Tag: politics

Turkey begins construction of spaceport in Somalia

9:07 am

Somalia

According to statements by one Turkish official this week, his nation has begun building its own spaceport on the southeast coast of Somalia at a location not yet specified.

Türkiye has begun construction of a space launch facility in Somalia, marking the country’s entry into an exclusive group of nations with oceanside spaceports, Board Chairman of Baykar Selcuk Bayraktar announced on Thursday. “Türkiye now has a space launch station. Normally, you need to be by the ocean. Türkiye has a 30 kilometer by 30 kilometer area in Somalia,” Bayraktar said during a panel at Take Off İstanbul 2025. “When you have oceanside access, you can deploy launch vehicles, meaning you have a spaceport. There are 12 such places in the world. Because Somalia is part of our heartland geography, there will be a space station there,” he noted.

This plan has been in the works since earlier this year, though few real details (such as its specific location) have not been released. It appears however that Turkey wants to use it to test both ballistic missiles and eventually launch orbital rockets. The location on the coast will permit test flights of bigger missiles that Turkey cannot do from its present test sites inside Turkey.

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China launches nine more Guowang internet-of-things satellites

8:56 pm

China today successfully launched another nine internet-of-things satellites for the Guowang (or SatNet) constellation, its Long March 12 rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport.

China’s state-run press did not reveal the number of satellites, but the previous three Long March 12 launches that carried Guowang satellites all launched nine, so I think it is safe to assume nine launched today as well. This was the sixteenth launch for this constellation, which now has about 119 satellites in orbit, with a planned 13,000 once complete.

The Long March 12 is expendable. Though the launch proceeded over the ocean, one drop zone for the rocket’s lower stages was in the Philippines, where authorities warned its citizens to avoid those zones and to exercise caution if they see any likely rocket debris.

An upgraded version, the Long March 12A, with a first stage designed to land vertically and be reused, is scheduled to launch sometime in the next two weeks.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

164 SpaceX
82 China (a new record)
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 164 to 134.

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French startup The Exploration Company now building an in-orbit servicing spacecraft

12:28 pm

The French startup The Exploration Company, which has been developing an unmanned cargo spacecraft called Nyx to supply the commercial space stations under development, has now also gotten funds from the European Space Agency (ESA) to build an in-orbit spacecraft designed to provide refueling and servicing capabilities as well.

More information here.

In a 25 November update on its progress with an ESA-funded project, the company revealed that it is also working on a spacecraft called Oura, designed to refuel satellites in orbit, thereby extending their operational lifespan.

…As part of the 25 November update, the company announced that it had been awarded a Phase B2 contract for the InSPoC-1 programme. The Phase B2 development of the project will include activities up to Technology Readiness Level 6, which represents the development of a prototype and its demonstration in a relevant environment.

Once again, this contract from ESA is radically different than its past policy of building and owning everything itself. Instead, it is hiring this French company to develop this capability, which this French company will then own and be able to sell for profits to others.

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Pentagon decides New Glenn must fly four times before its certifies it for military launches

11:33 am

Pentagon officials yesterday announced that before it will certify Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket for commercial military payloads, it must complete two more successful orbital launches, for a total of four flights.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will have to complete four successful orbital flights as its pathway to certification under the U.S. Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant said Dec. 10 at the Spacepower conference. Garrant, who leads the Space Systems Command, said Blue Origin selected the four-flight benchmark and the government agreed. “The government is supporting a four-flight certification for New Glenn,” he told reporters. The rocket has logged two successful missions so far, and Garrant said a third launch is expected “earlier in the new year than later.” If upcoming flights stay on track, he added, “I think they’re going to be in a fantastic place to become our third certified provider and compete for missions.”

If certified, Blue Origin would join SpaceX and United Launch Alliance as the Space Force’s third heavy-lift launch provider.

It is surprising that the military is requiring four successful flights from Blue Origin, but required only two from ULA’s new Vulcan rocket, and certified that even though there were problems on Vulcan’s second flight.

These extra flights should not cause a significant delay, since Blue Origin is expecting to complete a number of launches in 2026 to meet its obligations under its Amazon Leo contract

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Chinese astronauts complete spacewalk inspecting damaged Shenzhou capsule

12:53 pm

Two Chinese astronauts yesterday completed their first spacewalk since arriving on China’s Tiangong-3 space station, during which they inspected the damaged viewport on the Shenzhou-20 capsule as well as installed a cover to protective that damage when the capsule returns to Earth.

Shenzhou-21 mission commander Zhang Lu and rookie crewmate Wu Fei began an extravehicular activity (EVA) at 9:28 p.m. Eastern, Dec. 8 (0228 UTC, Dec. 9), when Zhang opened the Wentian experiment module airlock hatch and exited the Tiangong space station.

The more than eight-hour EVA concluded at 5:42 a.m. Eastern (1042 UTC) Dec. 9, with the pair safely back inside Tiangong. Zhang and Wu, wearing Feitian EVA suits with red and blue markings respectively, were assisted by the space station’s robotic arm, crewmate Zhang Hongzhang from inside Tiangong, and teams in mission control. New, upgraded Feitian suits were delivered to Tiangong via the July Tianzhou-9 cargo mission.

The first series of tasks centered on the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, the return module of which suffered a suspected debris impact to a viewport window, rendering the spacecraft unsafe to return its three-astronaut crew to Earth in early November. At around 12:19 a.m. Eastern, Zhang Lu approached the viewport window of the Shenzhou-20 return module while attached to the Tiandong robotic arm and photographed and assessed the damage.

China has said that the damage was caused by a millimeter-sized object that impacted at high speed. It has yet however to release any images of the damage, and provided no other details.

Thus, we still do not know the damage’s exact nature, other than what that state-run press has told us. It could very well be that this damage was caused by some other factor that China does not wish to reveal.

NOTE: This is a recreation of a post published on December 10, 2025 that was lost during this morning’s server outage.

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Academia makes its first comprehensive attempt to plan science missions to Mars using Starship

1:28 pm

Figure 2-2 from the NAS report
Figure 2-2 from the National Academies
of Science report

A new report released today by the National Academies of Science, entitled “Highest Priority Science for the First Human Missions to Mars,” is essentially the first attempt by the planetary science community to plan its future science missions to Mars using the gigantic capabilities that SpaceX’s Starship is expected to provide them.

You can download the report here.

Even though the report made the search for life on Mars its big priority — a bugaboo that NASA and the science community trots out repeatedly to garner clicks from the ignorant propaganda press — this report is radically different then all previous similar NASA studies proposing future Mars exploration, as indicated by the graphics from figure 2-2 of the report to the right. Unlike those past studies, which were badly limited by the inadequate capabilities of any spacecraft NASA could send to Mars, this new report recognizes how much the game is changed by SpaceX’s Starship.

First, the new panel did not attempt to place any limit on any landing zones. Earlier reports had forbidden landings in the high latitudes or high altitudes because of the risks to NASA’s proposed landers. Starship overcomes much of those risks, giving researchers much greater flexibility.

Second, the focus of the missions will not be solely devoted to scientific or geological research, as had been the case for all previous similar reports by NASA and the academic community. Instead, the proposed research goals includes important engineering and human exploration requirements outside of science, including efforts to use the resources on Mars itself as well as find locations better suited for human habitation. Once again, the vastly greater capabilities of Starship influenced this change.

Even more important, the study doesn’t assume the future missions will be unmanned, as all previous NASA reports have done. In fact, it does the opposite, proposing multiple 30-day manned missions, as shown in the graphic. One set of three missions would go to three different locations, while another set of three missions would focus on one place in particular.

Much of this shift towards manned flight I think stemmed from the presence on the panel of representatives from the private companies SpaceX and The Exploration Company (a French startup), as well as an engineer from the National Academy of Engineering. Previously studies were almost always entirely dominated by planetary scientists, so the goals outlined were always focused on their interests. Now the idea of human exploration has become prevalent.

The panel’s work was clearly also influenced by the realization that SpaceX’s Starship is not only far more capable, its first flights are just around the corner. SpaceX plans sending it numerous times to Mars in the very near future, as shown in the graphic below that Elon Musk released during a presentation in May 2025.
» Read more

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A new study blasts the European Union’s proposed space act

9:28 am

The European Union
This label would be more accurate if it read
“NOT made in the European Union”

A new study [pdf] just published by the generally leftist Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) has concluded that the proposed European Union’s space act would do great harm to both the European and American space industries if passed and should be reconsidered.

The economic analysis relied on the European Commission’s own estimates of increased compliance costs. The commission projected that the act would increase the cost of manufacturing a satellite in Europe by 2% and a launch vehicle by 1%. The study assumed companies would pass those costs on to customers through average price increases of 2.7%. Depending on price elasticity in each market segment, that could reduce demand by 1% to 13.6%. The resulting loss to European companies would be 245 million euros ($285 million) in annual revenue and 100 million euros in profits, the study concluded.

U.S. companies exporting to the EU would also be affected. The study estimates that American firms would lose 85 million euros in annual revenue and 7 million euros in profits from reduced European sales.

Officials from PPI are further quoted as opposed to the act as presently written, calling for a complete rewrite before passage. As PPI is a decidedly partisan leftwing think tank, formed initially by the Democratic Party in 1989, this clear public opposition to this decidedly leftwing top-down law suggests support for the bill is truly waning.

The bill itself won’t be voted on until the summer of 2026, and even if approved would not begin going into effect until 2027. Considering the opposition from the U.S. and other member nations of the European Union and the European Space Agency, it would demonstrate the EU’s utter disregard for its claimed democratic principles if it were to go ahead and ratify it as presently written. And that remains a possibility.

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Three astronauts return from ISS in Soyuz capsule

9:09 am

Early today one American and two Russians safely returned to Earth, their Soyuz capsule touching down on the plains of Kazakhstan after spending more than eight months on ISS.

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim returned to Earth on Tuesday alongside Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky, wrapping up an eight-month science mission aboard the International Space Station to benefit life on Earth and future space exploration. They made a safe, parachute-assisted landing at 12:03 a.m. EST (10:03 a.m. local time), southeast of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, after departing the space station at 8:41 p.m. on Dec. 8, aboard the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft.

Over the course of 245 days in space, the crew orbited Earth 3,920 times, traveling nearly 104 million miles. They launched to the space station on April 8. This mission marked the first spaceflight for both Kim and Zubritsky, while Ryzhikov completed his third journey to space, logging a total of 603 days in space.

There remains on ISS one Soyuz, with its crew of three, with a planned return in July 2026. Getting its replacement crew launched however remains an unknown right now because of the damage to the Soyuz-2 rocket launchpad in Baikonur that occurred when they were launched two weeks ago. Roscosmos has provided no public updates about its plans to fix the pad or replace it, and until such plans are revealed, the Russians have no ability to launch any further manned missions.

This is why I speculated earlier that the present Soyuz crew might be starting an extended mission, awaiting repairs to the launchpad.

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China completed two launches today

11:42 pm

China today completed two launches from two different spaceports, one a pseudo-commercial launch and the other a classified military payload.

First China launched the fifteenth set of satellites in the Guowang or SatNet internet-of-things satellite constellation, its Long March 6A rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in north China. According to China’s state-run press, this brings the total number of Guowang satellites in orbit to about 110, fewer than I had previously estimated. The final plan calls for a constellation of 13,000.

The second launch took place on December 9th (in China), with a Long March 4B rocket lifting off from China’s Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China, placing a classified satellite into orbit.

With both launches, China’s state-run press provided no information about where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China. This is especially critical with the Long March 4B, which uses very toxic hypergolic fuels that can dissolve your skin.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

161 SpaceX
79 China (a new record)
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 161 to 131.

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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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More than 300 companies in discussions in connection Space Force’s “Golden Dome” project

9:40 am

According to guarded remarks by the head of Trump’s “Golden Dome” project, he has been in negotiations with more than 300 aerospace companies as the Space Force begins preliminary design work on this missile defense system.

President Trump’s Golden Dome czar says he has held “one-vs.-one” talks with more than 300 private companies in recent months to hash out the secretive architecture of the futuristic missile defense shield that the administration is determined to put into operation over the entire U.S. homeland by mid-2028.

In his first public remarks since being named to the position in June, Gen. Michael A. Guetlein, vice chief of space operations at the U.S. Space Force, told an audience at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum that although the layered design of the Golden Dome remains classified, he is confident that “our industry partners have a pretty good insight into what we’re doing.”

The project, which remains mostly cloaked in secrecy, received $24.5 billion in funding this year from Congress, with that number expected to rise considerably in later years.

My sense from Guetlein’s remarks is that right now the project is simply gathering already existing missile defense assets under one roof in order to get something operational by 2028 as ordered by Trump. Guetlein is also getting the enthusiastic support of the industry — which sees big bucks flowing their way from Golden Dome in the coming years. Many of the new space startups have been shifting operations from civilian space to this military project in anticipation of this funding.

While the concept is not unreasonable, considering the success seen with the Pentagon’s Patriot system and Israel’s Iron Dome, the secret structure so far of Golden Dome is almost guaranteed to lend itself to corruption and wasteful spending, a systemic problem within our present federal government.

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Korean Air and Hyundai Rotem sign deal to develop methane-fueled rocket engine

9:15 am

Two South Korean companies, the airline company Korean Air and the railroad company Hyundai Rotem, have signed a partnership agreement to develop a methane-fueled rocket engine by 2030, funded by the government’s Korea Research Institute for Defense Technology Planning and Advancement (KRIT).

Korean Air will lead the development of the engine’s turbopump, a core component often described as the heart of the propulsion system. The turbopump compresses liquid methane and oxidizer at extremely high pressures and speeds. Its development requires advanced engineering capable of handling cryogenic temperatures of -180°C to several hundred degrees, while rotating tens of thousands of times per minute.

Hyundai Rotem is a division of the automobile company Hyundai, but its focus is building railroads. The press release does not say what it will do as part of this partnership.

It is also unclear from the press release whether these companies will be own this engine for sale to others, or are developing it for the government. If the latter, the project will have a much more limited potential.

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Russia and India agree to orbit their space stations in the same inclination, the same as ISS

8:02 am

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

According to statements made by Roscosmos head Dmitry Bakanov at a conference in New Delhi this week, Russia and India have agreed to orbit their planned new space stations in the same inclination as ISS, 51.6 degrees, and coordinate their operations at both stations.

By choosing the same orbital geometry for ROS [Russian Orbital Station] and BAS [Bharatiya Antariksh Station], Moscow and New Delhi are effectively planning a continuous “replacement belt” in low Earth orbit. After the ISS is retired, crewed spacecraft launched from Russia and India would still be able to reach a major laboratory complex without radically changing launch trajectories or infrastructure, and—crucially—could, in principle, travel between the two stations with relatively modest maneuvers compared with a full plane-change.

Bakanov’s New Delhi comments build on a broader Roscosmos–ISRO understanding that the two stations should be able to support cross-visits, resource sharing and coordinated operations once both are flying.

This high inclination is required because spacecraft launching from Russia’s high latitudes can’t reach lower inclinations practically. India could put its station at a lower inclination (being at a lower latitude), but if this story is true, it apparently has decided there are advantages using an orbit that will allow cross-missions with Russia, including launches from Russia.

India plans to launch the first module of its station in 2028, and have the entire station operational by 2035. Russia says it will launch is station’s first module by 2027, with full operations beginning by 2030. While both schedules are likely to see delays, we should expect India to get its station built, while Russia will likely struggle to launch even one module.

In fact, I suspect this deal is Russia’s effort to find some partner that can carry it in the future, when its own station gets delayed.
» Read more

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China launches another set of Guowang satellites

9:18 am

China today successfully launched the 14th set of the Guowang internet of things satellites (also called SatNet), its Long March 8A rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport.

China’s state-run press made no mention of the number of satellites launched. Based on previous launches by the Long March 8A, it was probably nine, bringing the total number of Guowang satellites in orbit to about 114, after fourteen launches. The final plan calls for a constellation of 13,000. Should take awhile to complete.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

159 SpaceX
77 China (a new record)
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 159 to 129.

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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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Airbus signs China’s Qianfan or Spacesail constellation to provide internet on its airplanes

10:14 am

In what is a major coup for one of China’s planned large constellations, Airbus yesterday agreed to use the Qianfan or Spacesail constellation to provide Wi-Fi service on its airplanes.

At a satellite internet industry ecology conference in east China’s Shanghai on Thursday, Airbus signed a market cooperation agreement on the satellite internet service with Shanghai Spacesail Technologies Co., Ltd. The Spacesail Constellation will provide high-speed, low-latency broadband satellite services via the high-speed connectivity system on aircraft, enhancing the in-flight experience for passengers.

The two parties will also work together to meet the needs of airlines, and promote the development of intelligent, personalized services based on low-orbit broadband communication technology.

Starsail is a direct competitor to Starlink. China has so far launched 119 satellites out of a planned first phase constellation of 648. Later phases could increase the constellation to as many as 10,000 satellites.

It seems puzzling why Airbus went with this Chinese constellation, rather than either Starlink or Amazon’s Leo (formerly Kuiper). Starlink is far more developed, while Leo has more satellites in orbit (154 to 119) than Spacesail. And both are private companies from the capitalistic west, not pseudo-companies controlled by the Chinese communists.

Maybe this deal is preliminary to a major purchase of Airbus airplanes by China. China wanted its system on those planes, and so Airbus agreed to go along.

Regardless, this deal tells us that this Chinese internet constellation is going to be a major competitor to both Starlink and Leo.

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China launches two small test communications satellites

9:35 am

China today successfully placed two experimental communications satellites into orbit, its solid-fueled Kuaizhou-1a rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

China’s state-run press provided no information on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed. The rocket is supposedly owned and operated by a Chinese pseudo-company, but its solid-fueled heritage clearly comes from military missiles, and thus could only have been developed and used under the full supervision of China’s military.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

159 SpaceX
76 China (a new record)
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 159 to 128.

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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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Boeing is still not off the hook for its malfeasance behind the two 737-Max crashes that killed 346

3:06 pm

Boeing Logo

It turns out that one week after a judge approved a plea deal in early November between Boeing and the Justice Department that would allows the company to avoid a criminal prosecution for its malfeasance and fraud that led to two 737-Max airplane crashes that killed a total of 346 people — thus dismissing the pending criminal charges — the families of the victims filed an appeal, asking a higher court to overturn that deal.

The families had argued before U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor that the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) non-prosecution agreement violated the judicial review provisions, which was reached behind closed doors without the families’ statutory right to confer. The writ of mandamus argues that no substantive proceedings before Judge O’Connor were held before he made his decision in favor of Boeing.

…DOJ initially presented Judge O’Connor with a non-prosecution agreement (NPA) that he rejected. Instead of coming back with something more stringent, DOJ presented Boeing with the lesser punishment of an NPA in which Boeing would merely pay a $243.6 million penalty, give $444.5 million to be divided amongst the 346 families, and make additional investments in its safety and compliance. In exchange, the DOJ agreed to dismiss the criminal charge against Boeing. On November 6, Judge O’Connor approved this revised NPA and granted the government’s motion to dismiss.

The families now look forward to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse this decision through its writ of mandamus. In the writ, Paul Cassell, pro bono, attorneys for the families and professor of the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah, argued on behalf of the families’ that the government’s NPA with Boeing would not provide sufficient oversight of Boeing and failed to account for the fact that Boeing’s criminal behavior was found to have caused the deaths of 346 crash victims. Boeing’s CEO and its lawyers had admitted to the fraud in a guilty plea issued four years ago.

In 2021 Boeing itself pleaded guilty to malfeasance and corruption charges, and was given three years to clean up its act or face criminal prosecution. When after three years Justice found Boeing had instead lied to it while doing little to fix things, it first proceeded with prosecution, only to suddenly back off and make this plea deal.

Thus, the families’ case is strong. Boeing is an admitted criminal and has also done nothing to change its behavior. Whether the families can get the plea deal overturned, however, remains unknown. The legal system no longer can be trusted when it comes to big government contractors like Boeing. The government acts routinely to protect them (as Justice is doing here), and thus there will be heavy political pressure on the courts to turn down this appeal.

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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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France’s space agency CNES found liable for environmental damage at French Guiana spaceport

9:36 am

French Guiana spaceport
The French Guiana spaceport. The Diamant launchsite is labeled “B.”
Click for full resolution image. (Note: The Ariane-5 pad is now the
Ariane-6 pad.)

France’s space agency CNES, which has taken back management from Arianespace of the French Guiana spaceport it owns, has now been found liable for destroying a protected habitat as it began construction to upgrade the old abandoned Diamant rocket launch site into a pad for several of Europe’s new commercial rocket startups.

In March 2022, the regional environmental authority of French Guiana (DGTM) formally informed CNES that it could not begin demolition or earthworks at the Diamant site without first securing the legally required species and water-law authorisations. Despite this, the agency leveled the area in the preceding weeks, with the environmental NGO CERATO discovering the destruction in April 2022.

In August 2022, the DGTM carried out an unannounced inspection of the Diamant site and found further destruction of protected habitats linked to the agency’s PV2 solar farm project. In October 2022, the PV2 project manager informed DGTM that CNES had known about the presence of protected species on the PV2 site since 1 July 2022, yet began earthworks anyway.

In response to repeated flouting of DGTM procedures, the Prefect of French Guiana, the top regional authority, issued a stop-work order requiring CNES to halt all works at both sites.

It appears this stop-work order has contributed to delays in construction. The news now is that the case appears to have been settled.

The agency has been ordered to repair the damage within three years or face a fine of €50,000. It will also be required to finance ecological compensation actions elsewhere on the grounds of the Guiana Space Centre. The conclusion of the lawsuit will allow the agency to fully resume construction at the site, which it had been ordered to stop in late 2022.

In other words, CNES has been told to spend money elsewhere at the spaceport to make the local environmental authorities happy. It remains unclear how these delays have or even will impact the plans of the Spanish rocket startup PLD, which hopes to do the first orbital launch of its Miura-5 rocket from this site in 2026. PLD expects the first flight-worthy Miura-5 to be delivered to French Guiana early next year, so the delays in French Guiana have not yet effected its plans. That might now change if the site won’t be ready as planned.

This whole story however does indicate a fundamental problem within all of Europe’s space regulatory infrastructure that in the future is likely to hinder the development of its new commercial space industry. Europe’s leadership likes its red tape, and has done nothing to reduce it as it has shifted from the government-run model (where it controls and owns everything) to the capitalism model (where it buys what it needs from an independent competing private sector).

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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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China’s Zhuque-3 copycat Falcon 9 reaches orbit on first launch; 1st stage crashes

10:32 pm

Zhuque-3 at launch
Screen capture from China’s
state-run press

The methane-fueled Zhuque-3 rocket built by China’s Landspace pseudo-company successfully reached orbit today on its first launch, though the attempt to land the first stage vertically for later reuse failed when it crashed near its landing zone.

The reusable rocket, designed by the Beijing-based commercial space company LandSpace, was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in China’s northwest at noon on Wednesday. After reaching a low-Earth orbit, the first stage of the rocket – the lower section that lifts the vehicle off the ground – appeared to catch fire in the air before crashing near the target recovery site.

I think a video of that failed landing can be seen here, though I cannot be sure, as it appeared to go up on youtube immediately at launch time, almost too soon.

For the Landspace pseudo-company, getting this rocket to orbit on the first try is a major success. It plans several more launches in the coming months, with each attempting a similar landing. Based on SpaceX’s history in this matter, it should not take it long to achieve its first landing success.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

158 SpaceX
75 China (a new record)
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 158 to 127.

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Blue Origin faces opposition renewing its permit to dump waste water at Florida launch facility

11:17 am

Chicken Little strikes again!
Chicken Little strikes again!

It appears several local politicians as well as the typical anti-everything activists are expressing opposition to Blue Origin’s request to renew its permit to dump waste water at its Florida launch facility.

Some county commissioners have concerns about the proposal because of how much money and effort has gone to cleaning up the Indian River. “That’s really troubling to me especially when we are spending so much money as a community on the half-cent sales tax and the save the Indian River Lagoon tax,” said Brevard County Commissioner Katie Delaney.

Space experts say large-scale companies don’t necessarily follow rules and regulations put on them. “There has been all sorts of industrial waste issues associated with the aerospace industry not just here in Florida but all across the country,” Florida Tech space professor, Don Platt, said.

The water is likely that used during launches to dampen the shock produced by the rocket’s engines, and like SpaceX’s systems, is almost certainly potable and harmless. This is also a permit that Blue Origin obtained five years ago and has used without harm during all its launchpad tests and launches.

None of this whining really matters, as it appears the county commission has no authority over the matter. The permit was issued by the state’s environmental department which will almost certainly approve the renewal. It is just unfortunate that these whiners almost always get positive coverage from our propaganda press. In this case the local Fox affiliate that reported the story clearly made no effort to research anything. It just simply spouted back the grumbles of these politicians and activists.

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China reveals its plans for the damaged Shenzhou-20 capsule docked to Tiangong-3

9:28 am

The Tiangong-3 station, as presently configured
The Tiangong-3 station, as presently configured,
with two Shenzou capsules docked at either end.

Having successfully docked Shenzhou-22 as a lifeboat to its Tiangong-3 space station last week, China’s state-run press yesterday outlined its plans for the damaged Shenzhou-20 capsule that is still docked to the station but cannot be used by its crew because of cracks in one viewport.

First, China’s space operations have decided to attempt a return of the capsule back to Earth, unmanned, so the damage can be inspected in greater detail. Before that happens however the astronauts on board the station will do their own inspection, including the possibility of adding a patch.

During a subsequent spacewalk, the Shenzhou-21 crew, who are now undertaking a six-month orbital stay, may be tasked with inspecting the cracked viewport. They may also perform protective work on it using specialized devices delivered by the Shenzhou-22 launch — a procedure still being validated in ground tests, said Ji in a recent CCTV interview.

A day prior to their planned return on Nov. 5, the Shenzhou-20 crew spotted an anomaly on the viewport’s edge — a triangular, paint-like mark. They photographed it from multiple angles and under different lights, while the station’s robotic arm cameras were employed to take supplemental external pictures.

The flaw was later identified as “penetrating cracks,” said Jia Shijin, chief designer of the crewed spaceship system from China Academy of Space Technology. “The space debris responsible is preliminarily judged to be less than a millimeter in size, but struck with extremely high speed.”

This description of the damage is the most detailed China as yet revealed. These details certainly fit the description of an impact from an outside source, though considering China’s general lack of transparency some skepticism should still be retained. For example, we still do not know if these “penetrating cracks” mean the capsule is no longer holding its atmosphere, or if the crew has closed the capsule’s hatch to keep the air loss to a minimum.

Either way, it appears China’s engineers are concerned that this damage could cause a major break-up of the capsule during re-entry, and are thus considering options for covering it during that return.

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German rocket startup Isar gets launch contract from ESA

8:25 am

The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace yesterday announced it has won a launch contract from the European Space Agency (ESA) to place a satellite carrying a number of experimental payloads into orbit before the end of 2026.

Satellite launch service company Isar Aerospace has signed a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) to launch the ΣYNDEO-3 mission under the European Union’s In-Orbit Demonstration and In-Orbit Validation Programme (IOD/IOV). The launch will be carried out from Isar Aerospace’s dedicated launch complex at Andøya Space in Norway from Q4 2026.

…Redwire is the prime contractor for the ΣYNDEO-3 mission and will be delivering its Hammerhead spacecraft for a launch onboard Isar Aerospace’s launch vehicle Spectrum to a low Earth orbit (LEO). The spacecraft was built and integrated at Redwire’s state-of-the-art satellite processing facility in Belgium. The spacecraft aggregates 10 innovative payloads from six countries and institutions: Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the EC.

Isar has yet to reach orbit with its Spectrum rocket. The first launch failed in March only seconds after launch. A second attempt is presently scheduled for sometime prior to December 21, 2025, lifting off from Andoya.

This is the second new launch contract Isar has announced in the past two weeks, and the third since September. At the moment it appears it is gaining momentum pending that first launch later this month, especially because a successful December launch would make it the first European rocket startup to successfully reach orbit.

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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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SpaceX gets Air Force approval to launch and land Starship/Superheavy at Cape Canaveral

12:01 am

Cape Canaveral

The Air Force announced late yesterday [pdf] that it will now allow SpaceX to launch its Starship/Superheavy rocket at Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral in Florida (as shown on the map to the right) as many as 76 times per year, with twice that number of landings.

The DAF [Department of Air Force] decision authorizes SpaceX to use SLC-37 at CCSFS [Cape Canaveral Space Force Station] to support Starship-Super Heavy launch and landing operations, including the redevelopment of SLC-37 and the other infrastructure improvements required and analyzed in the FEIS [Final Environmental Impact Statement]. Under this ROD [record of decision], upon execution of the real property agreement and associated documentation, and as analyzed in the FEIS while adhering to the mitigation measures specified in Appendix A to this ROD, SpaceX is authorized to: (1) undertake construction activities necessary to re-develop SLC-37 and associated infrastructure for Starship Super Heavy operations; (2) conduct prelaunch operations, including the transportation of launch vehicle components and static fire tests; and (3) conduct up to 76 launches and 152 landings annually once a supplemental analysis of airspace impacts by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is completed. [emphasi mine]

The deal also requires SpaceX to do some road upgrades in order to transport the rocket from its Gigabay to the launch tower. The company immediately announced on X yesterday that it has already begun construction, and expects to have three pads in Florida before all is done.

The final environmental impact statement [pdf] was released on November 20, 2025, and concluded in more than 200 pages that there will be no significant impact from these launch operations, something that should be self-evident after more than three-quarters of century of rocketry at the Cape. The existence of the spaceport acts to protect wildlife, because it limits development across a wide area.

The report suggested that some turtle species and one mouse specie might “affected adversely”, but it it also appears that risk was considered minor and not enough to block development. To deal with this however the impact statement requires SpaceX to do a number of mitigation actions, similar to what it is required to do at Boca Chica.

One fact must be recognized, based on the red tape and delays experienced by SpaceX during the Biden administration. Had Kamala Harris and the cadre that ran the White House under Biden had been in office now, this approval would almost certainly have not happened, or if it did, it would have likely been delayed for a considerable amount of time, into next year at the earliest. It is certain that Trump is clearing the path to prevent red tape and the administrative state from slowing things down unnecessarily.

This announcement also strengthens the likelihood that SpaceX will do at least one launch of Starship/Superheavy from Florida in 2026. And if not then, by 2027 for sure.

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Two launches today, by Arianespace and SpaceX

10:36 pm

Today there were two launches worldwide, one from South America and the second from the U.S.

First, Arianespace launched a South Korea imaging satellite from French Guiana, using the Vega-C rocket built and owned by the Italian rocket company Avio. Based on the July 2024 agreement, this is the next-to-last Vega-C flight that Arianespace will manage. After the next flight, Avio will take over management of its own rocket, cutting out this government middle man, though that agreement also allowed customers who had previously signed with Arianespace for later flights to stay with it as the managing organization.

Either way, Arianespace’s responsibilities will soon be limited solely to the Ariane-6 rocket, which itself has a limited future, being expendable and too expensive to compete in the present launch market.

Next SpaceX launched another 27 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage completed its 20th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

As the Vega-C launch was only the sixth for Europe in 2025, it remains off the leader board for the 2025 launch race:

157 SpaceX (a new record)
74 China
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 157 to 126.

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A detailed look at Europe’s $1 billion commitment to its nascent commercial rocket industry

11:12 am

The European Space Agency

Link here. In announcing last week the European Space Agency’s (ESA) budget for the next three years, along with its general overall goals, the European council (dubbed CM-25) also apparently committed about $1.45 billion to its “European Launcher Challenge”, a program created in 2023 and designed to encourage the development of new European rockets, owned and operated by independent competing startups.

The article at the link provides a good overall summary of major increase in funding for this program, including which ESA countries are contributing the most and why. The key quote however is this:

In July 2025, ESA shortlisted Isar Aerospace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD Space, MaiaSpace, and Orbex to proceed to the initiative’s next phase. It then began discussions with the host country of each company to assess its willingness to contribute to that company’s participation in the European Launcher Challenge.

During his post-CM25 address, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher revealed that Member States had committed double the anticipated amount for the European Launcher Challenge, with the final figure exceeding €900 million. While the funding model’s structure suggests that only the UK, Spain, France, and Germany contributed, post-CM25 disclosures have indicated that a few additional countries also committed funds to the programme.

Germany appears to be the biggest contributor, supplying more than a third of the total fund ($422 million). This isn’t surprising, since Germany also has the most rocket startups, three, two of which are on that shortlist (Rocket Factory and Isar). Spain is next with a contribution of $196 million, aimed helping the rocket startup PLD. The UK is next, also contributing $196 million, likely to be used to support its Orbex startup that wants to launch from its Saxavord spaceport in the Shetland Islands.

A variety of other ESA nations, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Norway, have also outlined their contributions, for a variety of space-related startups unrelated to rockets.

France also appears to have donated a significant amount, but has not made that number public. Its MaiaSpace startup is one on that shortlist above, but France also has one or two other rocket startups that might eventually qualify for aid.

The bottom line is that ESA here is committing funding to aid the development of rockets and space infrastructure that it won’t own or control, a major shift from its past policy of owning and controlling everything through its Arianespace pseudo-commercial company, what I call the Soviet- or government-run model. Instead, these ESA nations are going to help fund a range of competing private rockets, which will own the rockets and operate them for profit. ESA will simply become one of their customers, following the capitalism model that the U.S. switched to in the previous decade.

This increased commitment to capitalism in the ESA suggests that we should see some real progress by these startups in the next three years.

If you think the launch records being set this year are breath-taking, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

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