Tag: policy

China will launch its upgraded manned Mengzhou-1 capsule in 2026

8:01 am

Mengzhou as of 2023
Mengzhou mock-up from 2023. Click for source.

China this week revealed that it plans the first flight of its new larger Mengzhou-1 manned capsule next year, launching from its coastal Wengchang spaceport on its new Long March 10 rocket.

Mengzhou features a modular design consisting of a return capsule and a service capsule and will operate as the primary link between Earth and the space station.

The first flight of Mengzhou-1 will utilize the Long March-10A rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in Hainan, targeting a docking with the space station’s core module radial port. This debut mission will validate the craft’s systems while transporting environmental monitoring devices, technical payloads, astronaut supplies, and experimental gear for science and technology demonstrations.

Both capsule and rocket are intended as China’s future mainstays for its manned program, both in Earth orbit and beyond. Mengzhou is intended as the manned capsule that will get its astronauts to lunar orbit, where its Lanyue lunar lander will take them to and from the surface. Both will be launched separately by the Long March 10 rocket.

Long March 10 has been in development since 2017, and will have the ability to place 70 tons in low Earth orbit and 27 tons to lunar orbit. It is thus comparable to SLS, but costing far less with its first stage incorporating recovery and reuse. It will also be capable of launching much more frequently and at a much faster pace.

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A think tank releases its detailed review of the American satellite communications industry

11:09 am

The state of the satellite constellation industry
Go here and here for originals.

Link to the press release is here. To read the actual report go here.

The report was issued by the LEO Policy Working Group, which calls itself “an independent body dedicated to providing forward-looking, data-driven analysis and policy recommendations to ensure the successful and sustainable deployment of next-generation Low Earth Orbit satellite systems.” In reviewing the membership of this group, I noticed that only one member appeared drawn from the industry itself (a former OneWeb advisor). The rest of the members were from lobbying groups, government agencies, academia, or DC think tanks.

Thus, I immediately wondered if this report was aimed against SpaceX and its present dominance, designed to justify further government regulation against it.

In reviewing the report however it does not seem so, at least on the surface. The report very accurately and detail describes the present state of the industry and all the players, including all the present constellations in orbit or under construction. It also describes the state of the launch industry on which they depend, including the risks entailed by SpaceX’s present dominance. At the same time it also notes at length that there is no evidence that SpaceX is doing anything to take advantage of that dominance.

Its recommendations are generally vague, and can be summed up simply as “Government should remain vigilant but do nothing drastic at this time.”

The report’s main benefit however its overall summary of the industry, as well as its detailed description of how the spectrum is regulated by government agencies.
» Read more

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Is the German government holding up Rocket Lab’s purchase of German space communications company Mynaric?

10:08 am

Even though Rocket Lab announced in March that it was acquiring the German laser communications company Mynaric for $150 million, and entered into the stock purchase agreement in September, the company has not yet gotten approval for the purchase from the German government, raising questions that approval might be denied.

A central question for regulators and industry observers is whether Mynaric, once owned by Rocket Lab, would still be deemed a European entity — a status that could determine its eligibility to compete for Europe’s planned sovereign communications network, known as IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite). The multibillion-euro program, backed by the European Union, is designed to strengthen Europe’s independence in secure satellite communications and may restrict participation to European-controlled firms.

Those regulators however also have to consider whether IRIS will even fly. Designed to provide a government option to the internet constellations being operated or built by Starlink, Kuiper, and several Chinese projects, it is significantly delayed, vastly over budget, and unlikely to compete very successfully. There have been rumors several EU nations are even balking at building it at all.

If Rocket Labs’ purchase of Mynaric is denied, it will likely not harm that company significantly. It will however be another example of Europe cutting off its nose to spite its face. It will block this American company from providing business to Europe, even as its own government projects wither on the vine.

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Update on Vast’s first planned space station, Haven-1

9:51 am

Haven-2
Haven-2 station once completed

Link here. The article essentially puts together a number of X links that Jay has provided Behind the Black previously in his daily Quick Space Links reports to provide an overall picture. Two aspects stand out however.

One, the demo Vast launched this weekend on SpaceX’s bandwagon mission is expected to fly for about six months, and has successfully deployed its solar panels. During its flight the company will “test out key capabilities, such as Reaction Control Systems (RCS), power systems, and propulsion, in preparation for Haven-1”, which it hopes to launch in the spring.

Two, Haven-1’s planned mission remains unchanged. The company still intends to fly four crewed missions to it during its three-year mission, though who will make-up the crew and passengers remains unknown. This single module station is aimed at proving Vast’s capabilities at space station design and operation to convince NASA to award it a much larger contract to build its much larger Haven-2 multi-module station.

Max Haot [Vast’s CEO] described Haven-1 as the “minimum viable product”. With its one docking port and reliance on a SpaceX Crew Dragon for key life support systems, the station will enable the company to test out capabilities needed for larger stations in the future. The Dragon spacecraft requires a daily change of its CO2 scrubber; therefore, the station will launch with the necessary amount needed for 30-40 days on station for four astronauts.

All in all, Vast appears to be strongly demonstrating its capabilities, on schedule, making my listing it number one as most likely to win that big NASA contract increasingly correct. That ranking is made even more reasonable with the decision by NASA to now award several of those contracts, at smaller amounts, in a step-by-step process that matches milestones. Below is my updated rankings of the four commercial stations under development:
» Read more

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China launches “remote sensing” satellite, setting a new national record for annual launches

9:26 am

China early today successfully placed what its state-run press described as a “remote sensing satellite” aimed at Earth observations, its Long March 7 rocket lifting off from its Wenchang coastal spaceport.

The only thing that state-run presssaid was the satellite would “primarily [be] used in disaster prevention and relief, land resource surveys, hydrology, meteorology, and other related fields.” As for the launch, this was a coastal launch, with the rocket’s lower stages landing in the ocean.

This launch was the 67th for China in 2025, which breaks the annual record of 66 it set in 2023. As China tends to bunch more launches in the last two months of the year, expect it to add at least ten to this number.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

143 SpaceX
67 China (a new record)
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 143 to 110.

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Two former NASA administrators express wildly different opinions on NASA’s Artemis lunar program

1:07 pm

At a symposium yesterday in Alabama, former NASA administrators Charles Bolden and Jim Bridenstine expressed strong opinions about the state of NASA’s Artemis lunar program and the chances of it getting humans back to Moon before the end of Trump’s term in office and before China.

What was surprising was how different those opinions were, and who said what. Strangely, the two men took positions that appeared to be fundamentally different than the presidents they represented.

Charles Bolden
Charles Bolden

Charles Bolden was administrator during Barack Obama’s presidency. Though that administration supported the transition to capitalism, it also was generally unenthusiastic about space exploration. Obama tasked Bolden with making NASA a Muslim outreach program, and in proposing a new goal for NASA he picked going to an asteroid, something no one in NASA or the space industry thought sensible. Not surprisingly, it never happened.

Bolden’s comments about Artemis however was surprisingly in line with what I have been proposing since December 2024, de-emphasize any effort to get back to the Moon and instead work to build up a thriving and very robust competitive space industry in low Earth orbit:

Duffy’s current messaging is insisting it’ll be accomplished before Trump’s term ends in January 2029, but Bolden isn’t buying it. “We cannot make it if we say we’ve got to do it by the end of the term or we’re going to do it before the Chinese. That doesn’t help industry.”

Instead the focus needs to be on what we’re trying to accomplish. “We may not make it by 2030, but that’s okay with me as long as we get there in 2031 better than they are with what they have. That’s what’s most important. That we live up to what we said we were going to do and we deliver for the rest of the world. Because the Chinese are not going to bring the rest of the world with them to the Moon. They don’t operate that way.” [emphasis mine]

In other words, the federal government should focus on helping that space industry grow, because a vibrant space industry will make colonizing the Moon and Mars far easier. And forget about fake deadlines. They don’t happen, and only act to distort what you are trying to accomplish.

Meanwhile, Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator during Trump’s first term, continued to lambast SpaceX’s Starship lunar lander contract, saying it wasn’t getting the job done on time, and in order to beat the Chinese he demanded instead that the government begin a big government-controlled project to build a lander instead.
» Read more

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China launches three astronauts to its Tiangong-3 space station

9:24 am

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

No word from China’s state-run press where the rocket’s lower stages, which use very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed. The Shenzhou capsule is expected to dock with the station later today, which is tomorrow in China.

With this launch, China also tied the record it set in 2023 for the most successful launches in a single year, 66. The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

141 SpaceX
66 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 141 to 108.

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Latvia signs Artemis Accords

9:09 am

According to a report out of Latvia today, that nation has now signed the Artemis Accords, becoming the 60th nation to join this American-led space alliance.

The report, which apparently comes from a government agency aimed at encouraging industry in Latvia, also noted that Latvia had this year also became a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty.

Because of the government shutdown, there has been as yet no confirmation of Latvia’s signing. If confirmed, the full list of Artemis Accords signatories is as follows: The full list of nations who have signed the accords: 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, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Peru, Poland, 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.

With this signing, not only have all the former European subject nations to the Soviet Union joined, so have Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, all three of which were occupied and made part of the Soviet Union against their will after World War II. These events suggest that Russia’s neighbors really don’t like the bully that lives next door. It also suggests they are less fearful of it, as they are now willing to ally themselves with the U.S., located on the other side of the globe.

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SpaceX: Starship will be going to the Moon, with or without NASA

12:27 pm

Artist's rending of Starships on the Moon
SpaceX’s artist’s rending of Starships on the Moon.
Click for original.

In what appears to be a direct response to the claim by NASA’s interim administrator Sean Duffy that SpaceX is “behind” in developing a manned lunar lander version of Starship, SpaceX today posted a detailed update of the status that project, noting pointedly the following in the update’s conclusion:

NASA selected Starship in 2021 to serve as the lander for the Artemis III mission and return humans to the Moon for the first time since Apollo. That selection was made through fair and open competition which determined that SpaceX’s bid utilizing Starship had the highest technical and management ratings while being the lowest cost by a wide margin. This was followed by a second selection [Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander] to serve as the lander for Artemis IV, moving beyond initial demonstrations to lay the groundwork that will ensure that humanity’s return to the Moon is permanent.

Starship continues to simultaneously be the fastest path to returning humans to the surface of the Moon and a core enabler of the Artemis program’s goal to establish a permanent, sustainable presence on the lunar surface. SpaceX shares the goal of returning to the Moon as expeditiously as possible, approaching the mission with the same alacrity and commitment that returned human spaceflight capability to America under NASA’s Commercial Crew program.

The update then provides a list of the testing and engineering work that SpaceX has been doing on the Starship lunar lander, including full scale drop tests simulating lunar gravity, qualification of the docking ports, and the construction of a full scale mock-up of the Starship cabin to test its systems.

A close list of the work done is actually not that impressive, but at the same time this is not surprising. SpaceX is now mostly focused on getting Starship into orbit, proving it can be refueled there, and proving it can fly for long enough to get to the Moon. This part of the update was most exciting, as it confirms what I have suspected for next year’s flight program:
» Read more

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Colorado sues the Trump administration over its decision to move Space Force headquarters to Alabama

11:47 am

The Democratic Party attorney general of Colorado yesterday announced he is suing the Trump administration over its decision to relocate the headquarters of the Space Force from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser is suing President Donald Trump’s administration over its “retaliatory” decision to relocate U.S. Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.

In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado on Wednesday, Weiser wrote that the president “could not have been clearer about his motivations” for the move, citing Trump’s comments during the Oval Office announcement last month acknowledging that Colorado’s elections, which he falsely described as “crooked,” were a “big factor” in his decision.

That admission makes Trump’s decision to vacate Space Command’s temporary location in Colorado — the latest twist in a years-long battle over the permanent home of Space Force headquarters — an unconstitutional violation of state sovereignty, Weiser said in a press conference. “The executive branch isn’t allowed to punish, retaliate, or seek to coerce states who lawfully exercise powers that are reserved to them,” Weiser said. “And that includes the power to oversee the time, place and manner of elections.”

Weiser’s lawsuit has little chance of winning in court. No state can tell the federal government where to place its facilities, no matter what the reason. The suit is mainly a crumb Weiser is throwing to his local Democratic Party supporters, showing them he as is equally controlled by Trump Derangement Syndrome as they are.

I should note that I also strongly disagree with Trump’s decision in this case. It will cost a lot of money, and will gain us nothing. The military’s space operations have been based in Colorado for more than a half century. Though a major reorganization of this bureaucratic structure is warranted, it would be far better to reorganize it there, rather than try to recreate it elsewhere.

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Roscosmos forced to replace next manned Soyuz capsule due to damage during test

11:38 am

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos has replaced the Soyuz capsule it was going to use in the next manned mission to ISS, scheduled for launch in late November, because of “major damage” the capsule experienced during normal pre-flight testing.

[D]uring routine post-production tests at ZEM’s Checkout and Test Facility, KIS, Vehicle No. 759 reportedly suffered major damage to its thermal protection system, which could not be repaired in time for the Expedition 74 launch at the end of 2025. According to one source, quoting an officer within the military certification service, Voennaya Priemka, which traditionally oversees quality control in the Russian rocket and space industry, the ship’s main thermal control heat shield, attached to the base of the Descent Module, was accidentally jettisoned, perhaps by a stray signal triggering the pyrotechnic bolts, connecting the Frisbee-shaped structure to the capsule. According to another source, the thermal layers of the shield peeled off, as a result of botched thermal tests.

That Russia can quickly swap capsules this late in the game speaks well of its Soyuz capsule manufacturing process. It doesn’t just build one or two capsules, it has an assembly line.

That the capsule was damaged during the test however once again raises questions about the overall quality control within the Russian space industry, as well as the reliability of its workforce. It has been building Soyuz capsules now for more than a half century, during which it has steadily implemented upgrades along the way. For there to be “a stray signal triggering the pyrotechnic bolts” during routine testing is disturbing. The circumstances are too similar to the earlier sabotage to both Progress and Soyuz capsules, where the evidence suggested someone on the ground had drilled holes in their hulls prior to launch, then patched them to hide their existence until later while in orbit.

Under Putin the living wages of Russian engineers has suffered. It remains a distinct possibility that there are more than a few malcontents within Roscosmos willing to do such stuff. That Roscosmos investigated the previous sabotage, claimed it identified the cause, but refused to release any information about its conclusions, suggests strongly that this is what what happened in those earlier cases. This new incident in turn raises the possibility now of further sabotage.

It once again is critical that the U.S. get out of its space station partnership with Russia as soon as possible. There are too many known and unknown risks.

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A slew of propaganda today from China’s state-run press attempts to hide the delays in its manned lunar program

10:27 am

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

Generally China’s state-run news agency Xinhua posts no more than one to two short space-related articles per day, with most confined to simply announcing the launch of a rocket.

Today however that state-run agency posted a dozen short articles, linked it appeared to the two press conferences held in connection with tomorrow’s launch of a new crew to China’s Tiangong-3 space station.

The list above is not complete, leaving out a few other short propaganda pieces. Some of these stories — such as those directly related to that new crew launch tomorrow — could have easily been folded into one report. They were not, however, in order to create a large number of separate reports, which in turn hides the fact that there is only one news outlet reporting anything from those two press conferences.

Out of this plethora of stories, two news items stand out however. One, China has now agreed to fly a Pakistani to Tiangong-3. Negotiations for that mission began in 2018. Training has now finally begun. China is also moving forward on flying astronauts from Hong Kong and Macao, two places formally run by western powers that China now controls, quite oppressively. Like the Soviet Union, it is using its space program for propaganda stunts to distract those regions from its iron rule.

Second and more important, Chinese officials claim their program to do a manned lunar landing is still on schedule for a 2030 launch.
» Read more

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