Tag: NASA

Dragonfly’s rotors complete testing

12:07 pm

According to a press release yesterday from the Applied Physics Lab (APL) in Maryland that is building the Dragonfly helicopter that is going to Saturn’s moon Titan, the rotors have completed the first round of testing, and are now about to undergo “fatigue and cryogenic trials under simulated Titan conditions.”

Over five weeks, from August into September, the team evaluated the performance of Dragonfly’s rotor system — which provides the lift for the lander to fly and enables it to maneuver — in Titan-like conditions, looking at aeromechanical performance factors such as stress on the rotor arms, and effects of vibration on the rotor blades and lander body. In late December, the team also wrapped up a set of aerodynamics tests on smaller-scale Dragonfly rotor models in the TDT [Transonic Dynamics Tunnel].

This quote about the manufacture of the rotors however stood out the most:

Pennington and team cut Dragonfly’s first rotors on Nov. 1, 2024. They refined the process as they went: starting with waterjet paring of 1,000-pound aluminum blocks, followed by rough machining, cover fitting, vent-hole drilling, and hole-threading. After an inspection, the parts were cleaned, sent out for welding, and returned for final finishing.

“We didn’t have time or materials to make test parts or extras, so every cut had to be right the first time,” Pennington said, adding that the team also had to find special tools and equipment to accommodate some material changes and design tweaks. [emphasis mine]

In other words, this is another hardware-poor NASA project. What they build is what they have. No time or money for testing of prototypes.

This mission is really pushing the envelope, possibly more than any NASA planetary probe in a half century. I just hope they get it right.

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Update on NASA’s damaged Goldstone antenna

8:25 am

According to a scientists at JPL, the Goldstone antenna — one third of NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) that scientists and NASA use to communicate with any interplanetary mission — will not resume operations until May of 2026.

The antenna has been out of service since September 2025 when it was damaged badly by workers who rotated the antenna past its correct limits, causing damage to piping and cables.

DSS-14 is officially scheduled to resume operations May 1, Benner said. “Unofficially, this might change. We’re hearing a variety of things,” he added, without specifying whether the return could be earlier or later. He noted that DSS-14 had already been scheduled to go offline in August 2026 for extended maintenance expected to last until October 2028, replacing equipment that in some cases is 40 to 50 years old.

In other words, this outage essentially took the antenna out of service a year early.

The outage can be covered by NASA’s other two DSN antennas in Spain and Australia, but it also limits the whole network’s capabilities. When Artemis-2 launches in the next month or so this limitation will significantly reduce communications with NASA’s other planetary missions at Mars and elsewhere during that mission’s 10-day flight around the Moon.

We still do not know the cause of the over-rotation, which at present does appear to have been the result of human carelessness. And NASA’s lack of transparency in this matter reinforces that speculation.

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Expedition-11 crew splashdowns safely

9:03 am

SpaceX’s Endeavour capsule has safely splashed down and been recovered off the coast of California, returning the four Expedition-11 astronauts several weeks early from ISS due to an as-yet undisclosed medical issue with one astronaut.

Crew-11 returned home about a month earlier than planned because of a medical concern teams are monitoring with one of the crew members, who remains stable. Due to medical privacy, it is not appropriate for NASA to share more details about the crew member. Prior to return, NASA previously coordinated for all four crew members to be transported to a local hospital for additional evaluation, taking advantage of medical resources on Earth to provide the best care possible.

Following the planned overnight hospital stay, the crew members will return to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and undergo standard postflight reconditioning and evaluations.

This hospital visit for all four astronauts is simply a cover to hide which astronaut has the medical issue. At some point this information must be revealed, simply because it impacts how future space travel will be planned.

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Axiom has delayed the launch of its first space station module to ’28

11:53 am

Axiom's module assembly sequence
Axiom’s module assembly sequence

When Axiom announced in September 2025 that Redwire would be building the solar panels for the first module of its space station, dubbed the PPTM, it also said that module would launch in late 2027, which was a delay of one year from the original launch date of 2026.

That schedule has now apparently been delayed again. In an interview yesterday, the company’s vice president of human spaceflight, former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, indicated the launch was now targeting 2028.

Plans call for the initial Axiom Station to be comprised of two modules, the PPTM — short for Payload Power Thermal Module — and a habitat module. The PPTM, which is to be shipped shortly to Houston for final assembly and integration, is slated to be launched in early 2028, with the second module following just months later. From there, Axiom aims to swiftly begin welcoming crew, Peggy Whitson, the company’s vice president of human spaceflight, told me in an interview.

This schedule almost guarantees that the Axiom station will not detach from ISS as quickly as originally intended. PPTM has a large hatch opening connecting it to ISS, allowing for the easy transfer of much of the research racks held on ISS. Before Axiom can become a free-flying station that ISS equipment must be moved, a process that will take time, likely months. To get it done the company will probably have to also attach its second habitation module so that crews can arrive and begin this transfer process.

In other words, Axiom’s schedule margins for getting its station launched, docked to ISS, loaded with ISS equipment, and then separated before ISS retires in 2030 are shrinking. It can ill afford further delays.

Below are my rankings of the five American space stations presently under development. Note that I now consider Axiom and Starlab tied for second.
» Read more

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NASA and Department of Energy agree to place nuclear reactor on Moon by ’30

8:56 am

NASA and Department of Energy have signed an agreement to develop nuclear power stations for NASA lunar base, and are targeting 2030 for placing a nuclear reactor on Moon.

NASA, along with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), announced Tuesday a renewed commitment to their longstanding partnership to support the research and development of a fission surface power system for use on the Moon under the Artemis campaign and future NASA missions to Mars.

A recently signed memorandum of understanding between the agencies solidifies this collaboration and advances President Trump’s vision of American space superiority by deploying nuclear reactors on the Moon and in orbit, including the development of a lunar surface reactor by 2030. This effort ensures the United States leads the world in space exploration and commerce. [emphasis mine]

Wanna bet? I’m laying odds that this joint government effort will end up being delayed and overbudget. In fact, the highlighted phrase suggests this work is already experiencing delays and budget overruns. Why else make a big deal about “a renewed commitment”?

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Portugal signs Artemis Accords

8:30 am

Portugal yesterday become the 60th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, according to an announcement posted by NASA administrator Isaacman on X.

In October 2025 a Latvia government report had indicated that it had signed the accords, making it the 60th nation in this American alliance, but Isaacman’s announcement did not include it.

Thus, Portugal is the 60th nation, with this the full and corrected list: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

I suspect Latvia will soon make it official, especially because its neighbors, Estonia and Lithuania, have already signed. These three former Soviet vassal states try to work together as this reduces the Russian threat.

Portugal’s signing means practically all of Europe is now on board.

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Isaacman makes it official: Artemis-2 will fly manned around the Moon, despite Orion’s heat shield concerns

8:01 am

Orion's damage heat shield
Damage to Orion heat shield caused during re-entry in 2022,
including “cavities resulting from the loss of large chunks”

In a tweet yesterday afternoon, NASA administration Isaacman essentially endorsed the decision of the NASA managers and engineers in its Artemis program who decided they could live with the engineering issues of Orion’s heat shield (as shown in the image to the right) and fly the upcoming Artemis-2 mission around the Moon carrying four astronauts with that same heat shield design.

Isaacman’s statement however suggests to me that he is not looking at this issue as closely as he should.

Human spaceflight will always involve uncertainty. NASA’s standard engineering process is to identify it early, bound the risk through rigorous analysis and testing, and apply operational mitigations that preserve margin and protect the crew. That process works best when concerns are raised early and debated transparently.

I appreciate the willingness of participants to engage on this subject, including former NASA astronaut Danny Olivas, whose perspective reflects how serious technical questions can be addressed through data, analysis, testing, and decisions grounded in the best engineering judgment available. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted sentence is fundamentally incorrect. » Read more

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Former astronaut once again blasts NASA decision to fly Artemis-2 manned

10:13 am

Charles Camarda on the shuttle
Charles Camarda on the first shuttle flight
after the Columbia failure.

The opposition to NASA’s decision to fly humans in the Orion capsule around the Moon with a questionable heat shield continues. Charles Camarda, an engineer and former NASA astronaut who has repeatedly expressed concerns about that heat shield and had been invited to attend the review meeting that NASA administrator Isaacman had arranged to ease his concerns, has now revealed his concerns were not eased in the slightest by that meeting, and that the Ars Technica article by Eric Berger that suggested otherwise was wrong, and that he is still “outraged” at NASA’s bad engineering decisions.

The rage you witnessed was my observing the exact behaviors used to construct risk and flight rationale which caused both Challenger and Columbia Accidents. Using “tools” inappropriately and then claiming results to be “Conservative.” Not to mention the reliance on Monte Carlo simulations to predict failure probabilities which were also proven to be inaccurate by orders of magnitude in my book “Mission Out of Control” which you claim to have read.

I suggest, in the spirit of transparency, you should ask NASA to release just the “Findings” of NESC Report TI-23-01849 Volume I. Finding 1 states the analysis cannot accurately predict crack initiation and propagation at flight conditions. And there was so much more which was conveniently not presented.

In other words, he finds NASA’s engineering claims that Orion’s heat shield will work using a different less stressful return trajectory as it dives back into the atmosphere about 25,000 mph to be false and untrustworthy. Worse, he sees it as proof that this is a continuation of the same culture at NASA that resulted in the Columbia failure.

Some of the exact same people responsible for failing to understand the shortcomings of the Crater Analysis tool (used tiny pieces of foam impacts to Shuttle tiles to predict a strike from a piece of foam which was 6000 larger and which caused the Columbia Accident) were on the Artemis Tiger Team now claiming they could predict the outcome of the Orion heatshield using a tool (similar to CRATER) called the Crack Identification Tool (CIT) which was also not physics based and relied on predictions of the key paramenter, permeability, which they claim to be the “root” cause, pressure, to vary by three orders of magnitude (that’s over 1000x).

In defense of NASA, those engineers had also presented data that showed Orion’s hull was strong enough to survive re-entry, even if the heat shield failed entirely. It is unclear if Camarda’s objections here apply to that data as well.

Regardless, his strong public disagreement with NASA on this once again raises serious questions about the upcoming manned Artemis-2 mission, set to launch sometime in the February to March time frame.

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An outline of NASA’s present schedule leading up to the Artemis-2 manned lunar fly-by mission

8:11 am

Link here. The mission will slingshot four astronauts around the Moon and back to Earth. The update includes lots of details about the rollout, the dress rehearsal countdown, the follow-up, and finally the various launch windows and the requirements that determine them.

This paragraph however about those requirements struck me:

The launch day and time must allow SLS to be able to deliver Orion into a high Earth orbit where the crew and ground teams will evaluate the spacecraft’s life support systems before the crew ventures to the Moon.

That life support system will be making its first flight in space, with four humans as the guinea pigs. Though this is another example of NASA putting schedule ahead of safety (the system should have flown at least once unmanned), it does indicate the agency recognizes the risk it is taking, and has added this extra longer orbit to give engineers time to test the system.

There are three launch windows, within which there are only five available launch dates:

January 31 to February 14 (February 6, 7, 8, 10, and 11)
February 28 to March 13 (March 6, 7, 8, 9, 11)
March 27 to April 10 (April 1, 3, 4, 5, 6)

In 2022, once NASA managers chose their first launch window, they were able to get the rocket off on the first attempt. There were no scrubs or aborts, though prior to that attempt the launch date was delayed numerous time over five years. Based on that past history, it is likely the agency will succeed on its first attempt in February, barring weather issues.

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ISS crew to return on Wednesday January 14, 2026

10:40 pm

The present four-person expedition 11 crew on ISS, which has one member with an undisclosed sudden health issue that needs addressing on the ground, will undock and return to Earth on January 14, 2025 in SpaceX’s Endeavour capsule.

NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 5 p.m. EST, Wednesday, Jan. 14, for the undocking of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission from the International Space Station, pending weather conditions. … NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov will splash down off the coast of California at approximately 3:40 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 15.

Mission managers continue monitoring conditions in the recovery area, as undocking of the SpaceX Dragon depends on spacecraft readiness, recovery team readiness, weather, sea states, and other factors. NASA and SpaceX will select a specific splashdown time and location closer to the Crew-11 spacecraft undocking.

NASA has released no information about the medical issue that canceled a spacewalk and prompted the early return of this crew. We do not even know the name of the impacted astronaut.

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Isaacman okays flying Artemis-2 manned, despite heat shield questions

1:53 pm

According to an article posted today at Ars Technica, after a thorough review NASA administrator Jared Isaacman has decided to allow the Artemis-2 mission — set to launch sometime before April and slingshot around the Moon — to fly manned with four astronauts despite the serious questions that still exist about its heat shield.

The review involved a long meeting at NASA with NASA engineers, several outside but very qualified critics, as well as two reporters (for transparency).

Convened in a ninth-floor conference room at NASA Headquarters known as the Program Review Center, the meeting lasted for more than three hours. Isaacman attended much of it, though he stepped out from time to time to handle an ongoing crisis involving an unwell astronaut on orbit. He was flanked by the agency’s associate administrator, Amit Kshatriya; the agency’s chief of staff, Jackie Jester; and Lori Glaze, the acting associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. The heat shield experts joined virtually from Houston, along with Orion Program Manager Howard Hu.

Isaacman made it clear at the outset that, after reviewing the data and discussing the matter with NASA engineers, he accepted the agency’s decision to fly Artemis II as planned. The team had his full confidence, and he hoped that by making the same experts available to Camarda and Olivas, it would ease some of their concerns.

My readers know that I have been strongly opposed to flying Artemis-2 manned, an opposition I expressed in an op-ed at PJMedia only yesterday. However, after reading this Ars Technica report, my fears are allayed somewhat by this quote:
» Read more

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ISS expedition 11 will return early due to medical issue

3:34 pm

Though NASA officials provided no new details on what the medical issue is on ISS nor who it occurred to, in a briefing this afternoon they announced that they have decided to bring the crew home early, and are also looking at launching the next crew earlier than its presently scheduled February launch.

They did say that the medical issue had nothing to do with space operations or the spacewalk the astronauts were getting ready to do. Though NASA’s chief medical officer James Polk was amazingly vague in his comments, he did suggest it was related to the environment of micogravity.

The one comment that struck me during the press briefing was the repeated insistence by all three officials, including NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, that NASA “never compromises safety”. Considering my own op-ed today and the unreasonable risks the agency is taken for the upcoming Artemis-2 mission, as well as its failures with Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia, NASA has compromised on safety many times in the past, and is doing it right now.

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Second Escapade Mars orbiter completes a delayed engine burn

10:03 am

Engineers have now successfully placed both Escapade Mars orbiters in their parking orbit, the second orbiter completed the required engine burn after it was delayed due to unexpected telemetry during an earlier mid-course correction burn.

That unexpected telemetry suggested the engine was firing at a lower thrust than expected. Today’s update did not provide any additional information as to how the thrust issue had been solved or overcome. All it said was that both spacecraft will fire their engines in November 2026 as planned to head to Mars.

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Medical issue forces NASA to postpone spacewalk and consider an early crew return

9:56 am

An unspecified medical issue by one crew member on ISS last night forced NASA to postpone a planned spacewalk — even as the astronauts were suiting up — and consider bringing the crew back early.

The agency is monitoring a medical concern with a crew member that arose Wednesday afternoon aboard the orbital complex. Due to medical privacy, it is not appropriate for NASA to share more details about the crew member. The situation is stable.

At this moment, we know nothing more, including the name of the astronaut with the problem. Though the crew member is “stable,” it does appear the condition is serious, as it apparently developed quite abruptly, based on the public communications feed.

In a brief space-to-ground radio exchange just after 2:30 p.m. EST, Yui called mission control in Houston and asked for a private medical conference, or PMC. Mission control replied that a PMC, using a private radio channel, would be set up momentarily. Yui then asked if a flight surgeon was available and if flight controllers had a live camera view from inside the station.

“Houston, do we still have, like, a camera view in Node 2, uh, 3, lab?” Yui asked.

“We don’t have any internal cameras right now, but we can put the lab view in if you’d like,” the mission control communicator replied.

“I appreciate that,” Yui replied. He then asked: “Do you have like a crew surgeon? … A flight surgeon?”

No additional exchanges were heard. Later Wednesday, NASA’s space station audio stream, normally carried live around-the-clock on YouTube, went silent without explanation.

Though NASA has never had to return a crew early due to an emergency medical situation, the Russians in the Soviet era did so twice. In 1976 on the Salyut 5 station the crew couldn’t get along, with one member becoming paranoid and both claiming (falsely) that the station’s atmosphere was becoming unbreathable. The crew came home early, but the next crew found nothing wrong with the station.

Then during a mission in 1985 mission to the Salyut-7 space station, one astronaut developed a prostate condition that also cancelled a spacewalk and eventually required an early return to Earth.

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Zimmerman Op-Ed at PJ Media

7:50 pm

Orion's damage heat shield
Damage to Orion heat shield caused during re-entry in 2022,
including “cavities resulting from the loss of large chunks”

PJ Media this evening published an op-ed I prepared this week in a last desperate effort to convince both President Trump and NASA administrator Jared Isaacman to rethink the manned nature of the Artemis-2 mission scheduled to launch sometime in the next three months.

President Trump and NASA Administrator Isaacman: Please Take the Crew Off of Artemis II

Nothing I say in this op-ed will be unfamiliar to my readers. I choose to farm it to PJ Media because I wanted it to get as much exposure as possible. As big as my audience is becoming, from 4 to 6 million hits per month, PJ Media has a wider reach.

I also decided in the op-ed to make no general arguments against SLS or Orion. Though my opposition to them is long standing and well known, this is not the time to fight that battle. My goal was simply to get NASA to put engineering ahead of schedule, so as to avoid the possibility of it repeating another Apollo 1 fire or Challenger accident.

I doubt at this point this op-ed will make a difference, but to paraphrase a quote written by Gordon Dickson in his wonderful science fiction book Way of the Pilgrim, there was a hand pushing me from behind, forcing me forward. I had no choice. The image of Orion’s heat shield to the right, after the 2022 return from the Moon, required action.

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NASA: The leak in the Zvezda module on ISS has apparently been sealed

10:51 am

According to one NASA official, the leaks in the Zvezda module on ISS that have been on-going for more than five years have apparently all been sealed.

However, recently two sources indicated that the leaks have stopped. And NASA has now confirmed this. “Following additional inspections and sealing activities, the pressure in the transfer tunnel attached to the Zvezda Service Module of the International Space Station, known as the PrK, is holding steady in a stable configuration,” a space agency spokesman, Josh Finch, told Ars. “NASA and Roscosmos continue to monitor and investigate the previously observed cracks for any future changes that may occur.”

While good news, no one should feel sanguine. The leaks occurred because the hull of Zvezda has developed stress fractures, due to age (more than a quarter century in orbit) and the repeated dockings to its aft port. Future fractures and leaks are still possible, with the chance of a catastrophic failure very possible.

It would be prudent for NASA to continue to shut the hatch between the U.S. and Russian halves of the station, whenever a docking is taking place.

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Recovering Maven appears increasingly dim

8:57 am

According to a NASA update late yesterday, engineers have still not been able to recover the Maven Mars orbiter since all communications ceased suddenly on December 6, and are now facing a month-long period when the Sun will block all communications with Mars entirely.

The MAVEN team also continues to analyze tracking data fragments recovered from a Dec. 6 radio science campaign. This information is being used to create a timeline of possible events and identify likely root cause of the issue. As part of that effort, on Dec. 16 and 20, NASA’s Curiosity team used the rover’s Mastcam instrument in an attempt to image MAVEN’s reference orbit, but MAVEN was not detected. Additional analysis will continue, but planned monitoring will be affected by the upcoming solar conjunction.

Mars solar conjunction – a period when Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun – begins Monday, Dec. 29, and NASA will not have contact with any Mars missions until Friday, Jan. 16. Once the solar conjunction window is over, NASA plans to resume its efforts to reestablish communications with MAVEN.

That December 6th tracking data had suggested the spacecraft was tumbling. Though NASA management has not yet given up hope, the longer the spacecraft remains out of touch and in an uncontrolled state, the less chance there will be for it to survive. Batteries will drain, equipment will freeze, and the spacecraft will die. Right now, that appears to be its fate.

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New Trump executive order today guarantees major changes coming to NASA’s Moon program

4:51 pm

Change is coming to Artemis!
Change is coming to Artemis!

The White House today released a new executive order that has the typically grand title these type of orders usually have: “Ensuring American Space Superiority”. That it was released one day after Jared Isaacman was confirmed as NASA administrator by the Senate was no accident, as this executive order demands a lot of action by him, with a clear focus on reshaping and better structuring the entire manned exploration program of the space agency.

The order begins about outlining some basic goals. It demands that the U.S. return to the Moon by 2028, establish the “initial elements” a base there by 2030, and do so by “enhancing sustainability and cost-effectiveness of launch and exploration architectures, including enabling commercial launch services and prioritizing lunar exploration.” It also demands this commercial civilian exploration occur in the context of American security concerns.

Above all, the order demands that these goals focus on “growing a vibrant commercial space economy through the power of American free enterprise,” in order to attract “at least $50 billion of additional investment in American space markets by 2028, and increasing launch and reentry cadence through new and upgraded facilities, improved efficiency, and policy reforms.”

To achieve these goals, the order then outlines a number of actions required by the NASA administrator, the secretaries of Commerce, War, and State, as well as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy (APDP), all coordinated by the assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST).

All of this is unsurprising. Much of it is not much different than the basic general space goals that every administration has touted for decades. Among this generality however was one very specific item, a demand to complete within 90 days the following review:
» Read more

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Jared Isaacman confirmed as NASA administrator

1:29 pm

Jared Isaacman during his spacewalk
Jared Isaacman during his spacewalk in September 2024

The Senate today finally confirmed Jared Isaacman to be the next NASA administrator, by a vote of 67 to 30.

All of the opposition came from Democrats, who fear Isaacman will eliminate several NASA centers in their states, centers that for decades have accomplished little but be jobs programs sucking money from the American taxpayer.

During hearings and private meetings with the senators Isaacman denied he had any intention to do this. In fact, the 62-page policy document Isaacman had written outlining his plans when he was first nominated for this position back in the spring makes it clear that is not his goal.

Instead, an honest read of that document shows that Isaacman has approached this position as administrator like the businessman he is. He intends to review every aspect of NASA’s operations and to restructure them to run more efficiently. For one example, he plans to eliminate the numerous “deputies” that every manager at NASA has been given. The managers should do the work, not hire a flunky to do it for them.

He also plans to review the next two Artemis missions, specifically looking at the Orion capsule and the questions relating to its heat shield and its untested environmental system. The concern that I and many others have expressed is that this capsule is not ready yet for a manned mission. The heat shield showed significant and unexpected damage on its return to Earth from its first unmanned mission around the Moon in 2022. Rather than replace it or redesign it, NASA has decided to push ahead and fly four astronauts on it around the Moon no later than April 2026. The agency’s solution will be to change the capsule’s flight path to reduce stress on the shield, a solution that might work but remains untested. It is also willing to fly the astronauts in a capsule with a untested environmental system. This NASA decision to push ahead is so it can meet the goal of Trump and Congress to get humans back on the Moon ahead of the Chinese, and hopefully within Trump’s present term of office.

In other words, NASA management is once again putting schedule ahead of safety and engineering, as it did with Challenger and again with Columbia.

It appears that Isaacman will at least review this situation. Whether he will have the courage to take the astronauts off that mission however remains unknown. He will certainly face fierce opposition from Trump and Congress if he does so.

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Two new NASA science spacecraft achieve “first light”

9:09 am

First lights from Carruthers and IMAP

According to two different NASA announcements today, two new science spacecraft designed to study the Sun’s environment have successfully demonstrated that their cameras and instruments are working as planned, having taken their “first light” data after their recent launches.

That data is to the right. On top is the first light data from the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory. From the caption:

The images were taken on Nov. 17, 2025, from a location near the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 1 by the spacecraft’s Wide Field Imager (left column) and Narrow Field Imager (right column) in far ultraviolet light (top row) and the specific wavelength of light emitted by atomic hydrogen known as Lyman-alpha (bottom row). Earth is the larger, bright circle near the middle of each image; the Moon is the smaller circle below and to the left of it. The fuzzy “halo” around Earth in the images in the bottom row is the geocorona: the ultraviolet light emitted by Earth’s exosphere, or outermost atmospheric layer. The lunar surface still shines in Lyman-alpha because its rocky surface reflects all wavelengths of sunlight — one reason it is important to compare Lyman-alpha images with the broad ultraviolet filter. The far ultraviolet light imagery from the Narrow Field Imagery also captured two background stars, whose surface temperatures must be approximately twice as hot as the our Sun’s to be so bright in this wavelength of light.

This data will help map the corona or Sun’s atmosphere, near the Sun.

On bottom is the first light data from IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe), which will work to map the very fringes of the solar system, the heliosphere that separates the Sun’s environment from interstellar space.

To map the heliosphere’s boundaries, IMAP is equipped with three instruments that measure energetic neutral atoms: IMAP-Lo, IMAP-Hi, and IMAP-Ultra. These uncharged particles, called ENAs for short, are cosmic messengers formed at the heliosphere’s edge that allow scientists to study the boundary region and its variability from afar.

…As IMAP travelled away from Earth, the IMAP-Ultra instrument looked back at the planet and picked up ENAs created by Earth’s magnetic environment. These terrestrially made ENAs, which overwhelm ENAs coming from the heliosphere in sheer numbers, is a reason why IMAP will be stationed at L1. There the spacecraft will have an unobstructed view of ENAs coming from the heliosphere’s boundaries.

…Earth’s magnetic environment can be seen glowing bright. … Earth sits at the center of the red donut-shaped structure.

Both spacecraft are still on their way to their final operational position at L1, so actual science operations have not yet begun.

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Updates on the status of two Mars missions, Maven and Escapade

7:59 pm

NASA today posted two separate updates on the status of two of its missions to or at Mars.

First, it appears there is an issue with one engine on one of the two Escapade orbiters on their way to their parking orbit where they will await the right moment to head to Mars.

During trajectory correction maneuvers for NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft on Dec. 8 and Dec. 12, the mission operations team noticed low thrust during the burn for one of the spacecraft. The team is working to identify the cause and will attempt a trajectory correction maneuver in the coming weeks.

The other spacecraft has successfully completed its two trajectory correction maneuvers, as planned. Both spacecraft are operating normally otherwise, and currently there are no long-term impacts from the trajectory correction delay.

While not the best news, this issue does not at this moment appear critical.

The second update however was even more negative. It appears engineers have not yet been able to re-establish contact and control of the Mars orbiter Maven.

To date, attempts to reestablish contact with the spacecraft have not been successful. Although no spacecraft telemetry has been received since Dec. 4, the team recovered a brief fragment of tracking data from Dec. 6 as part of an ongoing radio science campaign. Analysis of that signal suggests that the MAVEN spacecraft was rotating in an unexpected manner when it emerged from behind Mars. Further, the frequency of the tracking signal suggests MAVEN’s orbit trajectory may have changed. The team continues to analyze tracking data to understand the most likely scenarios leading to the loss of signal. Efforts to reestablish contact with MAVEN also continue.

It appears the loss of Maven is also impacting communications with the two Mars rovers Curiosity and Perseverance. While NASA has use of three orbiters at present, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and Europe’s Trace Gas Orbiter, to relay data from the ground to Earth, the loss of Maven reduces that communications network by 25%. Engineers are revising plans to make up some of the loss, but operations for both rovers will be for the time being reduced somewhat.

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House joins Senate in proposing a new space bureaucracy here on Earth

11:52 am

Gotta feed those DC pigs!
Gotta feed those DC pigs!

In mid-November a bi-partisan group of senators introduced legislation they claimed would help the U.S. beat China in space by creating a new government agency called the “National Institute for Space Research.”

The absurdity of creating a new agency to do this was obvious. Don’t we already have something called NASA that is tasked with this job? As I noted then, “This is just pork.”

Rather than funding real research or development in space, this legislation simply creates another Washington government agency supposedly functioning independent of presidential or even congressional oversight (a legal structure the courts have increasingly declared unconstitutional).

Well, it appears two congress critters in the House have decided they had to keep up with the Jones in the Senate, and have now introduced their own variation of this legislation.

Yesterday, Congresswoman Valerie Foushee [D-North Carolina], Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, and Congressman Daniel Webster [R-Florida] introduced H.R. 6638, the Space Resources Institute Act, bipartisan legislation which directs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Administrator and the Secretary of Commerce to report to Congress on the merits and feasibility of establishing a dedicated space resources institute relating to space resources, the surface materials, water, and metals often found on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids.

The bill would give NASA 180 days to submit its report.

This is just more junk from Congress that will do nothing but distract NASA from its real business, fostering a new American aerospace industry capable of colonizing the solar system for profit. Note too that like the Senate bill, this House bill is a bi-partisan effort in stupidity.

As I said in reporting on the Senate version of this proposal, “Ugh. There are times I wish I didn’t have to read the news from DC. It almost always depresses me.”

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Senate committee approves Isaacman’s nomination as NASA administrator

11:27 pm

The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee today approved the nomination of Jared Isaacman for NASA administrator, doing so for the second time after his first nomination was withdrawn by Trump in May and then re-instated his nomination in November.

All 15 committee Republicans and three of the 13 Democrats voted in favor: Senators Ted Cruz (Chairman, R-Texas), John Thune (R-South Dakota), Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), Deb Fischer (R-Nebraska), Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), Todd Young (R-Indiana), Ted Budd (R-North Carolina), Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri), John Curtis (R-Utah), Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), Tim Sheehy (R-Montana), Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming), Maria Cantwell (Ranking Member, D-Washington), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin), and John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania).

Ten of the 13 Democrats voted no: Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), Gary Peters (D-Michigan), Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois), Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada), Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico), John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado), Andy Kim (D-New Jersey), and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Delaware).

In the previous April 2025 confirmation vote two Democrats, Kim and Hickenlooper, had voted yes. Now they voted no. In turn in April Fetterman had voted no and now changed his vote to yes.

Isaacman’s nomination still has to be confirmed by the Senate. No vote has been scheduled, but there have been indications that it will be scheduled in the next week or so. If not, the vote will have to wait until after the New Year. In either case, it is expected Isaacman will be approved handily.

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House hearing on Artemis yesterday signals strong doubts about the program in Congress

10:54 am

Artemis logo

The space subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee yesterday held a hearing on space, one day after the Senate held its own hearing on the nomination of Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator.

The House hearing however was not about Isaacman, but was apparently staged to highlight what appears to be strong reservations within Congress about NASA’s Artemis program, as presently structured. Its timing, just after the Isaacman hearing, was clearly aimed at garnering as much publicity as possible.

Video of the hearing can be seen here.

The focus of the hearing was also on China, and how there is real fear in Congress that its space program is outstripping NASA’s. Both the Republican committee chairman and the ranking Democrat stressed these concerns, and the need to beat China to the Moon and beyond.

More important, all four witnesses pushed the same point.

The rallying cry at this hearing as well as yesterday’s is the “race” with China.

…Foushee asked each of the witnesses for one-word answers to the question: is NASA on track to get back to the Moon before Chinese taikonauts arrive?

Not all succeeded with one word, but their sentiment was similar. Cheng replied “no, I am very pessimistic.” Swope: “worried.” Besha: “maybe.” Griffin: “no possible way…with the present plan.”

Former NASA administrator Mike Griffin was the most blunt in his criticism of NASA.
» Read more

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“Blemish” on Orion hatch’s “thermal barrier” delays countdown rehearsal

9:24 am

According to a report yesterday, a countdown rehearsal two weeks ago for the Orion/SLS stack that also included the four astronauts to fly on the next mission was delayed because a “blemish” was found on the Orion hatch “thermal barrier.”

“Prior to the countdown demonstration test, the agency had planned to conduct a day of launch closeout demonstration. This demonstration was paused when a blemish was found on the crew module thermal barrier, preventing hatch closure until it could be addressed,” the statement read. “A repair was completed on Nov. 18 allowing the closeout demo to successfully complete on Nov. 19. To allow lessons learned from the closeout demo to be incorporated into the planning for the countdown demonstration test, the decision was made to proceed into water servicing next and place the countdown demonstration test after this servicing completes.”

It was not clear from the NASA statement how a ‘blemish’ prevented the closure of the hatch and NASA would not say exactly when the countdown rehearsal will take place. Declining to provide further details, the space agency spokesperson said: “NASA remains on track to launch Artemis 2 no later than April 2026 with opportunities to potentially launch as soon as February.”

NASA released no additional details, though it claimed this delay will have no impact on the launch schedule for the Artemis-2 mission, planned for launch no later than April 2026.

The lack of detailed information from NASA is disturbing. What was the “blemish?” It appears it was on the rubber gaskets that circle the hatch’s edge. What caused it? Was it some damage? A production flaw? NASA’s general silence forces us to consider more serious possibilities.

I continue to pray that these four astronauts are not going to end up as sacrificial lambs to the political scheduling demands that is forcing NASA to push on blindly, as it did with both the Challenger and Columbia failures, ignoring or minimizing issues that common sense should never be minimized.

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Yesterday’s Senate nomination hearing for Jared Isaacman was irrelevant; America’s real space “program” is happening elsewhere

10:20 am

Jared Isaacman
Billionaire Jared Isaacman

Nothing that happened at yesterday’s Senate hearing of Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA’s next administrator was a surprise, or very significant, even if most media reports attempted to imply what happened had some importance. Here are just a small sampling:

To be fair, all of these reports focused on simply reporting what happened during the hearing, and the headlines above actually provide a good summary. Isaacman committed to the Artemis program, touted SLS and Orion as the fastest way to get Americans back to the Moon ahead of the Chinese, and dotted all the “i”s and crossed all the “t”s required to convince the senators he will continue the pork projects they so dearly love. He also dodged efforts by several partisan Democrats to imply Isaacman’s past business dealings with Musk and SpaceX posed some sort of conflict of interest.

What none of the news reports did — and I am going to do now — is take a deeper look. Did anything Isaacman promise in connection with NASA and its Artemis program mean anything in the long run? Is the race to get back to the Moon ahead of China of any importance?

I say without fear that all of this is blather, and means nothing in the long run. The American space program is no longer being run by NASA, and all of NASA’s present plans with Artemis, using SLS, Orion, and the Lunar Gateway station, are ephemeral, transitory, and will by history be seen as inconsequential by future space historians.
» Read more

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Russian astronaut kicked out of the U.S. for stealing proprietary SpaceX designs

9:10 am

A Russian astronaut scheduled to fly on the next upcoming Dragon mission to ISS as part of the barter agreement between NASA and Roscosmos, has been removed from that mission after being caught taking pictures of SpaceX equipment in violation of State Department ITAR regulations.

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev has been removed from the prime crew of SpaceX’s Crew-12 mission to the International Space Station and replaced by fellow Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev after sources alleged he photographed confidential SpaceX materials in California in violation of US export control rules, according to The Insider on December 2.

The outlet reported that Trishkin also said NASA did not want the controversy around Artemyev to become public, while Artemyev was removed from training at SpaceX’s Hawthorne California, facility last week after allegedly photographing SpaceX engines and other internal materials on his phone and taking them off-site.

The sources for this story all come from within Russia but it appears the story is true. It now appears that when the next manned Dragon launches to ISS in February, Fedyaev will fly instead of Artemyev.

The irony of this is that Russia doesn’t really have the capability of developing a comparable SpaceX rocket using this information. If anything, it would be more likely for Russia to sell the information to China in exchange for military hardware it could use in the Ukraine.

Either way, this violation by Artemyev of ITAR does not speak well for the future of the U.S./Russian partnership in space. It will certainly continue until ISS is retired, but this incident cements the likelihood that it will then end. None of the American commercial stations have shown any interest in signing agreemennts with Russia, though they all have signed numerous international deals, some with former Soviet bloc nations and even former Soviet provinces. After ISS Russia will be on its own.

And based on its inability to develop anything new in the past three decades, don’t expect much from it in space.

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Senate Commerce committee to move up its vote on Isaacman’s nomination as NASA administrator

8:01 am

Jared Isaacman
Billionaire Jared Isaacman

Today Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) announced that the Commerce committee he heads will vote on the re-nomination of Jared Isaacman for NASA administration on December 8, 2025, only five days after tomorrow’s renomination hearing.

It appears Cruz and his committee is pushing to get Isaacman approved as quickly as possible. At least one Republican senator, John Cornyn (R-Texas) has met with Isaacman again and gotten his commitment to move the space shuttle Discovery to Texas, as mandated by the budget bill passed several months ago. That commitment was likely a quid pro quo by Cornyn to get his vote for Isaacman.

Once Isaacman is approved by Cruz’s committee, the Senate could vote at any time. Whether it will do so before the end of the year remains unknown, as it would likely require a special session as the Senate is expected to be in recess until after the new year.

If it does not, it will likely give Isaacman very little time to review the next Artemis mission, tentatively schedule for launch as early as February 2026, carrying four astronauts around the Moon on a Orion capsule with a questionable heat shield and an untested environmental system.

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NASA releases images during Osiris-Apex’s fly-by of Earth in late September

9:42 am

Earth as seen by Osiris-Apex
Click for original image.

NASA today released photos taken by the asteroid probe Osiris-Apex (formerly Osiris-Rex) as it swung past the Earth on September 23, 2025 at a distance 2,136 miles, on its way to the asteroid Apophis.

The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was one of about 424 images taken by the spacecraft during the fly-by. From those, scientists compiled a movie, which you can view here. As this picture shows, South America was in view on the right side of the Earth.

Osiris-Apex, which had already completed its prime mission by returning samples from the asteroid Bennu, is scheduled to arrive at Apophis shortly after that asteroid’s close fly-by of the Earth on April 13, 2029. The Trump administration had threatened to shut it down for budget reasons, but Congress restored those funds in ending the government shut down.

At that time Apophis will zip past only 20,000 miles from Earth. There will be no chance of collision. Nor is there much chance Apophis will hit the Earth in the next two centuries. Its orbit however makes it a potentially dangerous asteroid, and that 2029 fly-by could change these calculations.

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NASA trims $768 million from Boeing’s Starliner contract

9:08 pm

Starliner docked to ISS
Starliner docked to ISS in 2024.

According to one story late today, the modifications NASA announced today on its Starliner contract with Boeing will trim $768 million from the total contract, assuming the two later optional manned missions never fly.

Originally valued at $4.5 billion, Boeing’s contract under the Commercial Crew Program envisioned six operational astronaut flights. NASA’s latest modification cuts that number to four, including up to three crewed missions and an uncrewed cargo flight set for April 2026. Two additional flights remain optional. With the changes, the contract’s value has dropped by $768 million to $3.732 billion; NASA has already paid $2.2 billion to date.

Boeing can still earn that additional money if if somehow manages to convince NASA to do all six flights. It will have great difficult achieving this, however, since there probably won’t be enough time to get all six flights up before ISS is retired. That fact is partly why NASA has made this change.

This report however suggests that NASA is not paying Boeing extra money for the unmanned cargo mission in April 2026. Instead, it is treating it as if it were the first operational manned Starliner flight, paying Boeing its purchase price as if it had achieved all its milestones during the manned demo flight last year.

It really pays in today’s America to be a big giant corporation that does lots of business with our bloated and very corrupt federal government. That government is then quite willing to bend over backwards to help you, even if you are like Boeing and incompetent (Starliner), corrupt (737-MAX), or routinely go over-budget and fail to deliver on time (Air Force One). That certainly appears to be the case here with Boeing.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.

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