag: government

At last some real pushback against the left’s slander culture

12:04 pm

For years I have been writing about the slander culture of the left, whereby they can say any lie about anyone who disagrees with them without any consequence. These lies are often pure slander and defamation, based on no facts. Often they grow to a point that anyone attacked in this manner becomes a persona non grata, ostracized by all society out of fear.

Here are some recent examples of this kind of slander:

This is what destroyed the Proud Boys organization. The left — and the propaganda press that works for it — labeled it as “racist”, “white supremacist”, and “neo-fascist” based on no evidence, so that soon it collapsed because ordinary people were afraid to associate with it. And in describing this slander campaign back in 2019, I correctly predicted even worse:

I fully expect the rhetoric against Trump supporters in the coming election to spread and get more vicious. This in turn will act to encourage more extreme actions, including violence comparable to what Antifa now does with impunity in Portland. Be prepared. When people abandon the truth for emotional labels inspired by hate, they are liable to do anything.

Meanwhile, this lying name-calling never seemed to carry any consequences. Big name Democratic Party politicians, celebrities, and leftist pundits could defame conservatives routinely in the same manner and get away with it. The only ones who would suffer would be the unjustly accused.

The events in the past two days in connection with former Tonight Show host Jimmy Kimmel however tells me that the murder of Charlie Kirk has truly changed things.
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Europe once again delays test flights of its Callisto 1st stage hopper

11:05 am

Callisto's basic design
Callisto’s basic design

First proposed in 2015 as Europe’s answer to SpaceX’s Falcon 9, the first test flights of the European Space Agency (ESA)’s Callisto grasshopper-type reusable test prototype, as shown on the right, has once again been delayed, now from 2026 to 2027.

On Friday, CNES published a call seeking a partner to provide mechanical operations and procedures support ahead of the Callisto flight-test campaign, including contributions to operations user manuals, drafting mechanical operation procedures, and conducting detailed studies of mechanical interfaces between the vehicle and the ground segment. In the preamble to the scope of work, the notice states that the campaign will be carried out from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana in 2027. It will include an integration phase followed by eight test flights and two demonstration flights, all to be completed over a period of eight months.

The project, in which Japan’s space agency JAXA is participating, had an initial budget of $100 million, and originally planned to do its first hops in 2020. Instead, ESA spent a dozen years making powerpoint presentations, while SpaceX flew hundreds of operational flights with its Falcon 9, for profit.

Worse, this program is not attached to any rocket. It is a dead end. ESA and JAXA might get some useful engineering data from it, but it will belong to no one, and it is unclear anyone will care. At this moment it appears several private companies in Europe will have flown their own new rockets before Callisto even gets off the ground, and the data from those real rocket launches will be much more useful to them down the road.

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China launches “test satellite for satellite internet technology”

9:25 am

China today successfully launched a satellite for testing “satellite internet technology”, its Long March 2C rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

Its state-run press provided no other information about the satellite. Nor did it provide any information about where the rocket’s lower stages — which use toxic hypergolic fuels — crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

118 SpaceX
54 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 118 to 93.

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Spanish rocket startup PLD completes test of prototype first stage

9:07 am

The Spanish rocket startup PLD has successfully conducted a short “burst test” of a full scale prototype of the first stage of its proposed Miura-5 rocket as it prepares for a first launch.

The test subjected the stage to pressures beyond its intended operating limits to determine the point of structural failure. According to the PLD Space update, the test validated the structural performance of the tank under cryogenic temperatures and extreme pressure conditions. The company will now proceed with a fully integrated qualification model of the stage that includes all the elements required for flight.

The company had hoped to launch the rocket for the first time from its French Guiana launchpad before the end of this year, but that schedule has slipped to 2026. At the same time, it clearly is making real progress, having also tested the engines of the rocket’s second stage in August.

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Court throws out environmental lawsuit against SpaceX, FAA, and Starship/Superheavy

8:45 am

The federal district court judge for the District of Columbia yesterday dismissed entirely the environmental lawsuit that had been filed against SpaceX and the FAA by anti-Musk activists following the first orbital test launch of Starship/Superheavy.

More details here. The lawsuit itself [pdf] was filed in 2023, claiming that the FAA’s environmental assessment of SpaceX’s activities at Boca Chica would do no harm to the environment were wrong.

SpaceX activities authorized in the FONSI/ROD [the environmental reassessment issued last year] have and will adversely affect the surrounding wildlife habitat and communities. In addition to harm from construction activities and increased vehicle traffic, rocket launches result in intense heat, noise, and light pollution. Furthermore, the rocket launches and testing result in explosions which spread debris across surrounding habitat and cause brush/forest fires — including one that recently burned 68 acres of adjacent National Wildlife Refuge. The FAA calls these explosions “anomalies,” but in fact they occur frequently, with at least 8 over the past 5 years. FAA acknowledged that many more such “anomalies” are expected over the next 5 years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has found that prior SpaceX rocket explosions harmed protected wildlife and designated habitat in violation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

At the time I noted this:

In other words, rockets and launch sites should never be placed inside wildlife refuges, because such activity is detrimental to wildlife.

A more false statement cannot be made. Under this conclusion the launch facilities at Cape Canaveral, which have been operating in the middle of a wildlife refuge now for more than six decades, should be shut down immediately. All the wildlife there must certainly be dead!

We have almost three-quarters of a century of empirical data in both Florida and California that spaceports are clearly beneficial to wildlife, because they actually create the refuge by reserving large areas where development cannot occur. This court decision merely confirms reality, something it appears increasingly the left doesn’t have much grasp of.

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Russia further centralizes and consolidates its shrinking space sector

9:43 am

Roscosmos: a paper tiger
Roscosmos: a paper tiger

Russia’s state-run TASS press agency today announced that the operations of much of its space sector has now been moved to a newly completed centralized facility on the west side of Moscow.

Over 30 enterprises of Russia’s rocket and space industry, based in Moscow, will move their production sites to the newly created National Space Center, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Bakanov said. “We now have a single platform, where 35 enterprises will be concentrated in one area,” Bakanov said in the National Space Center, visited by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday.

The National Space Center opened in Moscow on Saturday. A complex of building with the total area of 276,000 square meters, is located in the West of Moscow. It’s a joint project of the Moscow Government and Roscosmos.

Sounds neat, eh? In fact, this illustrates how Russia’s space sector is declining. First, Putin in the 2000s centralized the entire industry into a single corporation, Roscosmos, run by the government. That Soviet-style top-down structure eliminated competition and acted to block new companies from forming.

Second, when Russia invaded the Ukraine in 2022 Roscosmos lost billions in revenue when its international customer base cancelled all their contracts and boycotted the country.

Consolidating all these “companies”, which are simply divisions of Roscosmos, into this one facility might save money, but it prevents independent action and competition. It also indicates Russia’s lack of cash.

Most importantly, this move presages the eventually shutdown of many of Russia’s space operations when ISS is retired. Russia has said it is building a new station, but its ability to launch anything new has been abysmal in the 21st century. Routinely it announces new projects which never fly. There is no reason to expect its proposed space station to be anything different.

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Progress docks safely with Zvezda module at ISS

9:24 am

ISS as of today
ISS as of today. Click for original.

In what is increasingly a worrisome procedure, Russia’s just launched Progress freighter successfully docked with the aft port of the Zvezda module at ISS this past weekend, bringing with it more than 5,000 pounds of supplies and research equipment.

The image to the right, annotated additionally by me, shows the present configuration of spacecraft at ISS. The concerns center on the stress fractures that have been found in the Zvezda hull, fractures that have caused the air leak on ISS and are believed attributable to the many dockings to the module since its launch in the late ’90s, as well as the module’s age. It was first built in the late ’80s, making it almost four decades old.

For recent dockings, NASA now closes the hatch between the Russian and American halves of the stations, just in case Zvezda experiences a catastrophic failure. The Russians seem less concerned, but nonetheless they also take extra care during dockings. It is my understanding their astronauts prepare their Soyuz capsule as a lifeboat and immediately escape during these operations.

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Space station startup Vast endorses NASA’s new strategy that no longer requires a continuous human presence in space

8:02 am

The American space stations under construction
The American space stations under development

Officials from the space station startup Vast revealed at a conference last week that they endorse NASA’s new strategy that, not only no longer requires the commercial stations to immediately establish a continuous human presence in space, will also award multiple development contracts to the commercial stations.

Speaking Sept. 11 at the Global Aerospace Summit, Max Haot [chief executive of Vast] endorsed NASA’s new strategy, announced more than a month ago, that calls for multiple Space Act Agreements to support development leading to a four-person, 30-day demonstration mission. “We think it’s really the right direction,” he said, noting it accelerates the award timeline. NASA said in a draft solicitation this month it expects to award multiple funded agreements by April 2026, months sooner than under earlier plans.

The original plan had been to choose at most two, but likely only one of the four consortiums/companies that are developing station proposals. The winner would have gotten a big contract that would have also required it to push hard for continuous full time occupation, from day one.

The new plan will instead award smaller development contracts to as many as three of the four station projects, aimed at getting them off the ground and operating, even if astronauts only fly in them intermittently. Eventually the hope is that their capabilities will expand quickly to permanent occupation, especially if they start earning revenue from the private sector, outside NASA. In fact, the smaller government contracts will force them to seek investment and profits elsewhere.

The four commercial stations under development, ranked by me based on their present level of progress:
» Read more

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House committee support for threatened NASA missions is actually quite questionable

9:26 am

According to a House appropriations committee spending bill that it approved this week, it appears on the surface that it is canceling the proposed 24% cut by Trump to NASA’s budget as well as endorsing continued funding for some threatened missions. A close look however suggests this congressional support for NASA is somewhat superficial, and might actually be ephemeral.

The key is the language of the bill. From the link above:

The bill was largely unchanged from what the CJS [commerce, justice and science] subcommittee approved July 14. It includes $24.838 billion for NASA, nearly the same as the $24.875 billion the agency received in fiscal 2024 and 2025, and far above the $18.8 billion the administration proposed for fiscal 2026 in May.

Members adopted a manager’s amendment, a package of noncontroversial changes and corrections, on a voice vote. That amendment also made additions to the report accompanying the bill. The report includes language expressing support for several NASA missions targeted for cancellation, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Juno mission at Jupiter and the New Horizons mission in the Kuiper Belt.

The report does not specify funding levels for those missions, but the “continues support” language signals to NASA that it should fund continue operations within the agency’s science budget. [emphasis mine]

It is the vagueness of this language that suggests the support is ephemeral. The courts recently have consistently ruled that if Congress doesn’t specifically mandate spending on a project, the White House is free to move money around as it sees fit. By not expressly outlining funding for Chandra, Juno, and New Horizons, these congressmen are playing a shell game, whereby to their constituents they can point to this vote and claim they wholeheartedly supported NASA and these missions. At the same time, they also appear to be allowing Trump the freedom to go ahead and shut the missions down, as his budget has already proposed.

None of this is yet real. The bill still must be passed by the full House, as well as the Senate. It then has to be signed by Trump. A lot of changes would happen in that process.

Either way, it appears that within the House at least, there is some movement to at least make some budget cuts possible. The sad thing is that the House is not actually cutting the budget, even as it is allowing Trump a way to cut these relatively inexpensive on-going missions. Considering the debt, it would have been much better had the committee actually trimmed NASA’s budget, even a little, while at the same time allocating specific funds to keep these very cost-effective missions alive.

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Italian rocket company Avio commits $469 million to expand operations

8:59 am

The Italian rocket company Avio, which owns the Vega-C rocket, today announced that is has approved a $469 million fund to expand its manufacturing capabilities, including building a production facility in the United States.

Announced on 12 September, the capital raise is part of a new ten-year business plan targeting an average annual growth rate of about 10% in turnover and more than 15% in core profit (EBITDA). This growth will be driven by a higher Vega C launch cadence, the introduction of Vega E, continued participation in the Ariane 6 programme, and the construction of a new defence production facility in the United States, which is expected to be completed by 2028.

The management of Vega-C had previously been controlled by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) commercial arm, Arianespace, which had owned and operated all of Europe’s rockets. ESA however is eliminating that commercial arm, shifting from the government-run model to the capitalism model, whereby it simply acts as a customer buying services from the private sector.

As part of that shift, Avio is in the process of taking back its Vega-C from Arianespace. Beginning next year it will be marketing the rocket directly to customers. This major investment reflects this change. The company is now free to pursue profits wherever it can find them, and it appears it wishes to market itself aggressively to American satellite companies as well as its defense industry.

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NASA bans Chinese citizens from its facilities or operations

9:09 am

Earlier this week NASA moved to block Chinese citizens with visas from having access to its facilities as well as its entire operations, citing security concerns.

“NASA has taken internal action pertaining to Chinese nationals, including restricting physical and cybersecurity access to our facilities, materials and network to ensure the security of our work,” NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens said on Wednesday. According to Bloomberg, Chinese nationals had previously been allowed to work as contractors or students contributing to research, although not as staff.

But on 5 September several individuals told the outlet they were suddenly locked out of IT systems and barred from in-person meetings. They spoke on condition of anonymity.

Though both the Chinese press and the leftist news outlet above (The Guardian) whine about this move, it makes great sense, and should have been done years ago. Though I am sure most of these Chinese citizens are not spies, China’s policy has been to consistently use such citizens for spying, and letting such people into NASA operations makes no sense.

Moreover, shouldn’t NASA be hiring Americans first and foremost?

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Democrats today showed us their murderous colors

3:52 pm

The left's response to murder is to celebrate it
The left’s response to this murder
is to celebrate it

I had an essay planned for completion this afternoon on how to reform our education system, but that can wait until tomorrow. What matters today is the public assassination of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, a college-focused pro-American conservative organization that has done more in the past ten years to reshape American culture than any pundit or politician anywhere.

Why was Kirk murdered? The murderer is still at large but we can make a reasonable guess. Kirk, only 31, was an outspoken conservative who unequivocally believed in the fundamentals of American society, including freedom, small government, color-blind rules, and the right of every person to pursue happiness. This is not propaganda on my part. I have listened to many of Kirk’s speeches and appearances, and at no time did he do anything to contradict these conclusions. If anything, he made these beliefs crystal clear to anyone who would listen.

Because of those beliefs, he had become a major opponent of the Democratic Party and its now radical Marxist/leftist/queer agenda, which also now hates America and everything it has stood for since its founding almost 250 year ago.

As such, the left — including numerous mainstream elected Democrats and their minions in the propaganda press — have repeatedly slandered him — without any evidence — as a fascist, racist, Nazi, hate-monger, and bigot. Those ugly words — utter lies — made him a target for the crazies on the left, and now one of those crazies has snuffed out his life prematurely.

The left and its propaganda press will work hard to make excuses for this evil act, but as they do so they will simply prove my point above. Already anchors on MSNBC are slandering him again, calling him “divisive” and “awful” who said things that upset people and thus we shouldn’t be surprised he was killed. “It was HIS fault!” On social media leftists are celebrating this evil act, showing us how utterly evil they are.

Charlie Kirk
Charlie Kirk

Kirk’s work will go on. In fact, expect it to expand considerably on campuses nationwide. The American people will no longer tolerate this evil. They are going to shut it down, aggressively, and with joyous fervor. And the left will once again scream “Facists!”, but the only fascists Americans will see are the murderous hate-mongering people on the left.

As for Kirk and his family, today’s events are horrible beyond words. We can only express the deepest sympathy to his wife Erika, who is now left a widow with two small children. She and those kids have been robbed of a husband and father, for no more reason that the words that Charlie Kirk spoke.

America stands for better. Kirk knew this, and spent every day of his short life trying to bring our country back to its original values of freedom and good will. It is our obligation to honor that man and those values and do whatever we can to make his dream a reality.

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Rather than streamline red tape, a UK government committee proposes it should fund its space industry directly

9:28 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea

In a move that will do nothing to solve the red tape that has stymied the spaceports in Scotland as well as the launch industry in the United Kingdom, a Scottish government committee has concluded that the solution is for the UK government to become a direct investor in its space industry, increasing funding to both its spaceports and any launch companies that wish to use them.

The Scottish Affairs Committee heard from a number of experts and figures involved in the space industry. Professor Malcolm Macdonald, of Strathclyde University, said the UK had not always sustained its “first-mover” advantage in the space launch sector.

The report’s conclusion stated: “It is clear that the UK is falling behind its European counterparts in terms of public investment, leaving Scottish spaceports at a competitive disadvantage in a fast-moving global market. Without sustained backing from the Government – particularly in infrastructure – Scotland risks missing a generational opportunity to lead in space launch. To fully realise this potential, the UK Government needs to go further and faster.”

The MPs called for sustained Government investment in infrastructure.

The report also noted that despite a half-decade head start in establishing its spaceports in Scotland, the Andoya spaceport in Norway is now winning the race to become Europe’s prime spaceport.

Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. The reason the UK’s spaceports have fallen behind is because its regulatory framework is impossible to navigate, taking years to get any approvals. But rather than fix this, this committee proposes throwing taxpayer money at the problem.

My prediction: It won’t work. Outside rocket companies will continue to move away from the UK, while any that get government investment to stay will find it difficult to get business, because it will still be impossible to get launch licenses when needed.

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India’s government finalizes deal to transfer operation of its SSLV rocket to a private company

9:13 am

India’s government and its various space agencies yesterday finalized its deal with the Indian company Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to take over the manufacture and operation of its government-designed SSLV rocket (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle) for the next decade.

Under the technology transfer contract that HAL signed with ISRO, Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) and NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the aviation major will absorb the technology in the first two years, which will be followed by a 10-year production phase. The agreement grants HAL a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to the SSLV technology, which includes comprehensive design, manufacturing, quality control, integration, launch operations, and post-flight analysis documentation, as well as training and support. HAL will be responsible for the mass production of SSLV to meet Indian and global demands,” the company says in a statement.

Initially the Modi government had implied the transfer would involve ownership of the rocket by the private company, so that it could market the rocket for profit. The actual deal does not do this. Instead, it gives HAL the responsibility to manufacture and operate the rocket, but it appears sales and ownership will still be under the control of India’s space agency ISRO. If this is correct, the deal accomplishes less than nothing, and in fact simply adds another player in the game, making the SSLV rocket less competitive in the international market.

Then again, the Modi government might see this deal as just a first step in the transition from a government-run space program to a competitive independent space industry. It needs to wrest control from ISRO, and this can’t be done politically in one fell swoop.

To me however this deal for HAL is a bad one. It now has the responsibility for making and launching the rocket, but none of the benefits.

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South Korea military begins project to develop a methane-fueled rocket engine

8:01 am

The South Korean defense department has awarded a consortium of Korean aerospace companies a contract to develop a methane-fueled engine that can be used in reusable rockets.

According to the space industry, a consortium led by Hyundai Rotem and Korean Air was selected on the 9th as the preferred negotiator for a 35-ton methane engine technology development project overseen by the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) under the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA). A formal agreement will be signed in November, initiating full-scale research and development (R&D). The project, budgeted at approximately 49.1 billion Korean won [$35 million], will run until 2030.

It appears there has been a turf war between the military and South Korea’s newly formed space agency, KASA. Originally KASA had planned to develop this engine, but apparently the military’s proposal won out. KASA now says it will collaborate with the ADD, but the project’s budget now goes to the military.

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New study of 300,000 people in Italy proves COVID jab caused gigantic increase in cancer cases

1:23 pm

Figure 1 from the study
Figure 1 from the study. Click for original. Anything
to the right of the vertical line indicates an increase
cancer diagnoses.

As noted bluntly by Health & Human Services secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr. at a Senate hearing last week, “We were lied to about everything:” A new study of the entire population 11 years and older of a single province in Italy, 300,000 people in total, has now proven that the mRNA COVID jab results in a terrifying and skyrocketing increase in the numbers of cancer cases.

The researchers found that “vaccinated” individuals had far higher hospitalization rates for new cancer diagnoses than the unvaccinated, particularly for breast, bladder, and colorectal cancers. Hospitalizations for cancer were 35% higher in the vaccinated (HR 1.23). The risk spike was strongest among men and those with no prior COVID infection.

  • Overall Cancer Risk: +23% after just one dose
  • Breast Cancer: +54% increased risk
  • Bladder Cancer: +62% increased risk
  • Colorectal Cancer: +35% increased risk

The researchers warn that the danger persisted and continued increasing after multiple doses.

In other words, the entire world is now facing a possibly major increase in cancer cases and a significant lowering of life expectancy, because it panicked in 2020 over a respiratory virus comparable to the flu. Those few voices (such as mine) that tried to resist that panic and call for a reasoned response were routinely blacklisted and silenced, and the result is now an impending disaster, on top of the catastrophes we have already suffered due to lockdowns, social distancing, and mask and jab mandates.

Kennedy summed up this situation quite well at that Senate hearing on September, 4, 2025. He was attacked ruthlessly over and over again by Democratic Party senators, only to hit them back twice as hard, noting how they are all in the pay of the pharmaceutical companies that make the jab, bribes totaling millions. He started however with this stark condemnation:
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NASA inspector general: Dragonfly mission is vastly overbudget and behind schedule

9:24 am

Artist rendering of Dragonfly soaring over Titan's surface
Artist rendering of Dragonfly soaring
over Titan’s surface

According to a new NASA inspector general report issued today, NASA’s Dragonfly mission to Titan is now billions overbudget and is likely not be ready to launch in 2028.

You can download the report here [pdf]. From its executive summary:

Dragonfly was selected under a New Frontiers Announcement of Opportunity with a $850 million cost cap on Principal Investigator-Managed Mission Costs, which primarily includes development costs but excludes launch vehicle and post-launch operations costs. However, by April 2024, those costs had grown to $2.6 billion and the launch delayed by more than 2 years, from April 2026 to July 2028. The cost increase and schedule delay were largely the result of NASA directing APL to conduct four replans between June 2019 and July 2023 early in Dragonfly’s development. Justifications for these replans included the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain issues, changes to accommodate a heavy-lift launch vehicle, projected funding challenges, and inflation.

The report now estimates the budget will eventually rise above $3 billion, cost that is eating away at NASA’s entire planetary budget, making other missions impossible. The project itself is far from ready, with multiple unfinished issues that make its present launch target of 2028 very unlikely.
» Read more

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China launches 11 more satellites for its Geely satellite constellation

8:09 pm

Earlier today China successfully launched 11 more satellites for its Geely satellite constellation, its Smart Dragon-3 rocket lifting off from a launch platform off the eastern coast of China.

Video of the launch can be found here (Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay). This was the fifth launch for this constellation, bringing the number of satellites in orbit for this planned 240 satellite constellation to 52. The constellation is designed to provide positioning and communications for trucking and other ground-based businesses.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

114 SpaceX
52 China
12 Rocket Lab
11 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 114 to 89.

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Two more launches today

3:35 pm

As expected, SpaceX and China completed launches today.

First SpaceX launched another 24 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its 20th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacitic.

Next, China placed an unspecified “group” of “remote sensing” satellites into orbit, its Long March 6A rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China. No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

114 SpaceX
51 China
12 Rocket Lab
11 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 114 to 88.

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China yesterday completed two launches

9:03 am

China yesterday successfully completed two launches using different rockets from two different spaceports in the country’s interior.

First, its Long March 3C rocket launched a classified technology test satellite, the rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China. No real information about the satellite was released, though its name, Shiyan, is part of a series of satellites that tests new designs for communications and remote sensing.

Next, the pseudo-company Galactic Energy placed three satellites into orbit, its solid-fueled Ceres-1 rocket lifting off from the Jiuquan spaeport in northwest China. Once again, little information was released about the satellites’ purpose.

With each launch, China’s state-run press also provided no information about where the lowers stages of both rockets landed inside China. This is especially of concern for the Long March 3C, which uses very toxic hypergolic fuels that can dissolve the skin.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

113 SpaceX
50 China
12 Rocket Lab
11 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 113 to 87.

These numbers should change again by the end of today, with both SpaceX and China planning an additional launch each.

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The beginnings of the first political coup in American history

3:54 pm

Obama, the boss behind the scandal, just before his election in 2012
Obama pontificating just before his election in 2012.
The change he brought was to toss the Constitution
in the trash heap.

Doug Ross has created a very readable six-part series, with illustrations, outlining in great detail and in dramatic form the corruption of the FBI and the entire intelligence community in the latter years of the Obama administration, beginning first with an extensive cover-up of Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private server for sending classified emails, followed by the initial stages of the Russian collusion hoax against Trump that was also used to justify spying on his campaign.

The series admits to be being a dramatization, but is also is based entirely on actual facts that are now documented and known. Nothing of substance or importance here has been made up. And by giving the story a slight patina of drama it becomes much more readable and understandable.

Take a short bit of time and read it all. The actions of numerous dishonest and power-hungry individuals in the FBI, the Justice Department, the Obama White House, and other agencies, will leave you appalled. And heading the list is Barack Obama, taking actions that were unquestionable illegal, immoral, and above all treasonous. He conspired with federal workers to not only cover up crimes, but to attempt to overthrow the elected president of the United States.

The key quote that describes quite succinctly the unconstitutional nature of this scandal comes from part 4, by Rick Ledgett, then deputy director of the National Security Agency.

“This is evidence of systematic violation of Americans’ constitutional rights.”

All six parts can be found at the links below. The series presently ends in May 2016, but Ross fully intends to continue it through the 2016 election and beyond, covering the entire Russian collusion hoax created by the intelligence community, under orders of Barack Obama, that worked to undermine and overthrown Donald Trump’s election as president.

Every American should read it all. It gives a good picture of the initial process that allowed utter evil to take over the entire Democratic Party.

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Sunspot update: In August sunspot activity continued to rise

2:28 pm

Time for this month’s sunspot update. To do this each month I begin by taking NOAA’s own monthly update of its graph of sunspot activity and annotating it with extra information to illustrate the larger scientific context.

This annotated graph showing the August activity is below, and for the third month in a row sunspot activity increased (as indicated by the green dot), so that the August number of sunspots now closely matched the April 2025 prediction by NOAA’s panel of solar scientists that the Sun was finally beginning its ramp down from solar maximum.
» Read more

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SpaceX gets FAA approval to double its annual launches from Cape Canaveral

9:02 am

After several years of paperwork, the FAA yesterday approved SpaceX’s request to double its launch rate at the Space Force’s Cape Canaveral spaceport.

In addition to the annual launch increase from 50 launches to up to 120, the Federal Aviation Administration’s environmental review also approved a new on-site landing zone that could accommodate up to 34 booster landings per year. These boosters are the reusable first-stage portions of Falcon 9 rockets that SpaceX lands and refurbishes for future flights.

The review, finalized on Wednesday, found what’s known as a “Mitigated Finding of No Significant Impact,” meaning the proposed changes “would not significantly impact the quality of the human environment” under federal law, with impacts reduced by specific protective measures. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words illustrate the absurdity of these environmental reviews. We know without doubt and without any major review that rocket launches do no harm to the environment or wildlife. We have seven decades of data in Florida proving it.

According to the article both the FAA and the Space Force still need to issue further approvals before this request can go forward. Expect the Space Force to agree, without much bother. The FAA needs to amend SpaceX’s launch licenses, and this should also happen relatively quick, especially with Trump as president.

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Cargo Dragon completes test burn to raise ISS’s orbit

8:51 am

The cargo Dragon that docked with ISS in late August successfully completed yesterday an engine burn lasting more than five minutes to see if it could raise ISS’s orbit.

On Wednesday, Sept. 3, SpaceX’s Dragon completed an initial burn to test the spacecraft’s new capability to help maintain the altitude of the International Space Station. Two Draco engines located in the trunk of Dragon, which contains an independent propellant system, were used to adjust the space station’s orbit through a maneuver lasting five minutes, three seconds. The initial test burn increased the station’s altitude by around one mile at perigee, or low point of station’s orbit, leaving the station in an orbit of 260.9 x 256.3 miles. The new boost kit in Dragon will help sustain the orbiting lab’s altitude through a series of longer burns planned periodically throughout the fall of 2025.

The Dragon will remain docked with ISS until December. It is expected it will do additional test burns during that time.

NASA wishes to get this capability from its own spacecraft so as to no longer have to rely entirely on the Russians, who have traditionally done these orbital adjustments using its Progress cargo freighters. SpaceX likely also wants to do these tests as an adjunct to its contract to build the de-orbit vehicle that will bring ISS down, after it is retired.

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Juno detects the aurora of the moon Callisto in Jupiter’s atmosphere

10:19 am

Though previous observations had detected auroras on Jupiter produced by three of its four Galilean moons — Io, Europa, and Ganymede — scientists had until now been unable to detect a similar aurora produced by the fourth, Callisto.

The Jupiter orbiter Juno finally accomplished this observation for the first time.

[T]o image Callisto’s footprint, the main auroral oval needs to move aside while the polar region is being imaged. And to bring to bear Juno’s arsenal of instruments studying fields and particles, the spacecraft’s trajectory must carry it across the magnetic field line linking Callisto and Jupiter.

These two events serendipitously occurred during Juno’s 22nd orbit of the giant planet, in September 2019, revealing Callisto’s auroral footprint and providing a sample of the particle population, electromagnetic waves, and magnetic fields associated with the interaction.

The research paper describing this detection has just been published.

These secondary auroras are caused by Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field.

The Juno mission itself is about to end. NASA did not approve a mission extension, and next month the science team will send the spacecraft into Jupiter’s atmosphere, where it will burn up. We will then have to wait five years for Europa Clipper to arrive in Jupiter orbit, followed a year later by Europe’s Juice orbiter.

While the propaganda press is condemning this decision, there is some logic to it. Juno has mostly completed its work. While new knowledge can certainly be gained if it remained operations for three more years, the amount of knowledge will be relatively small. And NASA does face a budget crunch. Better to spend its money on other things that can produce more bang to the buck.

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France startup wins contract to build Starlink competitor

9:58 am

France’s space agency CNES has awarded a €31 million contract to France startup Univity to build a demo satellite to demonstrate internet and phone-to-satellite capabilities, as part a longer term plan to build a constellation that can compete with both SpaceX’s Starlink and AST SpaceMobile constellation, both already launched and in operation.

Founded in 2022 under the name Constellation Technologies & Operations, UNIVITY aims to develop a very low Earth orbit constellation to provide global high-speed, low-latency internet services. A prototype of the company’s regenerative 5G mmWave payload was part of a 23 June SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare mission, hosted aboard the D-Orbit SpaceBound ION mission. The company expects to launch a pair of prototype satellites in 2027, followed by the deployment of its full constellation between 2028 and 2030.

This deal likely puts the final nail in the coffin of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) own government IRIS satellite constellation, which has been delayed, is expected to be very expensive and take a long time to get launched, and has already faced disinterest from many partners in ESA. That France is now going it alone likely ends any chance that IRIS will be funded.

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Two more launches in past 24 hours, by Israel and SpaceX

9:04 am

Both Israel and SpaceX completed new launches during the evening hours yesterday. First, Israel placed an Ofek radar surveillance satellite into orbit, its small solid-fueld Shavit-2 rocket lifting off from an undisclosed location within the country, likely its Palmachim Airbase on the Mediterranean coast south of Tel Aviv. The launch occurred about the same time as SpaceX’s Starlink launch from Vandenberg, already reported last night.

This was Israel’s first launch in 2025, and the first since 2023. Since 2008 the country has launched seven military surveillance satellites, one about every two to four years or so.

Several hours later, in the wee hours of the morning, SpaceX completed another launch, placing 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its fourteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

112 SpaceX
48 China
12 Rocket Lab
11 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 112 to 85.

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Trump once again moves Space Force HQ from Colorado to Alabama

12:55 pm

During his first term as president, Donald Trump attempted to move the headquarters of the Space Force Colorado to Alabama. That move, announced in January 2021, never happened, first because it came so late in his term and second because Biden had no interest in making it happen and eventually rescinded it in 2023.

Today Trump reinstated that decision, once again announcing that the Space Force headquarters will move to Huntsville, Alabama.

The politics for this change have been and will continue to be complicated. Alabama’s lower cost of living would save the government money, but the defense industry is also well clustered in Colorado due to the military’s space operations that have been there for many decades.

In general I have never quite understood Trump’s desire to do this. I suspect there are some quid pro quo agreements in the background with Alabama politicians: “If you bring the Space Force to Alabama, Mr. Trump, we will back you on your other plans.” Then again, Trump might simply want to punish the increasingly leftist haven of Colorado.

Either way, it is now likely to finally happen. Trump 47 has been moving fast on all his initiatives, and is aided in this by a staff that is largely supportive (unlike during Trump 45).

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An interesting look at why the British government decided to eliminate its space agency

8:55 am

Gone, and likely soon to be forgotten
Gone, and likely soon to be forgotten

Link here. The article depends almost entirely on anonymous sources, but unlike most propaganda news stories which typically use such sources to push one pro-government perspective, this article includes sources from a range of viewpoints.

According to those sources who wanted the UK Space Agency (UKSA) gone, the agency was eliminated last month because it simply had not been very effective in building up Great Britain’s space industry. First, it was too focused on doing what the European Space Agency wanted.

The U.K. has had a different approach to space than its European counterparts, such as Germany, France and Italy, the source explained. Historically, the U.K. has dedicated most of its resources to the European Space Agency (ESA) rather than pursuing a multipronged approach involving a strong domestic space program and bilateral partnerships independent of ESA. Therefore, over 80% of UKSA’s budget has been placed into ESA. The perception in the government was that UKSA was acting more in line with ESA’s wishes than with the U.K. government’s needs, the source added.

Second, it not only did nothing to alleviate the red tape hampering the industry, its existence added a layer that made things worse. Numerous studies and hearings before Parliament in the past five years have bewailed the situation. The inability of the rocket companies to get launch licenses — for years — proved their correctness.

Meanwhile, the anonymous sources opposing the agency’s elimination argued that without it Great Britain will be in a weaker position negotiating with its ESA partners as well as projecting itself internationally in the space field.
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