Tag: policy

October 23, 2025 Quick space links

3:01 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

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China launches a “communication technology test” satellite

1:21 pm

Using its most powerful rocket, the Long March 5, China today placed in orbit what its state-run press called a “communication technology test satellite”, the rocket lifting off from China’s coastal Wenchang spaceport.

Though the rocket’s flight path over the ocean meant its lower stages would not crash on land, China did warn the Philippines that some of the drop zones were within its fishing regions, and that fishermen should stay out for about an hour this morning.

China’s state-run press provided no details about the satellite. That it needed a very powerful rocket suggests it is some variation of AST SpaceMobile’s very large Bluebird satellites for providing direct phone-to-satellite service. If so, this is just another example of China copying the work of a private company in the west.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

136 SpaceX
64 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 136 to 105.

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Hungary becomes the 57th nation to sign the Artemis Accords

8:01 am

NASA’s acting administrator, Sean Duffy, announced yesterday in a tweet that Hungary has now signed the Artemis Accords.

There was no NASA press release because of the government shutdown.

Hungary is now the 57th nation to sign the accords. The full list of nations now part of this American space alliance: 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, 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 United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

The addition of Hungary means that almost the entire European portion of the former Soviet bloc has now joined the alliance. I suspect the desire of these nations to ally with the U.S. and the west is a reflection of their fear of Russia, which has not been kind to its neighbors, both during the Cold War as well as recently.

It still remains to be seen if this alliance will be used by the American government to encourage property rights in space, something that the Outer Space Treaty presently outlaws. That appeared to be its original goal when the accords were created during the first Trump administration. That goal however was abandoned during the Biden administration, making the accords alliance more of a globalist collective in support of the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions.

So far during Trump’s second administration no action has been taken to reassert those original goals.

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What bad news is NASA hiding about the heat shield it will use on the next Orion/SLS manned mission around the Moon?

3:59 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”

Even as our uneducated media goes bonkers over another Musk kerfuffle, this time with interim NASA administration Sean Duffy, it is ignoring what now appears to be a strong effort by NASA to cover up some serious issues with the Orion capsule’s heat shield, issues that might be far more serious than outlined in a May 2024 inspector general (IG) report.

That IG report [pdf] found the following:

Specifically, portions of the char layer wore away differently than NASA engineers predicted, cracking and breaking off the spacecraft in fragments that created a trail of debris rather than melting away as designed (see Figure 3 [shown to the right]). The unexpected behavior of the Avcoat creates a risk that the heat shield may not sufficiently protect the capsule’s systems and crew from the extreme heat of reentry on future missions. Moreover, while there was no evidence of impact with the Crew Module, the quantity and size of the debris could have caused enough structural damage to cause one of Orion’s parachutes to fail. Should the same issue occur on future Artemis missions, it could lead to the loss of the vehicle or crew.

In our judgment, the unexpected behavior of the heat shield poses a significant risk to the safety of
future crewed missions. [emphasis mine]

NASA spent the next few months reviewing the situation, and decided in December 2024 that it did not have the time or funding to redesign and replace the heat shield before the next flight. Instead, it chose to fly the next manned Orion mission — dubbed Artemis-2 and scheduled for the spring of 2026 carrying four astronauts around the Moon — using this same heat shield design but change the flight path during reentry to reduce stress on the shield.

NASA also admitted then that this heat shield design is defective, and that it will replace it beginning with the next mission, Artemis-3, the one that the agency hopes will land people back on the Moon.

The decision to fly humans in a capsule with such a known untrustworthy heat shield design is bad enough. Any rational person would not do this (as the inspector general above concluded). Yet NASA is going ahead, because it has determined that meeting its schedule, getting Americans back to the lunar surface ahead of China and during Trump’s present term of office, is more important than rational engineering and testing.

What now makes this decision even more worrisome is that it appears NASA is covering up the findings of its own engineers, completed in August 2024 but not made public until now.
» Read more

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Duffy’s shiny object worked

9:21 am

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

As expected, Elon Musk responded yesterday with anger and insults to the announcement by interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy that he will consider other manned lunar landers besides Starship for the first Artemis landing on the Moon.

And as expected, our brainless and generally uneducated propaganda press grabbed the shiny object that Duffy had put out with this announcement to focus entirely on the public spat. Here is just a sampling of the typical reports:

Not one of these articles reported the fact that Duffy’s announcement also included an admission that NASA is now delaying this manned Moon mission until 2028. Not one went into any depth as to why this program is delayed, if they discussed it at all. And any articles that did discuss the program’s overall slow pace, the focus was always entirely on SpaceX, as if its Starship program was the sole cause of all the problems. Essentially, they picked up Duffy’s talking points and ran with them, blindly. In fact, for almost all of these articles, it appeared as if the reporter was writing about NASA’s Artemis program for the first time, and really knew nothing about it.

Only the Ars Technica story attempted some thoughtful analysis, but it focused on the office politics of choosing NASA’s next administrator, missing entirely the fundamentals of this story, that the Artemis program is and has always been a mess, and that Duffy’s decision will do nothing to fix the problem.

Musk of course foolishly played into Duffy’s hands by reacting so violently, with insults, helping Duffy distract from the real issues. At the same time, Musk also spoke truth with this one tweet:
» Read more

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Fake blather from NASA administrator Sean Duffy to hide more Artemis delays

9:47 am

Sean Duffy
Sean Duffy: “Look at the shiny object!”

During a press interview yesterday, interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy revealed almost as an aside that NASA’s mid-2027 launch for the first Artemis manned lunar landing is no longer realistic, and that NASA is now targeting a 2028 launch date instead.

Duffy managed to hide this revelation by also announcing that he is re-opening the bidding for the manned lunar lander NASA will use on that third Artemis mission. To quote Duffy:

Now, SpaceX had the contract for Artemis III. By the way, I love SpaceX and it’s an amazing company, but the problem is, they are behind. They pushed their timelines out and we are in a race against China. The president and I want to get to the moon in this president’s term. So, I’m going to open up the contract and I’m going let other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin. Whatever one gets us there first to the moon, we are going to take. If SpaceX is behind and Blue Origin can do it before them, good on Blue Origin.

By the way we might have two companies that can get us back to the Moon in 2028.

The propaganda press of course is going wild about this SpaceX announcement, making believe it signifies something of importance. “SpaceX is behind! Elon Musk can’t do it! Duffy is giving Jeff Bezos the job!” And as I think Duffy intended, everyone is ignoring the fact that NASA has now admitted it won’t meet that 2027 launch target.

The irony is that Duffy’s decision to re-open bidding on that manned mission is utterly meaningless. » Read more

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The “No Kings” demonstrations this past weekend showed the future belongs to the right

11:25 am

Contrasting the protesters from the left and the right
Click here and here for sources.

This past weekend hundreds of thousands of leftist protesters gathered in numerous cities nationwide to protest Donald Trump under the strange banner of “No Kings” that somehow portrayed Trump as a new king attempting to subvert democracy. Numerous commenters on the webpage have documented the protest’s emptiness, noting that it offered no real policy options except a desire to have Donald Trump removed from office (violently in many cases), even though he was properly elected by law.

Many others, including an NBC anchor, also could not help noticing the aged nature of the protesters.

So from what we can see from our viewpoint here in the studio and talking to our crew on the ground and some people I know who are there, this is an older crowd. There’s not a lot of folks, and granted, it’s a big crowd here, I’m not good at estimating, but it’s definitely over 2000, maybe close to 3000. We can’t see everyone, but it’s an older crowd, a lot of white hair you see out there, Q-tips, as we used to call them in the business. They are out protesting, and not a lot of young people.

None of this is a surprise. The strongest base of the Democratic Party is the 1960s baby boom crowd that protested the Vietnam War in the 1960s, celebrated sex, drugs, and rock & roll, and has never found a Democrat they did not love blindly. For the past decade this aging Baby Boom generation has been repeatedly told to hate Trump, and this past weekend’s demonstration allowed these old hippies the chance to show off how well they have been indoctrinated by the left.

What was far more striking about this event to me however was the contrast between the old, white-haired “No Kings” protesters and the very youthful attendees at every single conservative demonstration or event. » Read more

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Debris from suspected Chinese rocket discovered in western Australia

9:00 am

Though it has not yet been confirmed, a burned tank has been found in western Australia that is thought to come from the fourth stage of China’s solid-fueled Smart Dragon-3 rocket that lifted off from an ocean platform on September 24, 2025.

Suspected space junk that crashed near an iron ore mine in remote WA has been linked to a Chinese rocket launch, as authorities continue to probe the object’s origin. The smoking [sic] piece of debris was found on Saturday about 30 kilometres east of Newman, on a BHP mine access track.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau and WA Police are investigating, but Flinders University space archaeologist Alice Gorman said she believed the debris was from the fourth stage of a Chinese rocket called Jielong [Smart Dragon].

If that debris is from the September launch, there is no where it was “smoking” when found two days ago. The images of the object simply show it to be well-blackened from its trip. It is also not clear when the object fell to Earth, making pinpointing its source more difficult.

If it is from China’s Smart Dragon-3 rocket, it suggests China has more work to do to keep its rockets’ stages from falling on land. Smart Dragon-3’s launch from an ocean platform just off China’s northeast coast, so one would think the lower stages would all fall in the ocean. In this case it appears the problem is similar to what has happened to some parts of the service module from de-orbiting SpaceX Dragon cargo capsules. The company found that if it allowed the service module to fall on its own, some parts would hit the ground. It has since changed its de-orbit procedures to guarantee this won’t happen any longer.

China needs to do the same. Based on its past record, it is not clear it will make any effort to do so.

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South Korea issues launch license to Korean rocket startup Innospace

8:36 am

Engineering test prototype during tests
Engineering prototype of Hanbit-Nano testing portable
launchpad. Click for original image.

The South Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA) today issued its first launch license for a private South Korean rocket company, clearing the way for the first launch Innospace’s Hanbit-Nano rocket in the next few weeks from Brazil’s Alcantera spaceport.

For the launch, Innospace has set a launch window from Oct. 28 to Nov. 28. The launch window refers to the period during which the actual launch can take place. Initially, it was set for Oct. 28 to Nov. 7, but was extended to Nov. 28 after coordinating launch inspection procedures, mission stability and joint operation schedules with the Brazilian Air Force.

Innospace said the upcoming launch will also mark the first commercial vehicle launch from a Brazilian space center, adding that Brazilian authorities have provided active support to ensure optimal conditions and a stable launch. While the launch site is operated by the Brazilian Air Force, Innospace will use its own independently built launch platform for the mission.

The rocket will carry five smallsats and three other payloads, one of which is from a South Korean beer company.

If successful, Innospace will become the first commercial rocket startup outside the U.S. to get to orbit, excluding the pseudo-companies in China. The launch will also re-open Brazil’s long abandoned Alcantera spaceport, off of its northeast coast. Used only a few times in the 1990s and then shut down when the Brazilian government abandoned its rocket program, Brazil has been trying to get commercial rocket companies to come there now for about five years, with little success.

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The three launches completed today including two major new achievements

12:33 pm

The beat goes on: There were three launches globally today, repeating a pattern we’ve seen several times in the past few weeks, with China completing one launch and SpaceX completing two.

First, China’s solid-fueled Kinetica-1 (Lijian-1) rocket placed three Pakistani satellites into orbit, one of which is what Pakistan’s state-run press claimed was its first multi-spectral environmental satellite. China’s press also provided no information about where Kinetica-1’s lower stages crashed inside China, having launched from its Jiuquan spaceport in the country’s northwest. The rocket itself is supposedly commercial, but it is built by a government agency, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the government state-run press illustrated this by making no mention of this agency in reporting the launch.

Next, SpaceX set a new record for the reuse of a Falcon 9 first stage in placing 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, the rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage, B1067, completed its 31st flight, a new record for a Falcon 9 first stage, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The updated rankings for the most reflights of a rocket:

39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
31 Falcon 9 booster B1067
29 Falcon 9 booster B1071
28 Columbia space shuttle
28 Falcon 9 booster B1063
27 Falcon 9 booster B1069

Sources here and here.

Finally, less than two hours later, SpaceX launched another 28 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage completed its 11th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

With these two launches, SpaceX has now placed more than 10,000 Starlink satellites into orbit, though a large percentage have been de-orbited over the years as the company has upgraded the satellites. Nonetheless, the number of Starlink satellites presently in orbit far exceeds all the satellites now in orbit for every other planned constellation, combined.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

135 SpaceX
63 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 135 to 104.

In the coming days the global rocket industry will also achieve a number of additional milestones. SpaceX is just two launches short of its record of 137 launches achieved last year, while the U.S. is just three launches short of its own record of 157 launches, also set last year. Similarly, China is just three launches short of its own record of 66 set in 2023.

Globally, the world has presently completed 239 successful launches in 2025, a number only exceeded by the 2024 record of 256. Expect this record also to fall before the end of the year.

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China launches 18 satellites

8:56 am

China today successfully placed 18 more Spacesail or Qianfan satellites in orbit, its Long March 6A rocket lifting off from Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China. No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China.

This was the sixth launch for this internet satellite constellation, intended to provide Chinese citizens service similar to Starlink, but controlled by the Chinese government. At present it has 119 satellites in orbit, out of a planned 648 in the constellation’s first phase. That phase was supposed to be completed by the end of this year, something that now seems very unlikely. The constellation’s final configuration could have as many as 10,000 satellites.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

133 SpaceX
62 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 133 to 103.

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ESA awards contract to Italian company to provide an ocean landing platform

10:19 am

Avio's proposed reusable upper stage
Click for original.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded the Italian company Ingegneria Dei Sistemi (IDS) a contract to build an ocean vessel for recovering the planned reusable test upper stage being built by the Italian rocket company Avio, as shown in the graphic to the right.

In late September, ESA awarded a €40 million contract to Avio for the design of a reusable rocket upper stage. The project scope encompasses preliminary design work, including system requirements and technological solutions, for both the launch system and the ground segment. According to the agency, the project has a number of potential applications, including as an evolution of Avio’s Vega family of rockets.

On 15 October, IDS announced that it had been awarded the contract to design the project’s recovery vessel, which falls under the systems ground segment. The company has subcontracted Italian naval systems consultancy Cetena and Norwegian shipbuilder Vard to assist with the project.

ESA very clearly is trying to encourage the development of reusable rockets by Europe’s private sector, but the nature of this particular program seems badly thought out. Rather than have Avio design the system in its entirety, in order to make it as efficient and profitable as possible, it appears ESA is micromanaging the design process, and thus bringing other subcontractors in who are outside Avio’s control. As a result, the final demo might work, but it is not likely it will be competitive with the private reusable rockets being built in the U.S. and elsewhere. Too many cooks in the kitchen.

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