Tag: spaceflight

This typical cliff on Mars just happens to match the walls of the Grand Canyon

1:27 pm

A typical Martian cliff, comparable to the Grand Canyon
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 23, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The label the science team gave this image, “remnant fan”, suggests the focus of research here is the fingerlike ridges on the floor of the canyon, emanating out from the cliff. These appear to be the remains of an ancient mass-wasting event, similar to an avalanche but different in that instead of it being a pile of surface material falling down the cliff, the cliff itself breaks free and slumps downward. In this case the event was so long ago that most of the slumped material has eroded away, leaving only those ridges, likely resistant to erosion because of the impact of the material from above.

If you look at the top of cliff, you can see evidence that another mass wasting event is pending. Note how the plateau floor near the cliff has dropped about 100 feet. This drop suggests that this part of the cliff has started to slump and break away from the plateau.
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Trump renominates Jared Isaacman for NASA administrator

8:51 am

Jared Isaacman
Billionaire Jared Isaacman

President Donald Trump late yesterday announced that he has renominated billionaire Jared Isaacman as his nominee to become the administrator of NASA.

Just as Trump had given no reasons why he had withdrawn Isaacman’s nomination in late May, in his announcement yesterday Trump made no effort to explain why he had changed his mind.

One week ago I would have said that Isaacman’s nomination would proceed very quickly to a vote in the Senate, as he had already been vetted completely in the spring and was fully expected to be confirmed within days when Trump pulled the nomination. Now however I expect the Senate might want to bring Isaacman back for questioning in response to the leak this week of a policy paper he had written in the spring outlining his plans for NASA should he be approved.

That paper, still not released to the public, apparently contained a lot of specifics about Isaacman’s plans to reshape NASA that appeared to raise the hackles of the many swamp creatures in DC that live off the government trough. Isaacman addressed that leak in a very long and very detailed tweet yesterday that outlined in detailed but general terms what his goals were in that paper, and it could be his reasoning in this tweet that convinced Trump to renominate him. As Isaacman concluded:

This plan never favored any one vendor, never recommended closing centers, or directed the cancellation of programs before objectives were achieved. The plan valued human exploration as much as scientific discovery. It was written as a starting place to give NASA, international partners, and the commercial sector the best chance for long-term success. The more I see the imperfections of politics and the lengths people will go, the more I want to serve and be part of the solution… because I love NASA and I love my country

These speculations however are all worthless. As we really don’t know the exact reasons why Trump pulled the nomination in May, it is difficult to guess why Trump changed his mind now.

It will be interesting to see how the Senate responds to this new Trump decision.

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Arianespace launches European radar satellite

8:32 am

The commercial arm of the European Space Agency, Arianespace, yesterday successfully launched Europe’s Sentinel-1D radar satellite, its Ariane-6 rocket lifting off from France’s French Guiana spaceport.

As noted here,

The 2,184-kilogram Sentinel-1D satellite is a twin of Sentinel-1C, which was launched aboard a Vega C rocket in December 2024. Given that the Ariane 62 can deliver more than 10 tonnes to low Earth orbit, launching the 2.3-tonne Sentinel-1D on a dedicated flight appears excessive, particularly as its twin was launched on a Vega C rocket.

Officials claimed the reason was a need to get the satellite in orbit because one in orbit had failed, and because of the delay in Vega-C launches because of a launch failure. Since Vega-C however has fixed the nozzle issue that caused the failure and resumed launches, this argument is unconvincing. I suspect the real reason is that Arianespace has had problems getting customers for Ariane-6. Other than Amazon, which purchased 18 launches, European companies and nations have been generally reluctant to use Ariane-6 because it is too expensive (it is expendable).

This was only the fifth launch by Europe in 2025, so the leader board for the 2025 launch race remains unchanged:

143 SpaceX
67 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 143 to 111.

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China delays return of Shenzhou 20 crew due to possible capsule damage from “space debris”

11:02 pm

Shenzhou-16 after undocking in 2023
Shenzhou-16 after undocking in 2023. Click for source.

In a very brief statement today by China’s state-run press, it announced the planned return on November 6, 2025 of the Shenzhou-20 crew that has just completed their six month mission on the Tiangong-3 space station has been delayed indefinitely due to “a suspected impact from tiny space debris” on their Shenzhou capsule.

According to the statement “impact analysis and risk assessment are under way.”

A new crew arrived at the station on October 31, 2025 on the Shenzhou 21-capsule, and after a few days transition were to take over operations while the crew of Shenzhou-20 returned home.

We do not know the extent of the damage or even when it was first detected. Depending on the damage, China has several options. First, after review it could decide to return the crew on Shenzhou-20.

Second, it could decide that a fresh replacement capsule needs to be launched. If so, the old crew’s mission might be extended for a few months, as happened to a Soyuz crew on ISS in 2023 because of a leaking coolant system. First Russia launched a new empty capsule to ISS, and then the damaged capsule returned unoccupied. That way a lifeboat was always docked for that stranded crew.

It might also be possible to patch the damage, depending on its size and location.

In every case, the situation should not be critical. I am assuming the station is well stocked at this time, so that a crew of six instead of three could manage there for about three months. I am also assuming China has more Shenzhou capsules in the pipeline and can prepare a new one relatively quickly. Finally, I am also assuming China’s Shenzhou capsules can dock autonomously, as do their unmanned Tianzhou freighters.

And then again, if any of my assumptions are wrong, this situation could become more serious.

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Sunspot update: Solar activity continues to decline as predicted

3:46 pm

Another month has passed, and so it is time for my monthly update on the never-ending sunspot cycle on the Sun. using NOAA’s own monthly update of its graph of sunspot activity and annotating it with extra information to illustrate the larger scientific context.

The green dot on the graph below indicates the level of sunspot activity on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere during the month of October. Not only did the number of sunspots decline from the count in the previous month, as predicted in April 2025 by NOAA’s panel of solar scientists (as indicated by the purple/magenta line), it dropped below their prediction.
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Someone is apparently considering putting a helicopter on Starship when it goes to Mars

2:53 pm

Potential Starship helicopter location

In my regular trolling through the images sent down from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), I sometimes come across things that imply truly exciting future missions. That happened when in 2019 I found a bunch of photos each labeled as a “candidate landing site for SpaceX Starship”. Without fanfare SpaceX had begun researching locations for where it intended to land Starship on Mars, in the northern lowland plains, research that it later solidified considerably.

Similarly, I have found MRO images in 2022 suggesting scientists were thinking of running a helicopter mission inside Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the solar system. Another image in 2024 suggested that a helicopter mission might go to another region in Mars’s southern cratered highlands.

The image to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, is another new example of a potential Martian helicopter mission. It was taken on August 19, 2025 and is labeled provocatively “Characterize Possible Rotorcraft Landing Site.” Unlike the previous two proposed helicopter locations, however — which appeared to be aimed at uncertain NASA funding — this image’s location suggests it is far more certain, and might launch far sooner than you can imagine.
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More Washington shenanigans over who will be NASA’s next administrator

12:17 pm

Two news outlets in the past day (Politico and Ars Technica) have posted stories about a 62-page plan — supposedly written by Jared Isaacman while he was still the nominee to become NASA administrator — that was recently leaked to them as well as others inside and outside NASA.

The plan itself, dubbed “Project Athena”, has not been made available, though the descriptions at both sources suggest it matches closely with the overall Trump effort to cancel SLS and Orion and shift space operations out of NASA and more into the private sector.

The nature of this plan of course threatens NASA’s established work force and the big space contractors who have worked hand-in-glove with NASA for decades, producing little but distributing a lot of money and jobs to these groups. Not surprisingly, both news sources quote extensively from anonymous sources within that NASA work force and those big space contractors, lambasting the plan and blasting Isaacman for proposing it. From the Politic article:

Sean Duffy
Sean Duffy: “Pick me! Pick me!”

Putting all of these plans into writing is a “rookie move,” and “presumptuous,” said an industry insider who has seen the document and thought it would stoke congressional skepticism around his nomination. Many of these ideas would need congressional approval to enact, and Congress could always block them.

The Ars Techica article speculates that interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy was the source of the leak, in his effort to become NASA’s official administrator. If the plan is Isaacman’s, it generates opposition to renewing Isaacman’s nomination as NASA administrator while garnering support for Duffy from NASA’s workforce and those big space contractors.

All of this is pure Washington swamp, however, which really matters little in the long run. First of all, none of this is real. We are talking about an unreleased plan that no one has seen publicly, and the reactions of anonymous sources criticizing that unseen plan. It is all the stuff of ghosts and fantasy. For we know, it is all made up, just like the Russian collusion hoax was manufactured against Trump.

Second, and more important, who runs NASA next is becoming increasingly unimportant. » Read more

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Intuitive Machines buys Lanteris, formerly Maxar

11:05 am

The lunar lander startup Intuitive Machines today continued its diversification into other space fields by acquiring the long-established satellite and spacecraft manufacturer Lanteris, formerly known as Maxar, for about $800 million.

The transaction is priced at $800 million, consisting of $450 million in cash and $350 million in Intuitive Machines Class A common stock, subject to adjustment. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026, subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions. As a stand-alone company, Lanteris is a cash generating business. As a combined company, Intuitive Machines expects to have adequate cash on hand for continued operations.

Intuitive Machines has attempted two lunar landings, both of which were failures when its lander fell over at touchdown. Since then it has made a concerted effort to diversify into other areas, including developing a returnable capsule, Zephyr, a lunar manned rover, Moon Racer, and an orbital tug. It has also acquired KinetX, a company specializing in space navigation and communications.

This new acquisition positions the company to bid on a much wider range of space projects, including military contracts relating to its Golden Dome project that is expected to cost billions.

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First unmanned test flight of India’s Gaganyaan capsule likely slips to next year

9:47 am

Artist rendering of India's Gaganyaan capsule
Artist rendering of India’s Gaganyaan capsule

Though India’s space agency ISRO still insists it will attempt the first unmanned orbital test flight of its Gaganyaan capsule before the end of 2025, its chairman has also indicated this schedule might slip into early next year due to agency’s upcoming launch schedule.

The problem is that it only has one launchpad for its largest rocket, LVM3 (recently nicknamed Bahubala) that Gaganyaan must use, and it has a contract with the American satellite company AST SpaceMoble to use Bahubala to launch one of its satellites next month. Furthermore, a Bahubala launch just occurred on that pad two days ago to launch a communications satellite for the Indian government. Thus, to do both the AST and Gaganyaan launches by the end of this year would mean it would have to do three launches from that pad in less than two months, something ISRO has never done.

ISRO plans to do at least three unmanned test flights of Gaganyaan before it attempts a manned orbital mission in 2027. If the first mission is slips into 2026, next year will be a very active one for ISRO, more active than that agency has been since it shut down during COVID.

Based on the present schedule, it appears that ISRO will set a pace of about one Bahubala launch every two months to complete this schedule, with the first Gaganyaan launch occurring around February 2026, and the next two Gaganyaan test launches in summer and fall. That would set the stage for the manned mission in early 2027.

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MDA invests $7 million to become part owner of proposed Nova Scotia spaceport

9:29 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

The Canadian space company MDA Space has now purchased for $10 million ($7 million in U.S. dollars) a part ownership in the proposed Spaceport Nova Scotia that the startup Maritime Launch Services (MLS) has been trying to establish since 2016, with little success.

The transaction includes an Investor Rights Agreement, entered into between MDA Space and Maritime Launch, providing MDA Space with certain rights, including the right to nominate one individual to sit on the board of Maritime Launch and pro-rata participatory rights in future financings of the Spaceport. The investment will be used for applicable research and development initiatives relating to the ongoing development of Spaceport Nova Scotia and will trigger the retirement of convertible debentures.

The history of this spaceport has been a frustrating one. Originally it had partnered with a Ukrainian rocket company, proposing to offer satellite companies both the launch facilities and the rocket. That plan died in 2022, when Russia invaded the Ukraine and the rocket company switched from making rockets to making drones.

MLS then opened up Spaceport Nova Scotia to all rocket companies, hoping the new launch startups building portable small rockets that could be set up anywhere would buy in. Though it periodically announced deals, none were with established orbital companies. Some were startups that after years have yet to launch, such as the British company Skyrora. Other contracts were with startups that weren’t even rocket companies, such as the space station startup Voyager Space.

Meanwhile, a second spaceport startup, Nordspace, appeared in 2022, proposing a spaceport in Newfoundland dubbed The Atlantic Spaceport. While it has not launched anything either, it has quickly signed contracts for ground stations and a mission control center, and even attempted (though scrubbed) a launch of its own rocket.

Whether this new deal can finally get Spaceport Nova Scotia off the ground remains very uncertain. MDA is not a launch company. It is a long established satellite company that also builds the robot arms used on ISS.

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

8:01 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11:09 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10:08 am

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

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

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

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

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

9:51 am

Haven-2
Haven-2 station once completed

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

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

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

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

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

9:26 am

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

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

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

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

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

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

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Two overnight launches

9:24 am

The beat goes on: Since yesterday there were two more successful rocket launches, from India and SpaceX.

First, SpaceX last night launched its fourth Bandwagon mission carrying 18 mid-sized smallsat payloads, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its third flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. The fairings completed their 11th and 13th flights respectively.

Bandwagon rideshare missions are dedicated missions by SpaceX. SpaceX’s SmallSat Rideshare Program provides small satellite operators with regularly scheduled, dedicated Falcon 9 rideshare missions to mid-inclination orbits for ESPA-class payloads, starting at $300,000 per mission and including up to 50kg of payload mass.

Among these payloads two were most notable, a South Korean military surveillance satellite and a demo module for the space station startup Vast. With the latter, the company will use this unmanned orbiting prototype to test operations to prepare for the launch in the spring of its full-sized manned demo station, Haven-1.

Next India’s space agency ISRO today launched its largest rocket, LVM3, lifted off from its Sriharikota spaceport, carrying the heaviest payload India had yet launched, a government communications satellite.

It appears the LVM-M3 has finally be given a real name. Previously ISRO called it the Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV). When it was upgraded to a more powerful version intended for India’s manned program, the name was revised to LVM3 (Launch Vehicle Mark 3). News reports today referred to the rocket now as Bahubali, calling it a “nickname.”

In all of ISRO’s missions the agency routinely uses very generic official names, but appears to eventually accept nicknames that the press uses, such as Chandrayaan for its moon missions, Mangalyaan for its Mars orbiter, Gaganyaan for its manned missions, and now Bahubali for this rocket. Increasingly however the Modi government seems to be pushing to use these names instead of those generic titles.

This was India’s third launch in 2025. The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

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

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 143 to 109.

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SpaceX launches 28 more Starlink satellites

3:33 pm

SpaceX this afternoon successfully placed another 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off form Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage (Booster 1063) completed its 29th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. With this flight this booster has now flown more times than the space shuttle Columbia, as shown below in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicles:

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

Sources here and here.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

142 SpaceX (a new annual record)
66 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 142 to 108.

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ISS study suggests that weightlessness impacts the eyes of men more than women

10:50 am

Eye flattening while in space
Astronauts who experienced changes in their
eyes (SANS) while on long missions in space

The uncertainty of science: A recent study of 30 astronauts during long term stays on ISS suggests that weightlessness impacts the shape of the eyes more in men than in women.

You can read the paper here.

In addition to changes in fluid around the brain, the team also found that a form of eye compression, a hallmark of Spaceflight Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome known as globe flattening, was the most consistent eye change among crew members. “By far the most prevalent sign of eye changes that we observed was globe flattening, suggesting that this should be the primary monitoring target for ocular health,” Seidler said. “Interestingly, eye changes were more prevalent in males than females.”

Globe flattening, when the back of the eyeball becomes slightly indented or pushed inward, might sound minor, but it can have significant effects on vision and raise concerns for long-duration space missions.

Surprisingly, there was no strong link between brain structural changes and eye changes, suggesting that the effects on the eyes and brain may arise from distinct mechanisms rather than shared physiological cause

For the eye research, the sample was so small, 28 individuals of which only 9 were females, the researchers readily admit in their abstract that and “interpretation of these findings should be tempered by the fact that our sample included a relatively small number of females.” Nonetheless, the research did suggest that, regardless of sex, about half of all humans will experience these eye issues during long missions in weightlessness.

The results underscore the need to do artificial gravity experiments in orbit, to find out the minimum amount of gravity needed to mitigate or even eliminate these health issues. Otherwise, interplanetary travel is going to be seriously hampered, if not impossible.

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Webb captures spectacular false-color image of planetary nebula

10:25 am

The Red Spider Nebula
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced to post here, was taken by the Webb Space Telescope and released this week by the European Space Agency (ESA). It shows in the near-infrared what the scientists have labeled “The Red Spider Nebula”, a planetary nebula of eruptive gases formed near the end of a star’s life.

Webb’s new view of the Red Spider Nebula reveals for the first time the full extent of the nebula’s outstretched lobes, which form the ‘legs’ of the spider. These lobes, shown in blue, are traced by light emitted from H2 molecules, which contain two hydrogen atoms bonded together. Stretching over the entirety of NIRCam’s field of view, these lobes are shown to be closed, bubble-like structures that each extend about 3 light-years. Outflowing gas from the centre of the nebula has inflated these massive bubbles over thousands of years.

Gas is also actively jetting out from the nebula’s centre, as these new Webb observations show. An elongated purple ‘S’ shape centred on the heart of the nebula follows the light from ionised iron atoms. This feature marks where a fast-moving jet has emerged from near the nebula’s central star and collided with material that was previously cast away by the star, sculpting the rippling structure of the nebula seen today.

It is theorized that a not yet detected second star circles the primary, with both acting as the blades in a blender to mix the gases and help produce these shapes.

Be sure to click on the image to see the full resolution version. It shows the details in the central region much more clearly.

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China launches three astronauts to its Tiangong-3 space station

9:24 am

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

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

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

141 SpaceX
66 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

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

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Latvia signs Artemis Accords

9:09 am

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

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

Because of the government shutdown, there has been as yet no confirmation of Latvia’s signing. If confirmed, the full list of Artemis Accords signatories is as follows: The full list of nations who have signed the accords: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

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

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New orbital radar data confirms large ice deposits in Phelgra Mountains near Starship landing zone

3:18 pm

Overview map

A new paper published this week used the SHARAD radar instrument on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to confirm that the glacial features found everywhere within the Phlegra Mountains where one of Starship’s four prime landing sites is located contains significant quantities of very accessible pure water ice.

The red dots on the map to the right mark two of those prime landing sites, with one inside the Phelgra Mountains in a region directly studied by this paper. The numbered black dots were other images taken by MRO for SpaceX, reported here in 2020. From the paper’s abstract:

We examined mid-latitude landforms on Mars that resemble Earth’s debris-covered glaciers in a region called Phlegra Montes. Our study site is a 1,400-km-long mountain range in the northern hemisphere of Mars that houses numerous debris-covered glaciers also called Viscous Flow Features (VFFs). Using data from the SHallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument, we detected eight new glaciers and estimated the thickness and volume of ice within them as well as the thickness of the debris on top insulating the ice. Our findings suggest that the region holds around 1.2 trillion cubic meters of ice below the surface. We detected two notable types of glaciers for the first time on Mars using SHARAD: (a) a glacier system with terrace-like steps and (b) a perched “hanging” glacier on the eastern side of the mountains

The study also found that the layer of dust and debris that covers these glaciers and protects them from sublimating away ranges from 6 to 25 feet in thickness, well within reach of any future colonists.

This study only confirms what all the orbital data for the past two decades has suggested, that Mars is an icy world like Antarctica, not a dry desert like the Sahara. As the researchers themselves note in the very first line of their paper, “Mars is a frozen world where water ice is abundant above, at, and under the surface.”

Their research also confirms that SpaceX has made a good choice for its Starship prime landing sites. Though it will likely not make its first landing at site #3, because it is inside the mountains and thus more risky, expect a landing there not long thereafter.

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

12:27 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

11:38 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10:27 am

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

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

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

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

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

Second and more important, Chinese officials claim their program to do a manned lunar landing is still on schedule for a 2030 launch.
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AST SpaceMobile signs 10-year deal with Saudi Arabia

9:22 am

The American satellite startup AST Spacemobile yesterday signed a ten year $175 million deal with Saudi Arabia’s telecommunications company STC to use is Bluebird satellite constellation provide its phone-to-satellite service to Saudi Arabia.

AST SpaceMobile will integrate its space-based cellular broadband connectivity with stc’s terrestrial infrastructure to expand mobile coverage across Saudi Arabia, as well as select countries in the Middle East and Africa. The partnership aims to eliminate connectivity gaps by delivering 5G and 4G LTE services directly to standard mobile phones without the need of any specialized software or device support or updates, for consumers, enterprises, and government sectors, ensuring seamless voice and broadband access

Under this agreement, the first in the region for AST SpaceMobile, the company will build three ground gateways in Saudi Arabia and establish a Network Operations Center (NOC) in Riyadh to support the network’s operations and service quality. These key infrastructure developments will be instrumental in providing seamless connectivity across the region.

In many ways, this company is the only one that is succeeding in a direct competition with SpaceX. Both companies are launching satellites designed to act as orbiting cell towers for smart phones. Both are now operational to about the same extent. And both are winning contracts in the U.S. and internationally.

With rocketry however no one else is even close to SpaceX. It is a decade since it introduced reusability in rockets, and still no one else has done it. And as for its Starlink internet satellite constellation, only now, five years after that constellation’s first launch, are other satellite constellations beginning to launch. Its 5,000-plus constellation exceeds all other constellations combined.

AST is not only competing with SpaceX, it might even be winning. For that the company deserves great kudos indeed.

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Lawsuit against Amazon for favoring Blue Origin over SpaceX to launch Kuiper satellites gets new hearing

8:01 am

The lawsuit originally filed in 2023 against Amazon because it favored other less reliable rockets, including Blue Origin’s forever-delayed New Glenn, instead of using SpaceX to launch its Kuiper constellation of satellites, got a new hearing yesterday after the suit was dismissed in February.

The suit is now being pursued a pension fund that apparently invested in the Kuiper constellation, and claims Jeff Bezos used his influence to convince Amazon to avoid using SpaceX when it signed launch contracts with ULA, Arianespace, and Blue Origin in 2022, even though none of those rockets were even operational at the time. Even now they appear unable to meet Amazon’s launch requirements.

Amazon has until 2026 to send up the first 1,600 satellites and three more years to launch the next batch. That broader backdrop barely came up during the appeal proceedings, which zoomed in on allegations that the board made no effort to oversee self-dealing by Bezos as he directed billions from Amazon to his own rocket company, Blue Origin, despite SpaceX’s superior capabilities.

Vivek Upadhya, counsel for the pension fund, stressed the “billions of dollars flowing directly from Amazon to a company owned and controlled by Amazon’s CEO and chairman.” The sheer scale of the conflict of interest made the Blue Origin contract “a truly exceptional transaction” requiring attentive board supervision, regardless of the actual role Bezos played in negotiations, according to Upadhya. “Delaware law doesn’t require that directors harbor some innate suspicion” before taking steps to manage conflicts, but the board “failed to lift a finger,” he said.

Following the filing of the 2023 lawsuit, Amazon signed SpaceX to a three-launch contract, which SpaceX has now completed. Meanwhile, only ULA has managed any of the other launches, three also. As for Arianespace and Blue Origin, it is not clear when either will begin doing any Kuiper launches.

It does appear Amazon’s board played favorites here, and did so in a way that was harmful to the company’s bottom line. Whether this can be proved to the satisfaction of the court however is very uncertain.

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The alien landscape of Mars’ north polar ice cap

1:29 pm

The strange terrain of Mars' north polar ice cap
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on August 24, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The camera team labels this simply as a “terrain sample,” which usually means it was not taken as part of any specific research request, but to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule in order to maintain its proper temperature. When they need to do this, they try to find interesting things to photograph, and mostly succeed.

At first glance the picture to the right does not appear that interesting. If anything it shows an endless expanse of mottled terrain, with no features of any interest at all. This sameness however is what makes this picture and landscape intriguing. What caused it to look this way?
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SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites

9:43 am

SpaceX once again broke its annual record for successful launches today, placing 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 15th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

141 SpaceX (a new record)
65 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 141 to 107. The U.S. launch total in 2025, now 159, is also a new record.

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Blue Origin officials provide update on their lunar lander program

9:30 am

2023 artist rendering of the manned Blue Moon lander
2023 artist rendering of the manned Blue Moon lander

Link here. According to the article, the company is presently stacking its first unmanned version of its Blue Moon lander, dubbed Blue Moon Mark 1, scheduled for launch now next year.

The 8.1-meter-tall cargo lander will help with ongoing development of their crewed lander, named Blue Moon Mk. 2, which is 15.3 meters tall. Both are powered by Blue Origin’s BE-7 engines, which are being tested on stands in Alabama, Texas and Washington.

…“A big milestone for you to look out for online is that Mk. 1 is three modules that are being stacked as we speak: aft, forward and mid. And once it is stacked in its finished configuration, we will be barging it over to NASA Johnson Space Center Chamber A to do a full up thermal vac campaign,” said [Jacqueline Cortese, Blue Origin’s Senior Director of Civil Space]. “So when you see that on its boat, you will know that big things are happening.”

Both versions of the lander are powered by a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. A key difference though is that Mk.1 can be launched to the Moon with a single launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket while Mk. 2 requires orbital refueling. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted sentence above is important because it illustrates the absurdity of the comments last week by interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy, claiming SpaceX’s program to make Starship a manned lunar lander is “behind”, forcing him to open up the competition to Blue Origin, who might get it done sooner.

One of the big issues used against SpaceX is that Starship will need to be refueled once in orbit to work as a lunar lander, and that technology needs to be developed and tested. The problem with this criticism is that, as noted above, Blue Origin’s manned lunar lander also needs to be refueled.
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