Tag: quick space links

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

• Rocket Lab ships Neutron’s reusable fairing and upper module to Wallops Island launch site
  Both have apparently passed qualification and acceptance testing. The spring first launch of Neutron seems increasingly likely.

• China touts a new Long March 12 being transported to the launchpad
  This expendable version has already flown three times. The 12A version will try to land the first stage, with its first launch scheduled before the end of the month, with a launchpad static fire test occurring two days ago.

• The Air & Space Museum shows off the color global view of the Earth taken this week in 1972 by an astronaut on Apollo 17
  It would be years before the U.S. had another spacecraft in a position to get a similar color view.

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

• Chinese pseudo-company Interstellor touts on-going assembly of test article for its New Shepard copycat suborbital capsule
  The test article will be used for an upcoming drop test.

• China’s Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) last week appointed what it called “quality supervision representatives” for its manned program
  From the google translation of the press announcement, these appointees appear to be systems engineers independent of the projects’ themselves, assigned the task of maintaining proper quality control over the work being done.

• On this day in 1972, Apollo 17 launched, the last Apollo Moon mission
  The astronauts were Gene Cernan, Ron Evans, and Harrison Schmitt. They landed in a 4.5-mile-wide valley between 2-mile-high mountains in the Taurus-Littrow region.

• On this day in 1985, NASA transferred title of the engineering test space shuttle Enterprise to the Air & Space Museum
  It was on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center from 2003 until 2012, then moved to the Intrepid Museum in New York when the shuttle Discovery replaced it.

• On this day in 1995 Galileo arrived at Jupiter, the first spacecraft to orbit the planet
  Because its high gain antenna never unfolded, the data stream from the spacecraft was severely limited. Despite this, Galileo did provide us a good first look at Jupiter’s main moons and their strange unexpected surfaces.

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

• Astrobotic touts a series of successful hot-fire tests of a “flight-representative replica” of its lunar lander, Griffin-1
  The tests validated the lander’s propulsion system. Launch has been delayed repeatedly since its first target launch date of 2023. It is now targeting a July 2026 launch.

• OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman is pushing to challenge Elon Musk in space
  The article describes several attempts by Altman to enter the space business, including an effort to buy the rocket startup Stoke Space, which according to another source has fallen through.

• Scientists use Gaia data to map the chemistry of the Milky Way’s inner arms
  They used the detected chemistry to map the arms themselves. Lots of uncertainty of course.

• On this day in 1965 Frank Borman and Jim Lovell launched on Gemini-7
  They spent two weeks in orbit (a record at the time), proving humans could live in weightlessness long enough to go to and from the Moon. They also became the target vehicle for Gemini-6, which completed the first orbital rendezvous in history.

• On this day in 1996, Mars Pathfinder launched carrying the Mars rover Sojourner
  The success of that mission jump-started NASA’s entire Mars planetary program for the next quarter century, including rovers, orbiters, and landers.

• Cool image of the upper stage still in orbit of an Ariane-4 rocket launched on this day in 1999
  The image was captured by the Blacksky satellite constellation. The rocket launched two French satellites, one experimental smallsat and a reconnaissance satellite that failed prematurely.

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

• Vast touts a successful fit check of its Haven-1 docking adapter
  The company still looks good for a spring launch of this demo single module space station.

• An interview with Spinlaunch’s CEO
  The bulk of the discussion is about the company’s planned satellite constellation, which it has now put ahead of its spinlaunch concept.

• China releases Chang’e-6’s scientific data
  The tweet includes images of the small test rover that was deployed during the mission.

• Russia agrees to transfer 100% of the technology of its RD-191M semi-cryogenic rocket engines to India’s space agency ISRO
  ISRO will use it on its largest GLSV rocket to increase its payload capacity.

• On this day in 1973 Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to fly past Jupiter
  For some reason the tweet features a painting, not any of the real photographs, probably because they aren’t that good compared to what we are now used to. Go here to see some. At the time these images were ground-breaking.

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

• Scientists discover 53 quasars shooting out jets up to 50 times wider than our Milky Way

• On this day in 1995 the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) was launched
  Despite being designed to only last two years, and a number of failures of key equipment, engineers have kept it going now for three decades. Kudos to them!

• On this day in 1993, the first servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope was launched
  The shuttle was Endeavour, and the mission saved the telescope. On spacewalks on five consecutive days they fixed its out-of-focus mirror, replaced its wobbly defective solar panels, replaced three gyroscopes that had failed, and fixed a number of other issues. The rest is history.

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

• Great photo of 3I/ATLAS taken by astronomers using a Texas ground-based telescope
  The image is one of the best of the comet’s tail. As noted at the link, “Comet 3I/ATLAS appears relatively normal when compared to Solar System comets, therefore providing more evidence that our Solar System is a somewhat typical star system.”

• New rumors circulating today suggest that the Zhuque-3 launch could be back on for December 3
  According to Jay, the airspace closures have been updated to reflect this date, but nothing as yet been confirmed by China. My guess is that the new bosses now supervising China’s pseudo-rocket companies first demanded a delay so they could “review” things, and were quickly made to realize a long delay made no sense.

• A short detailed video describing the construction of Vulcan at ULA’s Decatur facility
  Nicely done.

• China touts the ongoing construction of a new antenna to be used in its own Deep Space Network for communicating with interplanetary missions
  This antenna appears essential especially for its Chang’e-7 lander to the Moon’s south pole, targeting a launch next year.

• On this day in 2018 InSight’s air pressure sensor and seismometer captured the vibrations from the Martian wind
  The press release claimed we were hearing the wind of Mars, but that’s bunk. The sounds recorded were from vibrations on the solar panels from that wind.

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

• Chinese pseudo-company Landspace has apparently postponed indefinitely the first launch of its Zhuque-3 rocket
  Jay says Landspace claims “they canceled because of ‘improper paint on the landing pad.'” Neither he nor I believe that tale. I suspect this delay is related to the creation by the Chinese government of a new agency to supervise all of its pseudo-rocket companies. When rumors of that agency appeared in late October, it was speculated that it would delay this launch as the new bosses stepped in a take over.

• The marine platform to recover the first stage of China’s Long March 10 rocket was delivered yesterday
  The tweet includes a video claiming that first stage will be captured on this platform using a complex “cable-catching” system that made no sense, as described.

• On this day in 1955 Neil Armstrong completed the first of his seven X-15 flights
  He was a most unusual man, at that time a civilian test pilot working for whoever would hire him to test radical airplane designs. The X-15 was then the most radical, only to be superseded soon thereafter by rockets, which Armstrong then transitioned to as a NASA astronaut.

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

• Northrop Grumman touts successful tests of its hypersonic inertial guidance system on Stratolaunch’s Talon-A
  It does appear that Stratolaunch is getting some business, even though much of its planned military hypersonic testing market has been grabbed by Rocket Lab’s HASTE suborbital launch vehicle.

• Blue Origin shows off a fullscale mockup of its Blue Moon-MK2 crew cabin at the Johnson Space Center
  MK2 is the manned version of the MK1 Blue Moon. It is designed to hold four astronauts for up to 30 days on the Moon. It will be very nice if Blue Origin gets it built as promised. It will also be a surprise. The company still needs to shake its reputation for great graphics and mockups, and little real hardware.

• The Ukraine destroys Russian A-60 aircraft rumored to have a laser designed to shoot down aircraft and disable satellite sensors
  None of this is confirmed, including the A-60 so-called laser capabilities.

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

• A short commercial from Amazon touting its Amazon Leo constellation (formerly Kuiper)
  As Jay says, “These numbers are meaningless without birds in orbit.”

• Chinese researchers propose an explanation for the stickier regolith found by Chang’e-6
  The explanation is complex, and essentially relates to the different local make-up of the soil.

• Scientists release final data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope project
  The data, collected over almost two decades, confirm the conflict in the predicted number for the Hubble constant (the universe’s expansion rate), where two different methods of observations have produced two reliable but different numbers. At present no theory successfully explains the conflict.

• Chinese pseudo-company Sepoch claims its proposed copycat Falcon-9 rocket will be caught by tower chopsticks on a drone ship
  As Jay notes, “Talk, like CGI, is cheap.”

• Detailed article outlining the range issues at Cape Canaveral as launch rates rise
  The article is mostly focused on bashing SpaceX’s plans to launch Starship/Superheavy from Florida next year, noting the generally weak objections filed by ULA and Blue Origin. If you put that aside, it does provide a good overview of the issues involved.

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

• New aerial views of the damaged Superheavy booster-18 from RGVAerial
  I can’t help it: That interior reminds me of Hans Giger’s art for the sci-fi movie Alien.

• The Long March-2F carrying Shenzhou-22 is now on the launchpad
  It will carry only cargo to provide a lifeboat for the astronauts on Tiangon-3. While many in the west are speculating it will launch on November 25th due to road closure notices, all China has said so far is that it is “scheduled for launch in the near future.”

• ULA has begun stacking its Atlas-5, the next rocket it will launch
  The targeted launch date is December 15, 2025, carrying another 27 Amazon LEO satellites.

• Luxembourg startup Space Cargo signs deal with French Dassault to fly its BentoBox service module on the latter’s proposed Vortex reusable space plane
  Vortex appears to be the orbital version of an ESA suborbital “demonstrator” that Dassault is building but whose funding at this moment is not finalized. If it gets built and the orbital version follows, the BentoBox will fly with it carrying commercial payloads.

• Webb discovers rapidly growing black hole in the very early universe
  As has become common for Webb’s observations close to the Big Bang, it is bigger than expected, making things difficult for the present theories of cosmology.

• On this day in 1960 the second weather satellite, TIROS 2, was launched
  It had problems with its wide-field camera, but its close-up camera produced good data, though of limited value for weather prediction.

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

• Scientists think they have identified a new ancient population of Kuiper Belt objects at about 43 astronomical units from the Sun
  That’s about four billion miles. It is however not yet confirmed if the objects found at this distance really form a distinct ancient population

• Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy completes its investigation into its failed Ceres-1 launch on November 10th
  It appears the insulation on a cable melted from too much heat, causing a short circuit.

• Another Chinese pseudo-company, dubbed Fstspace
  Its copycat Falcon 9 will use 9 engines in the 1st stage, fueled by methane. There are a LOT of these Chinese rocket startups. Most will never see the light of day.

• On this day in 1998, the first module of ISS was launched from Baikonur
  Dubbed Zarya, it was built by Russia but paid for by the U.S., which still owns it. Though it is the oldest module on ISS, it is the Russian Zvezda module, launched two years later, that presently has the stress fractures in its hull from which the station’s atmosphere is leaking, and which threaten the station’s survival in the next four years.

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

• Blue Origin’s CEO touts deployable aerobrake unit for missions to Mars as well as bringing cargo to Earth
  He says it comes in two sizes and can “deliver 3x more payload mass” than other designs.

• Lesbian partner of astronaut pleads guilty to falsely alleging crime in space
  Stupid stuff, a sign of our increasingly stupid times.

• Building the Apollo Guidance Computer aboard the lunar module
  It had to be small, light, and do things no computer had ever done before, in an environment utterly alien and untested. It worked perfectly, and ended up revolutionizing computers themselves.

• On this day in 1969, Pete Conrad landed the Apollo 12 lunar module just 538 feet away from Surveyor-3
  Conrad was the third man to walk on the Moon. Conrad was relatively short compared to Neil Armstrong, and also a man who loved to joke, incessantly. His first words (in order to win a bet with an Italian reporter who didn’t believe he could say what he wanted): “Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me.”

• On this day in 2009 Cassini took a magnificent shot of Saturn’s two largest moons, Rhea and Titan
  Definitely worth a look.

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

• A visual comparing the docking systems of the Shenzhou, Starliner, and Dragon spacecraft, all based on the Soviet/Russian APAS-89/95 system
  Superficially, it appears they are all compatible, but the devil is always in the details.

• Canadian government touts a $6.9 million grant for building a cubesat designed to impact the Moon
  The award is to the company Magellan Aerospace. The release says nothing about a timetable.

• Astrolab touts using Starship to get its FLEX unmanned rover to the Moon
  Someone linked to this video in the comments yesterday. Lots of pretty graphics, but we are still only dealing with concepts.

• Cosmonaut Konstantín Borísov gives a tour of the ISS
  The narration is in Russian, but when he enters the American half of the station the labels switch to English. The station certainly looks like the attic of a family that has hoarded a lot of junk over the years.

• Photo of new 72-foot-wide crater on the Moon, taken by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
  The impact occurred sometime between 2009 and 2012.

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

• Blue Origin’s CEO touts a recent hotfire test of its upper stage BE-3U engine
  He claims it “reached more than 211,500 lbf thrust [making it] the highest thrust-to-weight hydrogen engine in history.”

• PR video showing how Starlink is installed on an airplane.

• French rocket startup Latitude commits €8M to build its launchpad in French Guiana
  It is entirely unclear when this startup will do its first launch. It initially targeted 2024, which obviously did not happen.

• 40 years ago today the prototype space shuttle Enterprise was delivered to the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center

• On this day in 1970 the Soviet Union’s unmanned lander Luna 17 touched down the Moon, delivering the Lunokhod-1 rover
  Lunokhod-1 operated for eleven months, traveling 6.5 miles. In 1993, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia sold it at a Sotheby’s auction for $68,500, even though it still sits on the Moon.

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

• Vast reports its Haven Demo continues to function as planned almost two weeks after launch
  The tweet includes some nice pictures.

• Another new Chinese pseudo-company called Welight
  It touts the construction of an engineering model of its rocket for testing. The rocket itself however does not yet exist. According to Jay, “Searching other sources, it is a carbon fiber resuable rocket focused on ‘cost disruption'”. That source says the first launch is supposed to occur this year. Don’t bet on it.

• On this day in 2022, NASA successfully launched the SLS rocket for the first time
  Sent Orion around the Moon and back to Earth, and found its heat shield had serious technical flaws. So of course NASA is going to fly astronauts around the Moon in Orion early next year, without fixing the problem. Par for the course for this incompetent agency.

• On this day in 1980 Voyager-1 took a magnificent image of Saturn just days after its fly-by
  One of the most iconic images taken by any planetary probe. The approximate distance at the time of the photograph was 3.3 million miles.

• On this day in 1973, the Skylab 4 crew launched to Skylab.
  It was the third and final mission to the United States’ first space station. The crew spent 84 days in space, then a major record for longest manned mission in space.

• It appears India’s space agency has merged the design of two of its planned new rockets
  The NGLV-SH and LMLV now “share a unified core architecture for faster production.” Or at least, that’s what this tweet speculates.

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

• Scientist think they’ve made the first confirmed sighting of coronal mass ejection (CME) from a nearby star
  CMEs are common from our Sun. In fact, a recent one is the cause of the geomagnetic storm that hit the Earth this week and produced auroras at unusually low latitudes. Detecting one on another star is cool, though of course there is some uncertainty about these results.

• China touts the installation of new propellant tanks at Wenchang’s commercial launchpad
  The tanks for future launches of the Long March 12 rocket, which has already launched three times previously and twice from Wenchang.

• Op-ed touting the benefits of a spaceport in Yuma, Arizona
  This proposal has been bouncing around Arizona now for about six years, with little progress. Its biggest problem is that almost all launches would have to fly over Mexico, and based on conflicting reports it is unclear Mexico is willing to agree.

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

• Northern Lights set to dazzle UK and US this week due to possible ‘severe’ geomagnetic storm
  From Jay: “I saw it outside while observing the Starlink ‘train’ of satellites, a deep red color. NOAA has it listed as a ‘G4 (severe) storm.'” Sounds terrible, but don’t panic. The biggest threat is to the power grid, and utilities have now spent decades planning for these kinds of storms.

• On this day in 1966, NASA launched the last Gemini mission, Gemini-12
  Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin spent close to three days in orbit, with Aldrin performing three spacewalks, proving it was possible to do productive work in a spacesuit.

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

• On this day in 1967 the ATS-3 weather satellite captured the first color picture of the entire daylight side of Earth from space
  The take-away for all humanity then was the cloud cover, far more than anyone had imagined, and the dominance of the color blue.

• ULA’s CEO touts his growing stock of BE-4 engines
  The images show six engines in total, enough for three Vulcan rocket launches. According to an October 24 report, Blue Origin has so far delivered 30 engines.

• Indications in China’s state-run press suggest an empty Shenzhou-22 capsule will be launched on a Long March 2F to bring the Shenzhou-20 crew home
  So far nothing official has been announced, nor has that government-controlled media released any details about the damage to the Shenzhou-20 capsule from “space debris.”

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

• European Atmos space cargo startup signs deal to fly payloads on French rocket startup HyprSpace’s suborbital Baguette-1 rocket next year
  Atmos wants to test components of its proposed orbital re-entry capsule

• Sierra Space is seeking $300 million in fresh funding to shift focus from civilian space to defense contracts
  The full article is behind a paywall so no details are available, though the company’s shift in this direction does appear real based on other recent stories.

• Delivery of 17 new Globalstar satellites being built by MDA (with Rocket Lab as its subcontractor) delayed until 2026
  It appears the cause is a new MDA production facility not yet up to speed. It also appears Globalstar will claim damages from MDA.

• India’s space agency ISRO declares its NISAR radar satellite, built in partnership with NASA, is now operational
  The satellite is designed to study the Earth’s forests and ice surfaces.

• Fairing pieces from a Chinese Smart Dragon-3 (Jielong-3) rocket found on Japanese coast
  This is the second time pieces from the September 24, 2025 sea platorm launch have ended up on someone else’s territory. Previously a burned tank was found in the Australian outback.

• Roskosmos is apparently switching from 6-month to 8-month missions on ISS, reducing launches from 2 to 1.5 per year
  The reduction is not news (though I can’t find the original announcement from several months ago). It is caused by Russia’s bad cash shortage, resulting from the international sanctions imposed after its invasion of the Ukraine.

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

• South Korean rocket startup Innospace to attempt its first launch on November 22, 2025 from Brazil
  The rocket, dubbed HANBIT-Nano, will deploy five smallsats if it reaches orbit.

• A detailed review of New Zealand’s failed MethaneSAT climate satellite
  The bottom line: Bad decisions in development were made based not quality but on politics, resulting in a faulty spacecraft. This was further compounded by the project’s lack on honesty and transparency.

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

• The utility providing power to Russia’s Vostochny spaceport has cut off service due to chronic non-payments
  Spaceport officials say the power cuts do not affect “strategic” sites or the construction of the Angara facilities but that doesn’t make sense. As Jay notes, “They want a new space station, but they can’t pay their own bills?”

• Japanese amateur astronomer detects the flash of new impact on the Moon
  The impact occurred on November 1, 2025 on the Moon’s night side.

• A graph showing the schedule of eight manned-related missions India hopes to launch through 2029
  The first three are unmanned Gaganyaan test flights, followed by manned missions of increasing complexity, with the last few involving its proposed space station.

• On this day in 1971, Europe’s first attempt at an orbital launch vehicle, Europa, launched for the last time
  The tweet also notes that the launch was a failure, just like the three previous Europa launches.

• Firefly acquires the national security firm SciTec
  The company’s recent acquisitions have all been aimed at diversifying its capabilities in the direction of military contracts. Nor has Firefly been alone in this. It appears the space industry now sees defense as a future big profit center.

• Starlink rolls new reduced prices for roaming plans in Europe
  The price drop is about 40%

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

• A review of the 11 new Chinese rockets that were supposed to launch for the first time in 2025
  Only one has launched, the government’s Long March 8. One government and three pseudo-company rockets have done static fire tests and appear ready for launch. Of the remaining six no news.

• Scientists claim a flare from an active galaxy 10 billion light years away that was detected in 2018 was the biggest black hole flare ever detected
  All together now: The uncertainty of science!

• Stilsat-1: A Russian-owned and Chinese-built satellite watching Ukraine
  Apparently the Russians bought a Chinese satellite for military reconnaissance. Apparently Russia has trouble doing this kind of thing itself these days.

• Chinese astronauts enjoy ‘1st ever space BBQ’ from Tiangong-3’s brand-new oven
  Unlike the prototype oven tested on ISS but then returned to Earth, this oven is permanent and intended for regular use by the astronauts.

• China completes ground testing of its own inflatable space module
  Based on their graphics, they are basically copying the Orbital Reef station design as well as Sierra Space’s LIFE inflatable modules.

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

• We Could Use Neutrino Detectors As Giant Particle Colliders
  Sounds cool but the scientists also admit the present neutrino detectors can’t do anything better than the existing colliders, and in fact in most cases can’s do as much.

• Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy touts a successful static fire test of the first stage of its Pallas-1 rocket
  This rocket was first unveiled in 2023, and then did not appear reusable. The images now confirm this, showing no landing legs. The company however has implied that it will eventually land vertically for reuse.

• Lawmakers warn UK must act now to get space ambitions back on track
  The report, by the House of Lords, is a joke. It says nothing about reducing regulation and red tape, which is the UK’s main problem. Instead, it proposes more funding and more government bureaucracy “to coordinate policy and industry engagement.” We should expect even less (lower than zero?) from the United Kingdom in the coming years.

• The reason Starlink became available in the Falklands was because of the advocacy of Chris Gare of OpenFalklands
  Giving credit where credit is due.

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

• Building the ascent engine on the Apollo lunar module
  Nice detailed video, describing how Bell Aerosystems built an engine that could not fail. It is especially revealing how much testing with real hardware they did prior to launch.

• Another Chinese pseudo-company, Deep Blue, touts the successful static fire tests of its Nebula-1 rocket’s first stage
  It claims the launch is next. When was not stated.

• The Starlab space station consortium touts its on-going preliminary design review of the subsystems for its Starlab single module station
  Of all the four station’s under construction, Starlab has built the least, though it has begun issuing contracts for that construction.

• Space station startup Axion touts the testing of the “conical tunnel for its station’s docking adapter”
  They are checking for cracks, and finding none.

• As of today, humans have been in space continuously for 9,132 days, or 25 years
  Sadly, if that record is to continue it will require help from outside the U.S., as it is not likely any of our proposed commercial stations will be ready for continuous occupation initially.

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

• Blue Origin reports a successfull dress rehearsal countdown and 38 second static fire test of its New Glenn rocket
  This is in preparation for launch on November 9, 2025, carrying NASA’s two Escapade Mars smallsat orbiters. It will be the second New Glenn launch, about 10 months after the first.

• Spaceport startup NordSpace joins the Global Spaceport Alliance (GSA)
  Neither Jay nor I have ever heard of GSA, but that means nothing. Nordspace’s Atlantic Spaceport Complex in Newfoundland is pushing to beat the much older spaceport startup in Nova Scotia in achieving the first launch from Canada.

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

• Vast touts the completion of pressure and load acceptance testing of the primary structure of its Haven-1 station
  The launch date of spring 2026 appears more and more likely.

• Honda releases video of its successful June test flight of its grasshopper rocket prototype
  The video indicates a number of the company’s space goals, but nothing very specific.

• Video of the rendezvous and capture of JAXA’s HTV-X1 freighter to ISS
  It’s three hours long. Go to 2:53 minutes to see the docking.

• There are rumors of a shake-up in China’s space operations which is going to delay all launches of its pseudo-companies
  Supposedly a new department is being formed to run everything, and that some launches will delayed while this is being done. It also suggests that the pseudo-independence of these fake private companies will now become even more obvious.

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

• Shutdown could soon slow preparations for Artemis 2
  The sole source of this story is an official at Lockheed Martin, which makes Orion. That company has gotten since 2005 about $25 billion from NASA to build it, has made less than a half dozen capsules total, and has produced a capsule with an untrustworthy heat shield that still has an untested environmental system. For this company to say the shut down will impact its work is disgusting.

• An engineer looks at a Chinese attempt to reverse engineer SpaceX’s Raptor-3 engine and finds it “funny as hell”
  Quote: “They couldn’t figure out how half the damn thing works so it’s been completely screwed up.”

• A new Chinese pseudo-company Zenkspace to launch their ZH-1 rocket in early 2026
  Jay notes there is zero information about this company on the web. According to another tweet, the rocket’s engines were supplied by the Chinese government. Suggests to me that someone in that government is moving in to grab the business from the other Chinese government-controlled startups, essentially taking advantage of government infrastructure while stealing the engineering from those pseudo-companies (that the government requires them to release to everyone).

• Japan’s space agency JAXA touts the science gained from its recently ended Akatsuki Venus Climate Orbiter mission

• On this day in 2009 Ares-1x made its only flight
  It was only suborbital, and was supposed to lay the groundwork for NASA’s manned return to the Moon by 2015, as part of the program established by President George Bush Jr. It instead morphed into the never-ending boondoggle that has become SLS, Orion, and the entire Artemis program. And it now 2025, and we are still at least three-plus years from that manned lunar landing.

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

• Everyday Astronaut asks great question: Why is NASA spending $700 million for developing new SLS upper stage when ULA’s Centaur-V is available for only $120 million?
  Tim Dodd seems baffled, but then he is young and hasn’t lived through decades of NASA pork that accomplishes nothing. That new upper stage is just more of the same.

• NASA astronaut shows off Orion’s bathroom
  Talk about overkill for a capsule. No wonder Orion is too heavy for almost every rocket available.

• Startup Apex to fly a commercially-developed space-based interceptor demo on its own dime
  The company hopes the mission will convince defense contractors and satellite companies to buy its product.

• A rehash of Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser project
  No real news, though overall the article underlines the failure of Sierra Space to get off the ground. It also provides evidence to explain why NASA abandoned Dream Chaser as an ISS cargo craft.

• Blue Origin touts the delivery of its 30th BE-4 engine to ULA
  This gives ULA enough engines for at least fifteen launches of its Vulcan rocket, which is about the number of launches the company hopes to do in 2026

• In 2010 NASA analyzed what museums to send shuttles to and ranked Houston low
  So what? These bureaucratic rankings meant nothing. All that mattered for choosing the cities that would get shuttles were political considerations, and Obama wished to reward blue states.

• Video of the demolition of one of the service towers for the Zenit rocket at Baikonur
  Zenit was built by the Ukraine, now banned by Russia from Baikonur. Russia now wants to use this launchpad for its new Soyuz-5 rocket. Kazakhstan, which owns the site, has been resistant. It is unclear if this demolition means Kazakhstan has changed its mind.