Tag: politics

One more launch yesterday for China

9:00 pm

Though China has still not issued any official update, it appears the Chinese pseudo-company Expace successfully placed seven satellites into orbit yesterday, its Kuaizhou-11 solid-fueled rocket lifting off from China’s Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

The launch itself was observed by locals, and later spent stages were found in “established hazard zones” in China. No announcement of any kind however has been released by China. There were rumors of a failure of the upper stages or the payloads, but according to Space Force tracking data, the launch itself appears to have been a success.

Tracking data from the U.S. Space Force suggests that Kuaizhou-11 achieved orbit and deployed seven satellites, then performed a deorbit burn. Based on the orbital inclination, 55 degrees, and source chatter, those satellites likely belong to Future Navigation’s positioning service, being its third deployment of them.

The lack of any announcement so far from China suggests some or all of the satellites had issues.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

72 SpaceX
40 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 72 to 68.

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NASA awards Relativity the launch and management contract for new Mars orbiter

4:31 pm

NASA today awarded the rocket startup Relativity the contract to provide the service module, rocket, and operations for the launch of its proposed four instrument Aeolus Mars orbiter, focused on studying the Martian atmosphere.

NASA will provide the Aeolus atmospheric‑science instrument payload suite, while Relativity Space supplies the spacecraft, rocket, and cruise operations necessary to deliver the instruments to Mars.

…Aeolus, scheduled to launch in 2028, is a NASA‑developed suite of four complementary instruments designed to provide the first integrated, daily, global view of Martian winds, temperatures, dust, and clouds. By improving models for dust, winds, temperature, and seasonal atmospheric behavior, Aeolus will generate the detailed environmental knowledge required to reduce risk for future crewed and uncrewed landings. These measurements will directly inform entry, descent, and landing systems and support safer, more predictable mission planning for astronauts.

…NASA will support operations of science instruments for at least one Martian year, while Relativity Space maintains the spacecraft.

The announcement made no mention of contract price. Relativity meanwhile has only launched once, a failure of its small Terran-1 rocket in 2023, after which the company abandoned that 3D-printed design to focus on its larger Terran-R rocket, which it hopes to launch for the first time before the end of this year.

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Tianwen-2 appears to be correctly approaching its target asteroid Kamo-oalewa

9:41 am

Though China has made no official update on the status of Tianwen-2, its first asteroid sample return mission, the spacecraft’s maneuvers that amateurs have been tracking suggest it is approaching its target asteroid Kamoʻoalewa as planned, with a rendezvous set for July.

Despite the lack of official updates, the observed maneuvers fit the approach sequence described in Tianwen-2’s mission design. According to a paper by Zhang Rongqiao and colleagues published in SCIENTIA SINICA Physica, Mechanica & Astronomica, the spacecraft’s approach to Kamo’oalewa follows a planned sequence of phases, including the June 7 rendezvous, concluding when the probe has closed to within 20 kilometers of the asteroid’s surface, marking the starting point for close-proximity science operations. This will include global mapping and surveying and sample site selection.

A mission engineer, delivering a presentation on behalf of Zhang He at the 35th Meeting of the NASA Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG) June 11, confirmed Tianwen-2 is scheduled to arrive at Kamo’oalewa in July, without providing details on current distance from the asteroid.

The mission is somewhat similar in concept to NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex and Japan’s Hayabusa-2 asteroid missions, both of which rendezvoused with an asteroid and grabbed samples to return to Earth. China however has posted little information about Tianwen-2, including few pictures. One can’t help wondering if this reticence is because the spacecraft’s design its stolen, and China doesn’t want to make this obvious. It is known that China hacked into the computer systems of JPL, NASA, and Japan’s space agency JAXA.

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Cargo Dragon splashes down in Pacific after spending a month at ISS

9:04 am

ISS today, after undocking of cargo Dragon
ISS today, after undocking of cargo Dragon.
Click for original.

SpaceX today successfully recovered a cargo Dragon from ISS, the capsule undocking and splashing down in the Pacific, bringing back a variety of experimental samples and hardware.

Research returning includes bioprinted organ and cartilage tissue, data on improving cryogenic fuel storage for future space missions, and DNA‑inspired materials to develop new cancer treatments. The returning hardware includes an ocular imaging device used to monitor crew members’ eye health, an absorbent bed that filters trace contaminants from cabin air, and a separator pump from the waste and hygiene compartment.

The Dragon had spent a month at ISS, just long enough for astronauts to unload its cargo from Earth and place this ISS material aboard.

The graphic to the right, cropped, reduced, and annotated to post here, shows the present spacecraft docked to ISS. It also shows the location of Russia’s leaking Zvezda module, with a Progress docked to its aft port. Note that a Progress and the permanent modulc are also docked to its bow docking hub. Zvezda is an essential part of the Russian half of ISS. Replacing it is impossible.

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Four launches, two by China, one by SpaceX, and one by Arianespace

8:01 am

The beat goes on. Since yesterday the global rocket industry completed four separate launches on three separate continents.

First, China’s Long March 3B rocket placed “an experimental satellite” into orbit, lifting off yesterday from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China. The state-run press provided no information as to where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

China followed up with the launch of another nine satellites in the Guowang (Satnet) internet constellation, its Long March 12 rocket lifting off today from its coastal Wenchang spaceport. This was the 22nd launch for this constellation, bringing the total number of operational satellites in orbit to 175, according to the report at the link, which also added this:

This year, it is planned that 310 satellites will be deployed, followed by 900 in 2027, and 3,600 every year beginning in 2028 to sustain and grow the constellation. In the 2030s, up to 13,000 satellites could be in operational orbit.

Though launched over the ocean, the rocket’s lower stages fell within the territorial waters of the Philippines, requiring its space agency to issue a warning to local residents and boat owners.

Next SpaceX in the early morning hours successfully launched three Bluebird satellites for AST SpaceMobile’s cell-to-satellite constellation, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. AST now has 10 satellites in orbit. It needs to launch 45 to become operational, something it now hopes to achieve by early 2027.

The rocket’s two fairings completed their 16th and 33rd flights respectively. The first stage (B1077) completed its 29th flight (27 days after its previous flight), landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. With this flight the stage moved past the space shuttle Columbia, putting it in seventh place in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicle:

39 Discovery space shuttle
35 Falcon 9 booster B1067
34 Falcon 9 booster B1071
33 Atlantis space shuttle
32 Falcon 9 booster B1063
31 Falcon 9 booster B1069
29 Falcon 9 booster B1077
28 Columbia space shuttle
28 Falcon 9 booster B1078

Sources here and here.

Finally, several hours later Arianespace launched 36 Leo satellites for Amazon, its Ariane-6 rocket lifting off from French Guiana. This launch was the most powerful configuration of Ariane-6 yet launched and the third in Arianespace’s 18-launch Amazon contract. With this launch, Amazon now has 367 satellites in orbit. It needs to get 3,232 in orbit by July 30, 2029 to meet its FCC license requirements.

This was Arianespace’s third launch this year. The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

72 SpaceX
39 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 72 to 67.

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Are the Russians no longer going to dock to its leaking Zvezda module on ISS?

10:15 am

Zvezda module of ISS
The Zvezda module, with aft PrK section indicated
where the cracks have been found.

In a report today at Ars Technica, Eric Berger cites two anonymous NASA officials as saying that the Russians have decided to decommission the aft PrK section of its Zvezda module where it has found numerous cracks and air leaks in the hull, apparently caused by the stress of the many dockings to Zvezda since it was launched almost thirty years ago.

Berger’s report was aimed at providing more information about the kerfuffle between NASA and Roscosmos on June 5, 2026,, when NASA had the astronauts on its half of the station shelter inside their Dragon capsule because Roscosmos was going to have its Russian astronauts cut off a structural bracket in Zvezda as part of the first phase of a new leak patch effort. NASA objected strongly to this action, fearing justifiably that the work could cause a catastrophic failure in Zvezda.

The Russians eventually backed off, merely doing measurements of the module’s new crack, which appearantly appeared after a Progress docking in April

Berger doesn’t really add any significant new details to this June 5 story, but he ends his report with this tidbit:

In the days since, there has been some additional back-and-forth, but Russia has now told NASA it will decommission the PrK module. Effectively, this means cosmonauts will no longer enter the PrK module or attempt to pressurize it. Progress vehicles will still be able to use the docking port to transfer fluids or perform other functions, but Russia will need to use other ports to move supplies on board the space station. [emphasis mine]

This quote however doesn’t tell us anything, and actually raises more questions. The Russians have already been keeping the hatch to Zvezda closed as much as possible, opening it only to unload Progress cargo. And if Progress freighters are still going to dock to Zvezda to “transfer fluids or perform other functions”, the module isn’t decommissioned. Nor is the risk reduced. One of the reasons Zvezda has been stressed over the years is that this port is along the station’s main axis, which makes it ideal for engine burns to raise the station’s orbit. Progresses have been doing this repeatedly from Zvezda for three decades. If they intend to dock with Zvezda to “transfer” fluids”, that also suggests they also plan to continue to use that port for those burns.

It also makes no sense to say other ports will be used to “move supplies” from freighters. Russia isn’t going to dock to Zvezda to transfer fluids, do engine burns, and then move Progress to a different port to transfer cargo.

Thus, we really at this moment do not know what the Russians intend. Nor do we know if they plan to continue to dock with Zvezda. And it appears that each time they do, the chances of a catastrophic failure of Zvezda increases.

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India won’t reveal the cause of its two PSLV rocket failures

10:19 am

India's space agency ISRO, as transparent as mud
India’s space agency ISRO,
as transparent as mud

Though one of India’s high government officials yesterday announced that its space agency ISRO had “resolved” the third stage issue that caused two consecutive failures of its PSLV rocket, that official also refused to provide any details.

Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh on Saturday said that the anomaly in the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) has been resolved. Dr. Singh said on the sidelines of the Research, Industry, Start-up and Entrepreneurship (RISE) Conclave 2026 in Bengaluru, that the national level expert committee constituted to review the reason for anomaly in PSLV Vehicle has submitted its report and the anomaly has been detected.

“The report has come out and the anomaly has been detected. However we cannot share that (reason for the anomaly) on a public platform. But experts are working on it, which has been resolved and very soon we will be back on the track,” Dr. Singh said replying to a query by The Hindu.

Note that after the first third stage failure in 2025, ISRO was also reticent about revealing the problem and how it fixed it. Then the third stage failed again at almost the exact same moment during the next launch in January 2026.

A month later this same official announced ISRO knew what the problem was and had fixed it — once again giving no details — and said the next launch was scheduled for June 2026. It is now June, and despite Singh’s promise no PSLV launch is being prepared.

This lack of transparancy speaks very badly for ISRO. It will make it extremely difficult for it to attract any commercial customers. In fact, that is basically what has happened. Before the Covid panic ISRO had a decent share of the commercial satellite market. Now, even with that satellite market growing in leaps and bounds, it has almost no commercial customers.

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Two launches today by Japan and SpaceX

8:47 am

The beat goes on! Even as SpaceX proceeds today with the largest initial public offering of stock ever, raising an expected $75 billion in cash for its long term plans, the global launch industry marched on with two launches today.

First, Japan’s space agency JAXA successfully launched its H3 rocket on a test flight following a launch failure in December 2025. The rocket lifted off from JAXA’s Tanegashima spaceport in southern Japan, using its simplest configuration, with no solid-fueled strap-on boosters. Though the rocket deployed some cubesats, its main payload was a dummy satellite to test the rocket’s deployment system, which caused the 2025 failure by not holding its satellite in place. On today’s launch, the deployment system worked as planned, which means JAXA can now resume operational launches with H3.

This was Japan’s first launch in 2026.

Next, SpaceX placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The first stage completed its 27th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic (58 days after its previous flight).

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

70 SpaceX
36 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 70 to 63.

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Two orbital launches today by China and SpaceX, plus a suborbital hypersonic launch by Rocket Lab

10:45 am

The beat goes on! Since last night both China and SpaceX successfully completed orbital launches.

First, China used its most powerful operating rocket, the Long March 5, to place what its state-run press called “a new communication technology test satellite” into orbit, the rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport. As the Long March 5 can haul very large payloads into orbit, it suggests this one satellite is unusually heavy.

Next, SpaceX successfully placed another 24 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage (B1071) successfully completed its 34th flight (38 days after its previous flight), landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. With this flight the stage moved past the space shuttle Atlantis, putting it in third place in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicle:

39 Discovery space shuttle
35 Falcon 9 booster B1067
34 Falcon 9 booster B1071
33 Atlantis space shuttle
32 Falcon 9 booster B1063
31 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle
28 Falcon 9 booster B1077
28 Falcon 9 booster B1078

Sources here and here.

Though it was not an orbital launch and thus isn’t added to my launch totals, Rocket Lab also launched last night, using its HASTE suborbital version of its Electron rocket to do a suborbital hypersonic test for the War Department, as part of its $190 million contract to do twenty such test flights. This appears to be the first of those launches.

UPDATE: The HASTE launch appears to have actually been an orbital one, with a second stage and kick stage, both of which reached orbit. No information has been released on the status of the classified payload, which I suspect was a test hypersonic missile that was accelerated to orbital speeds by that second stage and kick stage, but then flew a guided high speed planned suborbital test flight. Since this launch did place objects in orbit, and appears to have been 100% successful as planned I am including it in my launch totals below.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

69 SpaceX
36 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 69 to 62.

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Another unsuccessful suborbital launch from proposed Nova Scotia spaceport

9:44 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

For the second time in less than seven months the Canadian startup company T-Minus unsuccessfully attempted a suborbital test launch from the proposed Spaceport Nova Scotia, owned and operated by the company Maritime Launch Services and funded mostly by a major $200 million lease by the Canadian government.

The launch was conducted from Spaceport Nova Scotia under approved regulatory and safety frameworks. The demonstration strengthened coordination among launch site teams and partners while refining launch operational procedures and the safety and security systems that govern all activities at the spaceport.

While two suborbital flights had been planned for today’s demonstration, the decision was made to conclude operations following the first flight in order to review mission data and incorporate lessons learned into future testing activities. The demonstration featured the launch of the Barracuda, a hypersonic, single-stage, solid-fuel suborbital vehicle capable of carrying payloads of up to 40 kilograms to altitudes of approximately 80 kilometres.

Full analysis of the flight data will continue over the coming weeks. However, initial data indicate that the vehicle operated nominally during the powered phase of flight before experiencing an anomaly late in the boost phase.

In other words, the first launch did not operate as expected, which forced the cancellation of the second launch. T-Minus had a similar result in its November 2025 test, making its record 2-for-2 in failures.

This launch was really designed as a PR event, not a space launch. Maritime invited numerous government officials and celebrities to watch, even as the leftist Carney government has tried to falsely sell its spaceport lease as a way to establish a sovereign launch capability for Canada.

Maritime itself has been trying to get this spaceport off the ground since 2016, with no success. Only in the last year it has come back to life due to that $200 million government lease. With that financing, Maritime has been able to sign up two different rocket startups to consider launching from Spaceport Nova Scotia, the German company Isar Aerospace and the South Korean company Innospace.

However, no orbital launches are presently scheduled, and it is likely none will occur before 2028. And when or if it happens, it will not be by a Canadian rocket company.

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A look back at a significant moment in human history: the first picture of the Moon’s far side

12:14 pm

The first picture ever taken of the Moon's far side, by Luna-3
Click for original image.

Today’s cool image is being posted not because of its beauty or high resolution, but because it was a significant first that shined a light on a mystery that had baffled all humanity since the first time a human being in Africa looked up and observed the Moon.

The picture to the right, reduced slightly and smoothed to remove some camera artifacts, was the first picture ever taken of the hidden far side of the Moon, captured by the Soviet Union’s Luna-3 probe on October 7, 1959, one day after it had passed less than 3,900 miles above the surface. As it moved away, it looked back, and took this picture from a distance of about 40,000 miles.

The picture ain’t what we are used to nowadays from space, but you need to put yourself back in time to truly appreciate it. For literally the entire history of humanity, this view had been hidden. Dreamers, philosophers, scientists, and ordinary people would look at the near side of the Moon almost nightly, but no one knew what was on the other side. Whole religious myths grew up about this unknown. Some science fiction writers of the 19th century fantasized there was air and water there and thus housed an alien civilization, purposely positioned so we couldn’t see it.

Suddenly, with this picture, that side was no longer hidden. This one Luna-3 picture showed humanity that the Moon’s far side was not much different than the near side, though much more cratered with fewer dark mare regions. It had no air or water. Nor were there alien civilizations.

But that age-old mystery was now solved. For those living in the 1950s, it was something of a revelation to see this picture. For those who came after, it is important to try to imagine the significance of that revelation. Suddenly, the mysteries of the universe were no longer unsolvable. Suddenly, we had the ability to solve them.

This picture, like all new knowledge, also brought with it new mysteries, based not on a hidden view but on real data and real questions. Now the goal was understand that data in order to solve the history of the Moon’s geology and how it fit into the formation of the Earth and the entire solar system. That endeavor is still on-going, with its solution not yet entirely in sight.

One last point: Though this picture is woefully inadequate compared to modern planetary images, it also carries a remarkable amount of good information that has since been confirmed by other spacecraft. To get an idea, compare it with a similar global view produced using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)’s full dataset. The features match quite well, and a close look at the Luna 3 picture reveals many details not immediately evident that match well with the LRO image. The Russian engineers who made this happen should be rememberd and honored for their achievement.

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Mitsubishi gets subsidy from Japan to develop its own orbital tug

9:52 am

The Japanese aerospace company Mitsubishi today announced that Japan’s Space Strategic Fund has awarded it a subsidy of an undisclosed amount to its develop its own orbital tug.

The goal is to develop an OTV [orbital transfer vehicle] that can respond flexibly to user needs, navigate between orbits, and load and release payloads in space without being limited to specific applications or transport routes. The company also aims to verify the feasibility of autonomous rendezvous, proximity operations and docking (RPOD) using physical AI and robotics for the safe and effective capture, handling and release of payloads in space.

The Space Strategic Fund was created by the Japanese government in 2023 as a ten year $6.6 billion program to encourage the growth of a private Japanese space sector, to essentially transition Japan from a government space program run and owned by its space agency JAXA to a independent and competing private sector, following the capitalism model.

That fund however was given to JAXA to manage, and so far it appears it has not moved aggressively to promote an independent sector. Inside, the awards it has given out so far have mostly been to either fund its own programs, or help its big space partners, such as Mitsubishi. This could change of course as privately-owned spacecraft begin garnering customers outside of JAXA. It is however taking a long time, and meanwhile Japan’s space industry continues to trail badly both China and India, and even South Korea. While these Asian companies are developing multiple rockets and spacecraft, Japan presently has no operational rockets, and its commercial space sector is barely alive.

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India takes first step to privatize its largest rocket, the LVM3 or Bahubali

9:21 am

LVM3 launching a set of OneWeb satellites in 2022
LVM3 about to launch a set of OneWeb satellites in 2022

IN-SPACe, the agency assigned the job for shifting India’s space effort away from its space agency ISRO and to the private sector, yesterday released an Expression of Interest (EOI), asking India’s private aerospace industry for bids to take over operations of ISRO’s LVM3 rocket (also called Bahubali), its most powerful rocket that ISRO plans to use for its future manned and interplanetary missions.

The invitation for EOI, released on Tuesday, invites eligible Indian private companies or industry consortia to acquire and operationalise LVM3 technology from ISRO. The LVM3, often referred to as ISRO’s ‘Baahubali’ rocket, is the agency’s heaviest operational launch vehicle and is behind key missions including Chandrayaan 2 and 3. The selected private entity will receive technology transfer and extensive support from ISRO to absorb the technology and begin manufacturing and launching LVM3 vehicles commercially.

The EOI invitation also lays down the eligibility criteria for the applicable private entities. ISRO’s handholding and infrastructure support is proposed for a defined period of 42 months or until the realisation and launch of two LVM3 vehicles by the selected entity, whichever comes earlier.

The eventual goal is for the private sector to market LVM3 for commercial purposes, outside of ISRO’s Gaganyaan and space station manned program. While ISRO will continue to operate the rocket to launch manned missions as well as the country’s proposed Bharatiya Antariksh Space Station (BAS), the private company that takes over LVM3 will sell it to the international market for profit. As this is a powerful rocket, it can compete directly with SpaceX’s Falcon 9, ULA’s Vulcan, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, and Arianespace’s Ariane-6.

IN-SPACe has already begun this process with ISRO’s smallsat SSLV rocket, transferring operations in June 2025 to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). There are also indications it is trying to do the same with ISRO’s mid-sized PSLV rocket. If all three transfers go through, almost all of ISRO’s rockets will be operated by the private sector.

Don’t expect this transition to the private sector to happen quickly. As we have seen in the U.S., the shift away from a government-run space program to a chaotic free capitalist space industry can take many years, decades even. And its eventual success is never guaranteed, as government agencies fight hard to protect their turf, and they have the power of government coercion to back them up.

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China picks four of its pseudo-companies to launch its new Qingzhou cargo freighter

8:54 am

China's Qingzhou unmanned cargo freighter
China’s Qingzhou unmanned cargo freighter

China’s government has now chosen four of its pseudo-companies to allow them to bid on launching its new smaller and less costly Qingzhou freighter to bring cargo its Tiangong-3 space station.

Launch firms Galactic Energy, CAS Space, OrienSpace and Landspace were shortlisted to launch the Qingzhou cargo spacecraft, following the launch of a prototype of the supply vessel March 30. The four were named in a public notice posted to China’s national tendering platform June 5, with the notice period closing June 9. The notice does not indicate the selection of a final provider.

The full scale Qingzhou cargo spacecraft is tentatively scheduled for launch in January 2027, subject to the final launch window, according to the tender information. The mission is intended to dock at Tiangong to provide supplies for the first time. Qingzhou is developed by the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IAMCAS), and is one of two low-cost space station resupply spacecraft being developed under a program initiated by China’s human spaceflight agency, CMSEO, to support Tiangong. The prototype completed rendezvous tests in April.

Of these four pseudo-companies, CAS Space and Landspace are most likely to get the first Qingzhou launch contracts. CAS Space is wholly-owned by a government agency, giving it a distinct political advantage. Its Kinetica-2 solid-fueled rocket has also flown a number of times successfully, including one mission that launched the first Qingzhou prototype in March 2026.

Landspace’s rocket, the Zhuque-2, has also flown successfully a number of times (with one failure). As an independent pseudo-company with no direct ownership by the government, its political connections are not as good. At the same time, all these pseudo-companies are essentially owned by the communist government, which recognizes private property only at its convenience.

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NASA announces crew and flight plan for Artemis-3 Earth orbit mission next year

12:22 pm

Artemis logo

NASA today unveiled both the four-person crew that will fly its Artemis-3 Earth orbit mission next year as well as the mission’s basic plan, assuming both SpaceX and Blue Origin can get their respective lunar landers ready in time.

Crew assignments are as follows:

  • NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, commander
  • ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, pilot
  • NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, mission specialist
  • NASA astronaut Andre Douglas, mission specialist

… NASA astronaut Bob Hines was named as a backup crew member.

Except for Douglas, all are veterans.

The mission details were also announced:

Artemis III includes launching the world’s most powerful rockets in short order. Blue Origin’s lander pathfinder, which is able to stay in orbit for multiple weeks, will launch first and await the crew. NASA will send the astronauts aboard Orion by SLS to orbit Earth, before rendezvousing in space with the company’s lander test article and spending about two days docked together for tests and technology demonstrations, including entering the lander.

After completing docked operations with Blue Origin, Orion will detach and await Starship. SpaceX’s Starship pathfinder will launch and meet up with Orion to spend about a day connected for checkouts and testing. After that, Orion and its crew will undock and return home, splashing safely down in the Pacific Ocean where a team from the U.S. Navy and NASA will recover the astronauts.

In total, the crew is expected to remain in space for about two weeks, with exact mission length to be determined in real-time based on launch, rendezvous, and docked operations.

All of this assumes that New Glenn has been fixed and is operational by late 2027 and can launch the Blue Moon Mark-2 manned lunar lander. It also assumes the lunar lander version of Starship is ready and operational and man-rated. It also assumes NASA can get SLS stacked and ready for launch much faster than previously expected.

All are big assumptions.

Other issues: Orion will be testing its docking system and its newly redesigned heat shield for the first time, with humans on board. As the return will be from low Earth orbit, the stress on the heat shield will be relatively light, reducing the risk considerably. Similarly, if the docking system fails they simply won’t dock, and can return to Earth instead. Both should work, however, as neither is cutting edge technology.

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Orbital tug startup Quantum raises $300 million by merging with a SPAC

10:40 am

Quantum's proposed Ranger tug
Quantum’s proposed Ranger tug

The orbital tug startup Quantum Space has gone public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), raising $300 million in the process.

Quantum Space announced June 8 that it will merge with Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. VI, a SPAC traded on the Nasdaq exchange. The companies expect the deal to close in the fourth quarter, with Quantum Space then trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol QSPC.

The deal includes a $300 million investment, known as a private investment in public equity, or PIPE, by Inflection Point into Quantum Space. The SPAC also has $253 million in trust that would go to Quantum Space, assuming none of its shareholders redeem their shares. The deal would value Quantum Space at more than $1.1 billion if there are no SPAC redemptions.

The company’s press release is here. Quantum gets extra press because its CEO is Jim Bridenstine, former NASA administrator. The company is developing a tug it labels Ranger, designed with the War Department in mind, capable of not only moving satellites around but also maneuvering to other satellites for reconnaissance and surveillance.

The company however is a latecomer to the orbital tug field. There are several tug and satellite servicing companies (Impulse, Starfish, Momentus, to name just three) that have already flown their tugs and done actual missions. Another, Katalyst, will be launching its first mission in about a month, to rescue the Gehrels-Swift space telescope.

It will be interesting to see if Bridenstine can succeed in playing catch up.

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Chinese pseudo-company Landspace launches two satellites

9:16 am

The Chinese pseudo-company Landspace yesterday successfully launched two satellites, its Zhuque-2E rocket lifting off from the Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

The Zhuque-2E is an upgraded version of Landspace’s Zhuquie-2 rocket, apparently using a larger fairing with an increased payload capacity. The two satellites were both for communications. One was for the Qianfan (Spacesail) internet constellation, which now has approximately 200 satellites in orbit out of a planned 12,000, with the constellation’s first phase targeting 648 by the end of the year. The second satellite was for a different constellation, and is a experimental satellite testing cell-to-satellite technology.

China’s state-run press provided no information about where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

68 SpaceX
35 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 68 to 60.

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NASA’s X-59 completes first no-boom supersonic flight, more than a year after a private company did it

10:28 am

NASA yesterday made a big deal about the first successful supersonic test flight of its X-59 test plane, built by Lockheed Martin for $247.5 million to demonstrate quiet no-boom supersonic flight.

And as usual, our uneducated propaganda press played along, touting the wonders of this new NASA achievement. A few examples:

Poppycock. Not one of these news articles made mention of the fact that the private commercial company Boom Supersonic accomplished the same feat eighteen months earlier, its XB-1 supersonic airplane breaking the sound barrier with no boom three separate times. And it did so using private funds for significantly less and getting the job done faster and in a manner that it can quickly convert into its planned commercial supersonic planes.

The X-59 is a typical NASA test project, designed to test a technology in a manner that is generally too specific and expensive for commercial use. Without doubt the engineering and the data from these flights will be helpful to companies like Boom, but to use it will require major changes and revisions to bring the cost down. It is for this reason Boom did its own engineering and test.

That I appear to be the only news outlet aware of this important background information — that puts a significantly different light on this government project — illustrates the bankruptcy of our modern media. They don’t know anything, and can only rewrite press releases.

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Australia’s Southern Launch range gets another re-entry capsule customer

9:44 am

Proposed Australian spaceports
Australian spaceports: operating (red dot) and proposed (red “X”)
Click for original image.

The Australlian spaceport Southern Launch, which also controls the Koonibba Test Range where a variety of government and commercial capsules have landed since 2020, has signed another American company building its own re-entry capsules.

Southern Launch has signed a new agreement with US-based SpaceWorks Enterprises, Inc. to host multiple re-entry missions at the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia.

The agreement enables SpaceWorks to advance its growing portfolio of atmospheric Re-Entry Devices (RED) and further demonstrates confidence in the Koonibba Test Range as the leading global location for the safe and reliable return of spacecraft and high-value payloads.

This is the third American re-entry capsule company to sign with Southern Launch. Varda has already landed I think five capsules at Koonibba, and has a deal to land up to 20 through 2028. In 2025 the American startup Lux Aeterna signed a deal as well.

Two take-aways from this story: First, SpaceWorks as a re-entry capsule company appears to be a new project, joining the host of other re-entry capsule companies that have obtained investment capital since Varda demonstrated its success, including three U.S. and five European startups. It really appears the financial community sees profits here, and are committing money to this effort.

Two, the red tape by multiple U.S. government agencies in 2023 that delayed the return of Varda’s first capsule to the Air Force’s test range in Utah for six months has driven all this business out of the U.S.

That red tape was part of the Biden administration’s general policy aimed at hindering private enterprise, but it also is systematic to the existing administrative state that dominates and impedes American industry across the board. The result here is the business went elsewhere.

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NASA clarifies air leak situation yesterday on ISS

8:27 am

Figure 3 from September Inspector General report
Figure 3 from September 2024 Inspector General report, showing Zvezda’s location on ISS, as well as the station’s leak rate at that time.

According to a NASA update posted late yesterday, the agency had cause to order its astronauts to shelter in place within their Dragon capsule due to planned repair work proposed by the Russians.

The week of June 1, during Progress 95 spacecraft cargo operations, Roscosmos noted an increase of the previous leak rate to two pounds per day and identified new suspected leak areas in the PrK. Following this observation, Roscosmos made the decision to begin work toward a more extensive inspection and structural repair effort Friday morning. This revised approach involved cutting a bracket to better access an area identified as a possible leak source for further inspection, using a method that could have resulted in elevated risk to the structure in the area. In response, NASA directed the four SpaceX Crew-12 members and NASA astronaut Chris Williams, who flew to station aboard the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, to take a heightened safety posture, known as a safe haven, inside the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft during the procedure.

Later Friday morning, Roscosmos paused and did not perform the structural repair work in favor of conducting additional measurements and data assessments, which included inspection of suspected areas of interest and review of areas where sealant was previously applied. NASA strongly supported that decision, and as a result, following that decision, Crew-12 and Williams ended their safe haven activities and returned to normal operations aboard the orbiting laboratory.

In other words, the leak rate had increased to match the high rates seen from 2019 to 2025, and the Russians were planning work that threatened the structure of the module. It appears NASA objected, and eventually the Russians acceded to those objections.

What happens next however remains unclear. If the leak rate has suddenly jumped from one pound per day to two pounds a day, that suggests the situation is worsening, and doing so at an alarming rate. As this new leak occurred shortly after a Progress freighter docked at Zvezda, it suggested the docking instigated it. It also suggests any further dockings there are likely to worsen the situation even more.

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