Tag: NASA

Voyager-2’s only close-up image of Uranus’s moon Umbriel

12:38 pm

Uranus' five biggest moonsThe historically known moons of Uranus. Click for original NASA press release.

Umbriel as seen by Voyager-2
Click for source.

Today’s cool image continues our tour of the five largest moons of Uranus, as seen by Voyager-2 in 1986 during its close-up visit. The family portrait above, taken from more than three million miles away during Voyager-2’s approach, shows the relative sizes of those five moons as well as their location relative to Uranus, with Miranda in the closest orbit and Oberon the farthest. I have already posted close-ups from Miranda and Ariel. Today’s image moves us outward to Umbriel.

The image to the right is Voyager-2’s best picture. In fact, it is really Voyager-2’s only close-up image, and as you can see, it is not that close or sharp. I have not reduced it at all. This is how NASA released it. From the NASA press release:

The southern hemisphere of Umbriel displays heavy cratering in this Voyager 2 image, taken Jan. 24, 1986, from a distance of 346,000 miles. This frame, taken through the clear-filter of Voyager’s narrow-angle camera, is the most detailed image of Umbriel, with a resolution of about 6 miles.

Umbriel is the darkest of Uranus’ larger moons and the one that appears to have experienced the lowest level of geological activity. It has a diameter of about 750 miles and reflects only 16 percent of the light striking its surface; in the latter respect, Umbriel is similar to lunar highland areas. Umbriel is heavily cratered but lacks the numerous bright-ray craters seen on the other large Uranian satellites; this results in a relatively uniform surface albedo (reflectivity). The prominent crater on the terminator (upper right) is about 70 miles across and has a bright central peak.

The strangest feature in this image (at top) is a curious bright ring, the most reflective area seen on Umbriel. The ring is about 90 miles in diameter and lies near the satellite’s equator. The nature of the ring is not known, although it might be a frost deposit, perhaps associated with an impact crater. Spots against the black background are due to ‘noise’ in the data.

This lone picture of Umbriel by Voyager-2 illustrates even more starkly the very sparse data we have of Uranus and its moons. Voyager-2 is the only spacecraft to ever visit this planet, and it only did a quick fly-by, just long enough to give us this one dim snapshot view. It is forty years later, and no other missions have flown there, nor is any planned in the near future. There are proposals, but none are yet approved.

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The first Artemis lunar landings might not go to the Moon’s south pole

10:09 am

It appears from remarks recently by one NASA official, that while the south pole remains the agency’s main lunar base target, it is now looking into other landing options in order to make those first manned landing less risky and easier and quicker to achieve.

Amit Kshatriya, NASA Associate Administrator was very vague in his statement, but nonetheless this was what it appears he was saying:

We have opened up the, I would say, the performance specification for the early landing missions in as many ways as we can, in terms of different lunar orbits we want to take, or different other constraints … to make it as agile as possible, to recognize performance limitations in some of the machines we have and let our providers tell us, hey, if you took these constraints out of the way, how could we go faster? So we’re going to do that.

The agency’s administrator, Jared Isaacman, is also pushing to quickly begin sending a lot of unmanned landers to the south pole by next year. Thus, under this plan, we might actually find out first whether there really is water in those permanently shadowed craters, before committing our manned lunar base to this location.

This new approach makes a great deal of sense, especially since the data that has looked into those craters has been very inconclusive, some positive and some negative.

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A day-by-day description of the entire Artemis-2 manned mission

10:04 am

NASA today posted a detailed day-by-day description of the entire ten-day Artemis-2 manned mission around the Moon, outlining the tasks planned for the astronauts on each day.

The launch is now targeting April 1, 2026.

The description of their closest approach to the Moon is both interesting and underwhelming.

The Artemis II crew will come their closest to the Moon on flight day 6, while traveling the farthest from Earth. Artemis II could set a record for the farthest anyone has traveled from Earth depending on launch day, breaking the current record – 248,655 miles away – set in 1970 by the Apollo 13 crew. The distance the Artemis II crew will travel depends on their exact launch day and time.

Over the course of the day, the crew will come within 4,000 to 6,000 miles of the lunar surface as they swing around the far side of the Moon – it should look to them about the size of a basketball held at arm’s length. [emphasis mine]

In other words, Orion is not going to get very close, and in fact, the Moon will only be 2 to 3 times bigger than what we see here on Earth. I suspect the best photographs taken will be those showing both the Earth and Moon, both of which will be relatively small.

Overall, I remain highly concerned about this mission. The life support system has never been tested in space before, and they will spend the first day checking it out in Earth orbit. And the return to Earth will involve using a heat shield that did not perform well on the Artemis-1 mission in 2022, losing chunks during re-entry.

They hope a less stressful flight path will mitigate this issue, but then, they need to hit that flight path perfectly on their way back from the Moon. During yesterday’s briefing it was obvious this was a concern to NASA officials.

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Cubesat ultraviolet space telescope achieves first light

5:05 pm

Sparcs first light images
Click for original images.

A new low-cost cubesat-sized NASA ultraviolet space telescope, dubbed Sparcs, has achieved first light, successfully taking both near- and far-ultraviolet false-color images of a nearby star.

Those images are to the right, with the top the far-ultraviolet image and the bottom in the near ultraviolet. From the press release:

Roughly the size of a large cereal box, SPARCS will monitor flares and sunspot activity on low-mass stars — objects only 30% to 70% the mass of the Sun. These stars are among the most common in the Milky Way and host the majority of the galaxy’s roughly 50 billion habitable-zone terrestrial planets, which are rocky worlds close enough to their stars for temperatures that could allow liquid water and potentially support life.

The question astronomers will try to answer with this telescope is whether the solar activity on these stars is high enough to prevent life from forming in the star’s habitable zone. Because these stars are dim and small, the habitable zone is quite close to the star, which means solar activity has a higher impact on the planet. We don’t yet have sufficient data to determine the normal activity of such stars. Sparcs will provide a good first survey.

It will also demonstrate the viability of such small low-cost cubesats for this kind of research. If successful expect more such telescopes, some of which are likely to be private, like Blue Skies Space’s Mauve optical telescope already in orbit.

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NASA now targeting an April 1st launch of Artemis-2

3:54 pm

At a press briefing today, NASA officials said they are now targeting an April 1, 2026 launch date for the Artemis-2 mission, a ten-day manned mission sending four astronauts around the Moon.

NASA completed the agency’s Artemis II Flight Readiness Review on Thursday, March 12, and polled “go” to proceed toward launch. NASA is targeting Thursday, March 19, to roll the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft to launch pad 39B in advance of a launch attempt Wednesday, April 1, pending close out of remaining open work.

The repair work involved replacing a helium seal that was preventing flow to and from the tanks and testing it to confirm the new seal worked. It also involved replacing batteries as well as some oxygen seals.

NASA officials also stated that they do not plan to do another wet dress rehearsal, that they are satisfied by the testing they did in the assembly building. Instead, they are go for full launch countdown, with the hope they can lift-off with no more fueling issues. They have also determined that if there is a scrub, they will also have several launch opportunities through April 6th.

To underline the risks of this mission, the Orion capsule in which they are sending four astronauts around the Moon has an uncertain heat shield and an untested life support system. To mitigate the shield uncertainties, they must hit a specific flight path through the atmosphere upon return.

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NASA’s Van Allen Probe A burns up over the Pacific

8:49 am

We didn’t all die! Van Allen Probe A, one of two NASA spacecraft launched in 2012 to study the Van Allen radiation belts that circle the Earth, yesterday burned up harmlessly over the Pacific ocean as expected.

Both Van Allen probes have been defunct since around 2019, when they ran out of fuel. Van Allen Probe B weighed about 1,300 pounds, so some pieces probably reached the ocean. Had it returned over land it did carry the small risk of doing harm.

The orbit of the other probe, Van Allen Probe B, is expected to decay sometime around 2030. Like its twin, it is heavy enough that some parts will survive re-entry. It is therefore a prime target for a demonstration mission proving the technology for removing space junk safely and under control. NASA should put out a request for bids to the many orbital tug companies that now exist to do exactly that, as it is NASA’s responsibility to make sure this spacecraft re-enters the atmosphere safely.

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Voyager to make “a multi-million-dollar strategic investment” in Max Space’s inflatable habitats

3:16 pm

Voyager-Max lunar habitat
Click for original image.

In an expansion of a partnership announced last month, Voyager Technologies — the lead company in the consortium building the Starlab space station — today announced it is now making “a multi-million-dollar strategic investment” in Max Space’s inflatable habitats, aiming at winning contracts both for NASA’s proposed Moon base as well as any other “future deep space missions.”

The actual dollar amount has not yet been released, but my sources say it is in “the low eight figures,” or more than $10 million but probably less than $25 million.

This partnership appears aimed not at NASA’s space station program nor enhancing Starlab. Instead, it is focused on providing NASA (and other commercial operations) inflatable habitats that can be launched and quickly established on the Moon and elsewhere, as shown by the artist’s rendering to the right. It appears Voyager will build the foundation, base, and airlock, while Max will provide the inflatable module above. From the press release:

This initiative directly supports NASA’s historical Artemis Program and aligns precisely with Administrator Isaacman’s announcement to be on the Moon to stay by 2028. Max Space delivers critical enabling infrastructure, maximizing livable volume, enhancing crew safety, and reducing the cost and complexity of surface deployment. It complements Voyager’s broader lunar roadmap, including cislunar mission management, surface logistics, propulsion, power systems, and future surface infrastructure, reinforcing a shared vision of the Moon as an operational domain, not a temporary destination.

In other words, the two companies are aiming to become major suppliers for NASA’s Artemis lunar base, and to do that by offering a way to get it quickly built and operational, at a reasonable cost.

I suspect it will be a few years before NASA issues any such contracts. It will first want to see both companies demonstrate success, both with Voyager’s Starlab and Max Space’s own demo station module scheduled for launch in ’27. Nonetheless, this announcement puts them on the map in the race to get those contracts, and begins to put some commercial reality to the American colonization of the solar system.

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The Senate cries “Uncle!” on SLS and big goverment with its latest NASA authorization bill

8:01 am

I usually pay relatively little attention to the NASA authorization bills that Congress passes periodically, because these bills are generally nothing more than opportunities for the loudmouths in Congress to use them as a bullhorn to puff themselves up to the public and press. Almost never do such bills really have any real impact on the future, or if they do, that impact is often unintended and negative, as Congress is by and large ignorant about these matters and has priorities counter-productive to getting anything substantive accomplished.

I pay even less attention to authorization bills that have only been approved by a committee, and have not yet been voted on by either house. Such bills are ephemeral and the stuff of fantasy. It is nice to know what’s in them, but until such bills are actually approved by both houses of Congress and signed by the president, their language is even more unworthy of serious attention.

Have the pigs in the Senate learned to stop gorging themselves?
Have the pigs in the Senate learned to stop gorging themselves?

Nonetheless, the NASA authorization bill that was just approved by the Senate Commerce committee is worth reviewing, but not for the reasons that has interested the rest of the mainstream and even the aerospace press.

True, the bill extends ISS until 2032. True, it fully supports the commercial private space stations being built to replace it. True, it endorses NASA administrator Jared Isaacman’s restructuring of the Artemis program. True, it rejects all of Trump’s proposed cuts to NASA’s science programs. And true, it strongly endorses a Moon base as a first step to colonizing Mars.

All of these facts are significant, but to focus on each specifically — as it appears the entire press has done — is to miss the forest for the trees.
» Read more

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NASA awards ULA’s Centaur-5 upper stage for future SLS launches

4:30 pm

NASA yesterday awarded ULA the contract for providing SLS its upper stage after the Artemis-3 mission using the Centaur-5 upper stage that was developed for the company’s Vulcan rocket.

In its procurement statement, NASA said its intention is to issue a sole source contract to ULA, meaning it’s the only upper stage being considered for this new iteration of the SLS rocket. An eight-page supporting document from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama, was published to document the reasoning for its decision.

Among the stated reasons are the decades-long heritage of the RL10 engine, which has matured over time; the ability of the Centaur 5 to use the interfaces available on the Mobile Launcher 1 (ML1) along with the propulsion commodities of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen; and the experience of ULA’s teams working with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) at the Kennedy Space Center and elsewhere in the country.

They also noted that with the Centaur 3 upper stage achieving certification to launch humans as part of the Commercial Crew Program, there are a lot of common features with the Centaur 5.

The decision relieves NASA from wasting more money on the Mobile Launcher-2, which has been a disaster. The contractor Bechtel has gone over budget — from $383 million to $2.7 billion — and is so behind schedule it is still unclear now whether it will be ready by 2029, a decade after the contract was awarded.

It also relieves NASA of spending more money on its own upper stage, which has been as much a disaster, from Boeing.

Instead, this deal is an example of Isaacman doing the right thing. Rather than have NASA design and build its own upper stage, he is buying the product — almost literally off-the-shelf — from a commercial rocket company. He should expand this effort, and consider other private rockets, such as Falcon Heavy, to replace SLS itself.

Now Isaacman should consider suing Bechtel for fraud and incompetence, to try to get back some of the money it wasted.

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Curiosity looks uphill at its upcoming travels

12:41 pm

Panorama looking up Mount Sharp
Click for original.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! Since May 2025 Curiosity has been exploring in great detail the boxwork formations located on the lower slopes of Mount Sharp. It is now about to complete those investigations, with the Curiosity science team beginning their planning for moving onward and upward.

The panorama above, enhanced to post here, was taken on March 2, 2026 by the rover’s right navigation camera. It looks uphill along the valley that Curiosity is in toward the mountainous region the rover is targeting. Note that the peak of Mount Sharp is not visible, being more than 25 miles away beyond the horizon and about 15,000 feet higher up.

The blue dot on the overview map to the right mark Curiosity’s present position. The yellow lines indicate roughly the area this panorama covers. The red dotted line marks the rover’s approximate planned route, while the white dotted line indicates Curiosity’s actual travels.

Right now Curiosity is traveling through a geological layer the scientists have dubbed the sulfate unit. The lighter colored hills seen on the horizon have also been identified as sulfate, but believed to be much more pure. The geology there should be very different. Instead of rough and rocky it could be like traveling over soft porous sand. This however is merely a guess on my part, based on imagery of those light-colored hills.

The actual route through those hills however remains unknown. Either the science team has not yet released it, or is still trying to figure out the best way through.

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NASA initiates new program to grab talent from the private sector

4:00 pm

Where new talent will now go to wither
Where new talent will now go to wither.

As part of NASA administrator’s effort to remake NASA into a cutting edge agency, “the global leader in space,” the agency in partnership with the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has initiated a new program, dubbed NASA Force, to recruit talent from the private sector for two-year terms, after which they can then try to get a full time job either with NASA or a private aerospace company.

NASA Force will identify and place high-impact technical talent into mission-critical roles supporting NASA’s exploration, research, and advanced technology priorities, ensuring the agency has the cutting-edge expertise needed to maintain U.S. leadership in space.

Tech Force, led by OPM, was established to recruit elite technical professionals into federal service, embed them at partner agencies to modernize systems, accelerate innovation, and strengthen mission delivery. NASA Force represents a focused expansion of that effort, tailored to the unique technical demands of space exploration and aerospace research.

“America’s leadership in space depends on extraordinary talent,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “NASA Force will help us attract the next generation of innovators and technical experts who are ready to solve the toughest challenges in exploration, science, and aerospace technology. This partnership strengthens our workforce and helps ensure the United States remains the global leader in space.”

This program however has things entirely backwards. The last thing any engineer who has just graduated college should do is get a short two-year job at NASA. He or she will learn all the wrong lessons, working for a government agency not interested in efficiency or profit.

Instead, it is essential the first job new engineers get is in the private sector, to learn how to do things fast and efficiently. It Isaacman had the right priorities, he would use this money to fund these jobs in the private sector, so that new graduates will get the right training. Unfortunately, that is not Isaacman’s priority. He wants the government to lead.

Moreover, NASA’s job was never intended to be “the global leader in space.” Its job was to formulate the federal government’s needs in space, and then ask the private sector — the American people — to get the job done. Isaacman instead wants to have NASA do the job, as it did for a half century after Apollo, quite poorly. Only after the agency began relying on private enterprise beginning in 2008, the capitalism model, did things finally start happening again.

The worst aspect of this program is that it will take talent away from the private sector. A lot of good and talented young engineers will gravitate to these NASA positions for the high pay, relatively easy good hours, and prestige. They won’t accomplish much there, and their training will be wrong-headed. Meanwhile, the private sector will lose that talent and have to find it elsewhere, assuming it is available at all.

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Engineers locate helium flow issue on SLS upper stage

8:01 am

NASA last evening posted an update on the status of its SLS rocket, noting that engineers had located the seal that had caused the helium flow issue in the upper stage during unfueling after the wet dress rehearsal two weeks ago.

Engineers determined a seal in the quick disconnect, through which helium flows from the ground systems to the rocket, was obstructing the pathway. The team removed the quick disconnect, reassembled the system, and began validating the repairs to the upper stage by running a reduced flow rate of helium through the mechanism to ensure the issue was resolved. Engineers are assessing what allowed the seal to become dislodged to prevent the issue from recurring.

Though this information is somewhat vague, it strongly suggests the seal with the problem was in the upper stage, not the umbilical line that is part of the ground systems.

Before they can return the rocket to the launchpad, they need to make sure they identified the exact issue that caused the seal to not work properly. They also are replacing the batteries in the rocket’s self-destruct system as well as flight batteries in the upper stage, core stage, and two strap-on solid-fueled boosters. It also appears they are replacing another seal the oxygen feed line for the core stage.

Once this work is finished and confirmed, they will still need to roll SLS back to the launchpad and likely do another wet dress rehearsal countdown, though that rehearsal might be condensed to focus on these issues specifically.

The present launch window closes on April 6th, so the timeline is very tight. NASA management is reviewing later windows in late April as well as May and June.

Despite the major reshaping of the later missions in the Artemis program that NASA administrator Jared Isaacman announced last week, this upcoming Artemis-2 mission remains the same, a ten-mission carrying four astronauts around the Moon using an Orion capsule with a questionable heat shield and an untested life support system.

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Rocket Lab completes in-space commissioning of two Escapade Mars orbiters

8:38 am

Built by Rocket Lab for NASA and launched in November 2025, the company has now completed the in-space commissioning of two Escapade Mars orbiters and is about to hand operations over to the University of California Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory (UC-Berkeley).

With both spacecraft now fully commissioned and successfully operating at the Earth–Sun Lagrange Point 2 (L2), Rocket Lab is preparing to hand over operational control to [UC-Berkeley], who will lead science operations at L2 and prepare the mission for its cruise to Mars.

Under contract from [UC-Berkeley], Rocket Lab was selected to design, build, and provide commissioning operations of the two high delta-V Explorer-class interplanetary spacecraft for ESCAPADE. Rocket Lab moved from concept to launch readiness in just over three years, proving commercial collaboration can deliver important science key to supporting future human and robotic exploration of Mars on ambitious schedules and for significantly smaller budgets than typical interplanetary missions. This speed was made possible through Rocket Lab’s vertically integrated spacecraft production, with key components including solar arrays, reaction wheels, propellant tanks, star trackers, radios, avionics, and flight software designed and built in-house.

Launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in November 2025, the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft, known as Blue and Gold, completed spacecraft commissioning and executed two precise trajectory correction maneuvers, placing both spacecraft into their loiter trajectory near L2, approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.

Both spacecraft will be sent on their way to Mars in December 2026 when orbital mechanics between the Red Planet and Earth are right for the journey. Once in Mars orbit the two orbiters will allow for a three-dimensional study of the interaction between the solar wind and Mars’ atmosphere.

Though this is a NASA-funded mission, note that it was built a commercial company and operated not by NASA but by a university. For this reason, it was not only built fast and at a low cost, it uses an innovative flight path that allowed it to be launched anytime and wait in orbit for the right moment to go to Mars. This last innovation provides for a lot more flexibility.

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Isaacman announces major reshaping of Artemis program

9:54 am

Major reshaping of the program
The program is being changed

During a update press conference today on the status of SLS, NASA administrator Jared Isaacman announced some major changes to the next three Artemis missions.

Isaacman began his remarks by blasting the slow launch cadence of the SLS rocket, noting that all previous NASA launch vehicles averaged about three months between launches, not three years. In order to shorten the SLS cadence to as short as ten months, he has eliminated the upgraded upper stage for SLS, required for the Artemis-3 lunar landing mission. They will standardize the equipment now being used for all further missions. It also suggests the upgraded mobile launcher — needed for that upgraded upper stage — is being canceled, though the officials refused to confirm this. It is far behind schedule and over budget.

Second, Artemis-3 will no longer be a lunar landing. It will instead fly in ’27 as a manned low-Earth-orbit mission to test rendezvous and docking with one or both of the lunar landers being built by SpaceX and Blue Origin. The flight will also test the spacesuits the astronauts will use on the later lunar mission, including possibly a spacewalk.

This change also appears to eliminate the need for Lunar Gateway, though this decision was not stated. Without that upgraded first stage, SLS cannot reach lunar orbit as intended. It appears the plan is to launch crew in Orion and transfer them to the lander in Earth orbit, and transport them to the Moon in those vehicles.

Third, the goal will then be to do two lunar landings in ’28 on Artemis-4 and Artemis-5. It was also clear that this is merely a target, and things could change after the ’27 mission.

These changes all make great sense and face basic reality. It never made sense to attempt the lunar landing after only one manned Artemis mission. The changes also shift focus from SLS and Orion to the rockets and spacecraft being made by the private sector. It attempts to meet Trump’s goal of landing on the Moon by ’28, but also gives the last three budgeted SLS missions a better and more realistic program. Whether SLS as designed can do this remains unclear, but no matter what, this clearly lays the groundwork for that shift from SLS to the private sector.

The officials also made it clear that this plan is still in flux, and will change depending on what happens in the next year or so.

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NASA’s corrupt Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel: NASA must be bigger and have more control!

11:36 am

Orion's damaged heat shield
Orion’s damaged heat shield after 2022 flight.
ASAP “Move along! Nothing to see here.”

NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) today released its annual report, and once again it demonstrated why I have been calling it corrupt and a waste of money for years.

The report can be read here [pdf], but let me warn you that its findings have nothing to do with ASAP’s original purpose (created after the 1967 Apollo 1 launchpad fire that killed three astronauts), to look at NASA projects to make sure the agency is not ignoring specific safety issues.

Instead, as it has done repeatedly in recent years, the panel focused on management goals and larger strategic issues, and as usual concluded that the best way to do things is to make NASA bigger with more control over the entire space industry.
» Read more

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SLS is back in the Vehicle Assembly Building

9:43 am

Last night NASA yesterday successfully completed the roll back of its SLS rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).

The SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis II mission arrived at the Vehicle Assembly Building from Launch Pad 39B at approximately 8 p.m. EST Feb. 25, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. While in the assembly building, technicians will troubleshoot the helium flow issue to the rocket’s upper stage, replace batteries on the rocket’s upper stage, core stage, and solid rocket boosters as well as service its flight termination system.

NASA officials have not said what will happen next, once that helium flow problem is resolved. I suspect NASA administrator Jared Isaacman will insist on another wet dress rehearsal to not only test the rocket’s troublesome fueling system, but to also test the helium system used to drain the tanks afterward.

If so, it is very unlikely a launch can occur prior to April 6th, when the present launch window closes. The odds of there being no issues on the next dress rehearsal are slim, based on SLS’s past record, and even if all goes well, the time margins are very very tight, allowing for no delays of any kind.

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SLS begins trip back to Vehicle Assembly Building

9:12 am

NASA’s SLS rocket today began its long slow journey from the launchpad back to Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) so that engineers can safely troubleshoot the failure of helium to properly flow into the tanks of the rocket’s upper stage following the dress rehearsal countdown last week.

NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II mission began rolling off the launch pad at 9:38 a.m. EST, Feb. 25, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Rolling from Launch Pad 39B to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA Kennedy is expected to take up to 12 hours.

At this time NASA officials have not yet determined whether they will need another wet dress rehearsal countdown. There are concerns however that the movement to and from the VAB might be contributing to the fuel leaks that have plagued previous rehearsals and countdowns, and if so, those concerns almost guarantee the need to do another countdown rehearsal once the helium issue is fixed and the rocket is back on the launchpad.

Officials are also reviewing potential future launch dates both in late April as well as May and June. The present window closes on April 6, though there is one launch opportunity on April 30th. Nothing has been decided as yet.

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NASA to return SLS to assembly building tomorrow Wednesday

9:10 am

UPDATE: Due to weather, the roll back to the VAB is now delayed until Wednesday, February 25, 2026.

Original post:
————————
According to its most recent update, NASA is now planning on rolling its SLS rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) no sooner than tomorrow, February 24, 2026, in order to begin its investigation into the helium flow issue in the rocket’s upper stage that has now delayed any launch until April at the earliest.

Returning to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy is required to determine the cause of the issue and fix it.

Teams are reviewing the exact time to begin the approximately 4 mile, multi-hour trek. The quick work to begin preparations for rolling the rocket and spacecraft back to the VAB potentially preserves the April launch window, pending the outcome of data findings, repair efforts, and how the schedule comes to fruition in the coming days and weeks.

The present launch window closes on April 6, 2026. For a launch to occur, NASA engineers need to identify and fix the flow issue. They will also need to test it, which suggests they will have to do some form of fueling test once the rocket is returned to the launchpad.

All of this takes time. First we have one week to get back to the VAB. Then at least a full two weeks in the VAB to identify and fix the upper stage. Then another week to roll the rocket back to the launch pad. And then another week to do another fueling test on the launchpad. That brings us to the beginning of April.

In other words, NASA has no time margin at all. If anything takes just a little longer than planned, it will not make the April launch window.

None of this is a surprise. SLS in its first launch attempt in 2022 missed its spring launch window due to similar issues and ended up launching six months later (after more launch scrubs). I predicted it would happen again now. NASA at this moment has not revealed any later launch windows, so we don’t yet know how long a delay to expect if it misses this window. Based on 2022, I suspect the delay would be until the fall.

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India negotiating a possible Gaganyaan docking at ISS

11:17 am

India's Bharatiya Antariksh Station as outlined in 2024
India’s Bharatiya Antariksh Station as outlined in 2024.
Click for original image.

The head of India’s space agency ISRO, it is negotiating with NASA about doing a variety of manned space operations in conjunction with NASA, including a possible Gaganyaan docking to ISS.

According to a presentation by Isro chairman V Narayanan reviewed by TOI [Times of India], the future cooperation areas span three key areas of collaboration between the two nations’ space agencies.

The first involves comprehensive training of ISRO personnel, including astronauts, at NASA facilities across multiple domains, including robotics systems, extravehicular activity (EVA), extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) systems, resource management, space medicine and spaceflight operations, LEO and lunar mission control operations, rendezvous and docking procedures, and payload and science operations.

An important initiative outlined is the uncrewed docking demonstration of India’s Gaganyaan Orbital Module with the US Orbital Segment of the ISS — this would mark a significant technological milestone for India’s human spaceflight programme.

The third area focuses on cooperation in docking, berthing, and inter-operability systems.

It is clear ISRO wishes to get training from NASA for its manned missions. It also makes sense for it to make sure its Gaganyaan’s docking systems are compatible with ISS, Dragon, Starliner, Soyuz, and even China’s station.

Doing a test unmanned docking at ISS would also provide ISRO valuable experience in preparation for its own Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS). Its first module is presently scheduled for launch in 2028, with the entire station assembled by 2035.

None of this however has been finalized. If India were to do a docking at ISS, it would like have to wait until 2029, after the two tourist missions assigned to Axiom and Vast. ISS has a limited number of available ports, and I suspect a port really won’t be available until after those missions.

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NASA today completes SLS wet dress rehearsal with few problems

8:35 pm

NASA today successfully completed its SLS wet dress rehearsal countdown with few problems, fueling the rocket completely and then running the countdown down to T-33 seconds and then recycling back to T-10 minutes and running the countdown down again, this time to T-29 seconds.

During the day-long event there were only two minor issues, neither of significance. Early in the day there was “an issue with ground communications” that required mission control to shift to “backup communication methods” for about a half hour before the issue was resolved.

Then, during the first countdown to T-33 the count was paused and recycled once “due to a booster avionics system voltage anomaly.” This also appeared to be minor issue quickly resolved.

NASA will hold a press conference tomorrow at 11 am (Eastern) to discuss the results of the entire rehearsal.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman had stated previously that he needed to see a perfect rehearsal before he would approve the launch of Artemis-2, carrying four astronauts on a ten-day mission around the Moon. While today’s rehearsal was not “perfect,” the issues were very minor. I suspect he will give the okay, with a tentative launch date of March 6, 2026 already being considered. The present launch window closes on April 6, 2026.

That mission, should it fly, still carries enormous risk. The Orion capsule will be using a life support system never tested in space before. It will also be using a heat shield that is questionable, having failed to behave as expected in the first Artemis mission in 2022.

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NASA on Starliner: Too much freedom caused the failure!

2:59 pm

Starliner docked to ISS
Starliner docked to ISS in 2024.

NASA today released its final investigation report on the causes behind the Starliner thruster issues during that capsule’s only manned mission in ISS, issues that almost prevented the spacecraft from docking successfully and could have left it manned and out-of-control while still in orbit.

You can read the report here [pdf]. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman made it clear in his own statement that the Starliner incident was far more serious than originally let on.

“To undertake missions that change the world, we must be transparent about both our successes and our shortcomings. We have to own our mistakes and ensure they never happen again. Beyond technical issues, it is clear that NASA permitted overarching programmatic objectives of having two providers capable of transporting astronauts to-and-from orbit, influence engineering and operational decisions, especially during and immediately after the mission. We are correcting those mistakes. Today, we are formally declaring a Type A mishap and ensuring leadership accountability so situations like this never reoccur. We look forward to working with Boeing as both organizations implement corrective actions and return Starliner to flight only when ready.”

A Type A mishap is one in which a spacecraft could become entirely uncontrollable, leading to its loss and the death of all on board. Though Starliner was NOT lost, for a short while as it hung close to ISS that result was definitely possible. Its thrusters were not working. It couldn’t maneuver to dock, nor could it maneuver to do a proper and safe de-orbit. Fortunately, engineers were able to figure out a way to get the thursters operational again so a docking could occur, but until then, it was certainly a Type A situation.

The report outlines in great detail the background behind Starliner’s thruster issues, the management confusion between NASA and Boeing, and the overall confused management at Boeing itself, including its generally lax testing standards.

The report’s recommends that NASA impose greater control over future commercial contracts, noting that under the capitalism model that NASA has been following:
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NASA now targeting February 19, 2026 for 2nd SLS wet dress rehearsal countdown

8:20 am

According to an announcement yesterday afternoon, NASA is now targeting February 19, 2026 for the second SLS wet dress rehearsal countdown.

During the rehearsal, the team will execute a detailed countdown sequence. Operators will conduct two runs of the last ten minutes of the countdown, known as terminal count. They will pause at T-1 minute and 30 seconds for up to three minutes, then resume until T-33 seconds before launch and pause again. After that, they will recycle the clock back to T-10 minutes and conduct a second terminal countdown to just inside of T-30 seconds before ending the sequence. This process simulates real-world conditions, including scenarios where a launch might be scrubbed due to technical or weather issues.

If this dress rehearsal goes off perfectly, NASA is considering the possibility of an actual launch attempt on March 6, 2026, though it admits that date is very preliminary That launch will carry four astronauts on a ten-day mission slingshot around the Moon and back to Earth, using an Orion capsule with untested life support system and a questionable heat shield.

The present launch window for this mission closes on April 6th, so NASA’s margins will shrink considerably if this second dress rehearsal has any further problems.

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NASA testing SLS fuel leak repairs; UPDATE: Problems!

10:33 am

UPDATE: NASA posted a late update today describing vaguely the results of this fueling test, and revealed that while the test of the replacement seals appeared to go well, there were other problems:

During the test, teams encountered an issue with ground support equipment that reduced the flow of liquid hydrogen into the rocket. … Engineers will purge the line over the weekend to ensure proper environmental conditions and inspect the ground support equipment before replacing a filter suspected to be the cause of the reduced flow.

In other words, the SLS fueling system is like playing whack-a-mole. You fix one problem, and others show up.

I predicted this. It remains entirely possible NASA will not be able to complete a perfect full wet-dress rehearsal countdown in time to launch before April 6th, when this present launch window closes.

Original post:
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NASA yesterday did an unannounced test fueling of its SLS rocket to check out the repairs in the fueling system.

NASA is loading liquid hydrogen aboard its Space Launch System moon rocket at the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday for an unpublicized but crucial test of the repairs made to a leaky umbilical that derailed a countdown rehearsal on Feb. 2.

The operation to load liquid hydrogen into the huge fuel tank on the rocket’s core stage was thought to be already underway at launch complex 39B on Thursday morning. The test will determine if new seals installed in the launch pad umbilical are working. “As part of our work to assess the repair we made in the area where we saw elevated hydrogen gas concentrations during the previous wet dress rehearsal, engineers are testing the new seals by running some liquid hydrogen across the interface and partially filling the core stage liquid hydrogen tank. The data will inform the timeline for our next wet dress rehearsal,” a NASA spokesperson said about the previously unannounced test.

If the new seals work on these fueling tests, another full dress rehearsal countdown could take place as early as next week.

Posting is going to very light for the rest of the day. I am fighting a bad head cold and just want to go back to bed.

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Vast wins sixth ISS slot for tourist mission

5:11 pm

Haven-2
Vast’s full Haven-2 station once completed

NASA today announced that it has awarded the space station startup Vast its sixth slot for a manned commercial mission to ISS, scheduled for 2027.

The mission is expected to spend up to 14 days aboard the space station. A specific launch date will depend on overall spacecraft traffic at the orbital outpost and other planning considerations.

…Vast will submit four proposed crew members to NASA and its international partners for review. Once approved and confirmed, they will train with NASA, international partners, and SpaceX for their flight. The company has contracted with SpaceX as launch provider for transportation to and from the space station.

Vast already intends to fly four two-week missions to its single module Haven-1 demo station, scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2027. This new ISS mission will demonstrate to NASA directly that Vast can handle manned missions. In both cases, the company is hoping its actions will convince NASA to award it a full construction contract to build its Haven-2 full-sized station, as shown in the graphic to the right.

Below are my rankings of the five private commercial space stations being developed. At this point the first three (Haven, Axiom, Starlab) are essentially tied, while the fourth (Thunderbird) is only trailing because it came late to the game. The fifth, Orbital Reef, seems practically out of the game.
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Engineers have shut down the Gehrels-Swift space telescope in a last attempt to save it

8:07 am

Katalyst's proposed Swift rescue mission
Katalyst’s proposed Swift rescue mission.
Click for original image.

In order to delay the moment the orbit of the Gehrels-Swift Observatory decays — to increase the chance a rescue mission can get there in time — engineers have now stopped almost all scientific observations temporarily.

On Feb. 11, NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory temporarily suspended most science operations in an effort to reduce atmospheric drag and slow the spacecraft’s orbital decay. Halting these activities will enable controllers to keep the spacecraft in an orientation that minimizes drag effects, extending its time in orbit in anticipation of a reboost mission.

“Normally, Swift quickly turns to view its targets — especially the fleeting, almost daily explosions called gamma-ray bursts — with multiple telescopes,” said principal investigator S. Bradley Cenko at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Swift’s Burst Alert Telescope will continue to detect gamma-ray bursts, but the spacecraft will no longer slew to observe targets with its other telescopes.”

…To maximize the orbit boost’s chances of success, Swift’s average altitude needs to be above about 185 miles. As of early February, Swift’s average altitude had fallen below about 250 miles.

NASA has awarded the orbital repair startup Katalyst the contract to rescue Gehrels-Swift, but the company has a very challenging mission. It got the contract only a few months ago, in September 2025, and is refitting its planned satellite rescue demo mission to save the space telescope instead. The graphic to the right shows how its rescue robot will approach and grab Gehrels-Swift to raise its orbit, but it must be noted that the telescope has no planned grapple points, and Katalyst’s robot has never done this before.

Moreover, the robot will be launched using the last Pegasus rocket in Northrop Grumman’s warehouse, with a launch scheduled now for sometime this summer. That means Katalyst has had to go from contract award to launch in less than a year, a pace that up until now has been unheard of in the space business. If successful however Katalyst will once again demonstrate the benefits of the capitalism model, whereby NASA buys the product from the private sector rather than building it itself. Left to NASA, this rescue mission would never happen.

And even if Katalyst’s rescue fails, that the company could get it built and launched in such a short time still proves the value of the capitalism model. Freedom and capitalism and competition at least made the attempt possible.

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

8:01 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8:30 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8:01 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Isaacman issues directive to shift power back to NASA and away from private sector

11:51 am

Jared Isaacman, in announcing this directive
Jared Isaacman, in announcing this directive

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman yesterday issued a major three-part directive which he claimed would save more than a billion dollars at NASA while allowing the agency to “regain its core competencies in technical, engineering, and operational excellence”.

The plan could actually backfire, however, as it appears to shift power and control back to NASA and away from private sector.

First, Isaacman wants to eliminate much of the outside contracting NASA now relies on, bringing that work back into the agency itself. Second, he wants eliminate “restrictive clauses that prevent us from doing our own work and addressing intellectual property barriers that have tied our hands.” Third, he wants to “restore in-house engineering,” having more work done by NASA engineers instead of depending on outside contractors.

To some extent, there is value in all these changes, because in many cases NASA employees use the policy of using contractors to outsource their entire work load, so they can sit and do practically nothing.

Overall however this directive could very well squelch the present renaissance in commercial space, because it will put NASA much more in control of everything. Rather than simply being a customer buying the products built and owned by the private sector (ie, the American people) — the capitalism model — the directive demands that NASA run things, the centralized Soviet-style top-down government model.

This aspect is best illustrated by the second part of his directive. Many contractors, such as SpaceX, do not wish to reveal everything about their product designs to NASA, because then it becomes public and can be stolen by their competitors. By requiring companies to release all proprietary data, those companies will no longer own that data, and thus will no longer be as easily able to benefit from its development. This will discourage private investment. It will also once again centralize development at NASA. Rather than getting multiple ideas and innovation from multiple companies, everything will funnel into the ideas NASA managers and engineers come up with.

Isaacman has come to this directive after spending his first two months as administrator delving into how the agency is operating. But he has gotten the solution entirely backwards. Rather than centralize and expand the work done inside NASA, thus justifying its large workforce that Isaacman has found isn’t doing much, wouldn’t it be better to simply eliminate those government jobs entirely? Trim NASA down to its essentials, and let the American people, not the government, come up with what they need and want in space.

Isaacman is not doing this however. Instead, he is apparently working to rebuild the NASA empire, so that it can once again design all, own all, and control all. That was how things were during the shuttle era, and the result was that for almost a half century, America went nowhere in space.

My doubts and concerns about Isaacman and his priorities, which started during his first nomination hearings, have only increased. Despite being a man who made billions in the free private sector, he increasingly appears to be someone eager to build a government empire to laud over everyone.

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Isaacman: SLS stands on very thin ice

2:46 pm

Though NASA administration Jared Isaacman continues to support unequivocally NASA’s planned Artemis-2 ten-day manned mission around the Moon — presently targeting a March launch date — in a statement today on X he revealed that he also recognizes the serious limitations of the SLS rocket.

And it takes two-plus years between launches
And it also takes two-plus years between launches

The Artemis vision began with President Trump, but the SLS architecture and its components long predate his administration, with much of the heritage clearly traced back to the Shuttle era. As I stated during my hearings, and will say again, this is the fastest path to return humans to the Moon and achieve our near-term objectives through at least Artemis V, but it is not the most economic path and certainly not the forever path.

The flight rate is the lowest of any NASA-designed vehicle, and that should be a topic of discussion. It is why we undertake wet dress rehearsals, Pre-FRR, and FRR, and why we will not press to launch until we are absolutely ready.

These comments were also in connection with the first wet dress rehearsal countdown that NASA performed with SLS/Orion in the past few days, a rehearsal that had to be terminated early because of fuel leaks. NASA now plans to do another wet dress rehearsal, requiring it to push back the Artemis-2 launch until March.

I think there is more going on here than meets the eye.
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