Tag: spaceflight

The next time someone tells you Mars lacks water, show them this picture

1:09 pm

Lots of near surface ice on Mars
Click for original image.

In the past decade orbital images from Mars have shown unequivocally that the Red Planet is not the dry desert imagined by sci-fi writers for many decades prior to the space age. Nor is it the dry desert that planetary scientists had first concluded based on the first few decades of planetary missions there.

No, what the orbiters Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Express have clearly shown is that, except for the planet’s equatorial regions below 30 degrees latitude, the Martian surface is almost entirely covered by water ice, though it is almost always buried by a thin layer of protective dust and debris. Getting to that ice will be somewhat trivial, however, as it is almost always near the surface.

The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, is a perfect example. It was taken on January 31, 2025 by the high resolution camera on MRO. At the top it shows part of a small glacial-filled crater surrounded by blobby ground clearly impregnated with ice. That crater in turn sits on the rim of a much larger very-eroded ancient 53-mile-wide crater whose floor, also filled with glacial debris, can be seen at the bottom of this picture. The wavy ridge line at the base of the rim appears to be a moraine formed by the ebb and flow of the glacial ice that fills this larger crater.

None of these glacial features is particularly unique on Mars. I have been documenting their presence now at Behind the Black for more than six years. Yet, I find still that most news organizations — including many in the space community — remain utterly unaware of these revelations. Any new NASA or university press release that mentions the near-surface ice that covers about two-thirds of the planet’s surface results in news stories claiming “Water has been found on Mars!”, as if this is a shocking new fact from a place where little water is found.

It is very shameful that so many reporters and news organizations are so far out of touch with the actual state of the research on Mars.
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Webb captures infrared images of five exoplanets orbiting two different stars

10:17 am

Four gas giants in infrared
Click for original image.

Using the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have taken two different direct false-color infrared images of exoplanets orbiting the stars HR 8799 (130 light years away) and 51 Eridani (97 light years away.

The image of the four gas giants orbiting HR 8799 is to the right, cropped, reduced, and slightly enhanced to post here. From the caption:

The closest planet to the star, HR 8799 e, orbits 1.5 billion miles from its star, which in our solar system would be located between the orbit of Saturn and Neptune. The furthest, HR 8799 b, orbits around 6.3 billion miles from the star, more than twice Neptune’s orbital distance. Colors are applied to filters from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), revealing their intrinsic differences. A star symbol marks the location of the host star HR 8799, whose light has been blocked by the coronagraph. In this image, the color blue is assigned to 4.1 micron light, green to 4.3 micron light, and red to the 4.6 micron light.

The Webb false color infrared picture taken of one of the exoplanets orbiting the star 51 Eridani is also at the link, showing “a cool, young exoplanet that orbits 890 million miles from its star, similar to Saturn’s orbit in our solar system.”

The data from the HR 8799 image suggests these gas giants have a lot of carbon dioxide gas, and thus might be growing by pulling in material from the star’s accretion disk.

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Norway awards the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace a two-satellite contract

9:48 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea

In what appears to be a concerted effort by Norway to cement the establishment of its Andoya spaceport on its northwest coast, last week it awarded a two-satellite launch contract to the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace, launching from that spaceport.

The launch is scheduled until 2028 and will take place from Andøya Spaceport, Europe’s first operational spaceport on the mainland. The agreement between the Norwegian Space Agency and Isar Aerospace involves launching two Norwegian satellites as part of the AOS program, a national maritime surveillance system.

Isar is now gearing up for the very first orbital test launch of its Spectrum rocket, which will also be the very first from Andoya, and the very first from the four proposed spaceports in Europe. Regulatory filings from Norway suggest it will occur during a ten-day launch window beginning on March 20, 2025, but Isar has not yet confirmed this.

Unlike the two UK spaceports, which have been delayed years due to government red tape, Norway’s government has apparently worked hard to cut red tape and help Isar get off the ground quickly. It also appears that Norway’s government is acting to stymie Sweden’s Esrange spaceport, releasing a report last week that suggested it will not give permission for launches over its territory from Esrange.

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Varda’s third capsule begins orbital operations

9:37 am

Varda's space capsule, on the ground in Utah
Varda’s first capsule on the ground in Utah.

The in-space commercial company Varda on March 15, 2025 confirmed that its third capsule has successfully begun orbital operations after its launch on a Falcon 9 rocket, carrying an Air Force payload that will test measuring the capsule’s re-entry speeds in connection with military hypersonic research.

W-3’s payload is an advanced navigation system called an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) developed by the US Air Force and Innovative Scientific Solutions Incorporated (ISSI). This payload will be tested at reentry speeds it was designed to withstand but has never encountered before.

This payload is part of a $48 million Air Force contract awarded to Varda in December. The company also notes in the press release that it is aiming for a monthly launch rate for its capsules, which provide customers an opportunity to do all kinds of in-space testing and manufacturing. Since this launch took place only fifteen days after the landing of its second capsule, it appears Varda is moving swiftly in that direction, thus providing more business for American rocket startups.

The capsule includes a service module built by Rocket Lab, and will stay in orbit several weeks before it returns to Earth, landing at the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia, operated by the Australian commercial spaceport startup Southern Launch.

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Chinese pseudo-company launches 8 satellites

9:09 am

The Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy today successfully placed eight remote-sensing satellites into orbit, its solid-fueled Ceres-1 rocket lifting off from the Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China.

This was Ceres-1’s eighteenth launch, making Galactic Energy the most successful rocket pseudo-company so far in China. That its rocket uses solid-fueled shows us however that it is strongly tied to China’s military, and likely controlled tightly by it.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

31 SpaceX
13 China
4 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successfully launches, 31 to 23.

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Russia launches classified satellites

9:09 am

Early this morning Russia successfully placed three classified satellites into orbit, its new Angara-1.2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northeast Russia.

Little information about the launch was released, and none about the satellites. This was the rocket’s fourth straight launch success from Plesetsk, beginning in 2022.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

31 SpaceX
12 China
4 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successfully launches, 31 to 23.

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Norway questions Sweden’s plan to launch orbital rockets from Esrange spaceport

12:56 pm

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea

In the capitalist competition between Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom to establish Europe’s prime launch site, Norway’s government has now issued a long study questioning Sweden’s plan to launch orbital rockets from its Esrange spaceport, since polar launches heading north from there will have to cross Norway.

You can read the report here [pdf]. For Esrange to conduct orbital launches it will need the permission of Norway for each launch, and it appears Norway is not satisfied with Sweden’s assessments that say launches can occur safely. The report concludes:

Norway recommends that the relevant Norwegian authorities conduct an assessment of the risks a launch will pose to the people in Norway and Norwegian interests, and determine whether this risk is acceptable, taking into account the interests and safety of the Norwegian people and the severity of the risk.

…Due to the significant economic costs associated with the impact on oil and gas production in
the Barents Sea, CAA Norway recommends that no launches be permitted in areas where there
is any risk to Norwegian oil and gas installations.

The release of this report illustrates Norway’s geographic advantages. The German rocket startup Isar is gearing up to do its first launch from Norway’s new spaceport, Andoya, possibly before the end of this month. It will have a clear path to space. Meanwhile, the American rocket startup Firefly, which wants to launch from Esrange, faces serious regulatory hurdles from neighboring countries, like Norway, because any rocket must fly over their territories.

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Four more launches, two by SpaceX, following manned launch

10:33 am

Following SpaceX’s successfully launch of four astronauts to ISS yesterday afternoon, the launch industry upped the pace by completing four more launches in the next few hours, two by SpaceX, one by Rocket Lab, and one by China.

Beginning with SpaceX, it first launched another one of its Transporter missions, carrying about three dozen smallsat payloads, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg. The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. The two fairings completed their eighth and eleventh flights respectively.

Five hours later the company launched another 23 Starlink satellites, the Falcon 9 lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, with the first stage completing its eighteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Rocket Lab meanwhile successfully placed the first of eight commercial radar satellites into orbit for the Japanese satellite company iQPS, its Electron rocket launching from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand.

China in turn used its Long March 2D rocket to place two satellites into orbit, lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. Its state-run press provided little information about either satellite. Nor did it provide any information about where the rocket’s lower stages — using very toxic hypergolic fuel — crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

31 SpaceX
12 China
3 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successfully launches, 31 to 22.

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SpaceX launches new crew to ISS

10:16 pm

Falcon 9 first stage barreling home to Florida
Falcon 9 first stage barreling home to Florida tonight.

After a scrub two days ago due to a ground equipment issue, SpaceX tonight successfully launched a new crew of four to ISS, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Kennedy in Florida.

The Dragon capsule is Endurance, on its fourth flight. The first stage completed its third flight, landing back in Florida.

This launch will allow the two-person crews launched by Boeing’s Starliner capsule in June and SpaceX’s Freedom capsule in September to come back home on Freedom.

When it was decided not to allow the Starliner astronauts to come home on Starliner because of thruster issues on the capsule, NASA decided to keep its ISS launch schedule as normal as possible, thus forcing that crew to complete a mission of about eight months, with a planned return in February 2025. Initially their Starliner mission was expected to last anywhere from two weeks to two months-plus, depending on how well Starliner functioned while docked to ISS.
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Europe’s Hera asteroid probe sends back data from Mars fly-by

1:00 pm

Deimos and Mars as seen by Hera
Click to see full movie.

The European Space Agency (ESA) Hera probe, on its way to study the Didymos/Dimorphos asteroid binary, has successfully sent back images and data obtained during its close-by of Mars yesterday.

The infrared image to the right, a screen capture from a short movie assembled from Hera’s first images, shows the Martian moon Deimos with Mars in the background. The mission scientists have compiled all of these first images taken by Hera to create a short movie, that I have embedded below. From the movie’s caption:

The car-sized Hera spacecraft was about 1000 km away from Deimos as these images were acquired. Deimos orbits approximately 23 500 km from the surface of Mars and is tidally locked, so that this side of the moon is rarely seen. Hera’s TIRI – supplied to the mission by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA – sees in mid-infrared spectral bands to chart surface temperature. Because Deimos lacks an atmosphere, the side of the moon being illuminated by the Sun is considerably warmer than the planet beneath it.

Although it appears as if Deimos is passing in front of Mars from south to north, the image was actually taken as Hera passed very close to Deimos from north to south at high speed.

Deimos appears brighter than Mars. This means that the surface of airless Deimos is hotter than the surface of Mars. The material covering the surface of Deimos has low reflectivity and is pitch black. This allows it to absorb sunlight well and become hotter. In contrast, the surface of Mars is highly reflective, and its atmosphere transports heat from the warm daytime side to the cooler nighttime side. This is why there is a large temperature difference between Mars and Deimos.

These infrared images also tell us the excellent quality of the camera. Note how detailed the features are on the Martian surface. When Hera gets to Didymos/Dimorphos in December 2026 it is going to be able to document those two asteroids in remarkable detail, including the results of the Dart impact on Dimorphos in September 2022.
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Ghana hires Axiom to help it develop its space industry

12:02 pm

Ghana and the American space station startup Axiom yesterday signed a deal whereby Axiom would provide Ghana’s Space Science and Technology Institute (GSSTI) advice and help in developing its own space projects.

The deal does not involve flying any astronauts into space, likely because Ghana simply can’t afford it. However, Axiom’s long experience working with NASA and flying astronauts to ISS gives it enough value that it can still make money providing advice and aid to poorer countries.

Whether Ghana will really benefit remains unclear. The government recently approved a national space policy, but that policy was mostly designed to establish a government bureaucracy, not encourage private enterprise. If this Axiom deal will provide educational aid than it might produce something. If instead the deal has Axiom working only with that bureaucracy don’t expect much.

Axiom however will welcome this extra cash. It illustrates another profit center for all American space companies.

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Pick a perfect March Madness bracket and SpaceX will award you a trip to Mars

10:55 am

College basketball fans now have a second motivation for predicting perfectly the team results during the March NCAA championship finals: SpaceX will award a perfect bracket a trip to Mars.

In a post from X’s business account, the platform officially announced their bracket challenge, partnered with their sponsor Uber Eats, announcing that anyone with a perfect bracket would win a trip to Mars as a part of the SpaceX program.

Those who are at least 18 years old and submit their bracket on X between March 16, after the CBS Selection Show, and the first game of the Round of 64 on March 20 will be eligible for the prize.

For those who don’t wish to travel to Mars, anyone who fills out a perfect bracket in the challenge could alternatively accept a prize of $250,000 and additional perks involved with the SpaceX program. This includes 1 year of free residential Starlink service, the chance to train like a SpaceX astronaut for a day, an opportunity to send a personal item of choice to space on a Falcon 9 launch, VIP viewing of a Starship launch.

If no one picks a perfect bracket (which is normally the case) a $100,000 prize was be awarded to the best non-perfect bracket.

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Launch window for first launch of German rocket startup Isar rocket revealed

10:39 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea

According to filings from the Norway’s Andoya spaceport, the launch window for Germany’s rocket startup Isar Aerospace for the first test orbital launch of its Spectrum rocket is now from March 20, 2025 to March 30, 2025.

On 12 March, Andøya Space, the mostly government-owned commercial entity that operates Andøya Spaceport, published a launch period notice covering 20 to 30 March. In relation to a maritime danger-area warning, the notice specifies launch windows between 12:30 and 16:30 CET throughout the 11-day period.

While the notice does not explicitly mention Isar Aerospace, as the company is currently the launch site’s sole customer, it can only refer to Isar. The company itself has yet to make a formal announcement regarding the published launch window.

In general Isar has been very closed-mouthed about its launch plans, so this supposition is not uncertain. The article however is right that there is no other rocket entity at Andoya that the launch window could refer to.

If Isar succeeds at this launch, it will win the race among about a half dozen European rocket startups to get an orbital launch off the ground first. Rocket Factory Augsburg had hoped to launch last year, but a fire during the one of the last rocket engine tests destroyed the rocket.

Regardless of whether Isar’s launch is successful, Norway meanwhile will win the race to be the first European spaceport to achieve an orbital launch. Though it shifted to orbital commercial operations much later than the two UK spaceports, years of regulatory red tape has prevented those UK spaceports from launching.

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Blue Ghost watches the Earth eclipse the Sun from the Moon

10:23 am

Eclipse as seen by Blue Ghost
Click for original image.

Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander last night successfully recorded images and data as the Earth slowly over hours crossed the face of the Sun, producing an eclipse.

The image to the right, cropped and reduced slightly to post here, is one such image. From the Firefly update page:

Captured at our landing site in the Moon’s Mare Crisium around 3:30 am CDT, the photo shows the sun about to emerge from totality behind Earth. This marks the first time in history a commercial company was actively operating on the Moon and able to observe a total solar eclipse where the Earth blocks the sun and casts a shadow on the lunar surface. This phenomenon occurred simultaneously as the lunar eclipse we witnessed on Earth.

The company has the right to tout its success, since it is the first of five private companies to actually succeed at a landing on the Moon. However, this is not the first such eclipse captured by a lander on the Moon. Surveyor 3 did it in April 1967, while Japan’s Kaguya orbiter did it also in 2009. (Watch this great lecture outlining the entire Surveyor program, presented during the 50th anniversary of its success. Hat tip reader Richard M.)

It is now past noon on the Moon, the temperatures will begin dropping, and Firefly will begin reactivating some instruments for the final week of operations before lunar sunset and shutdown for the long very cold lunar night.

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Indian engineers successfully undock its two Spadex robot satellites

9:33 am

After a delay of several months following the first autonomous robotic docking of its two-satellite Spadex mission, engineers from India’s space agency ISRO have now successfully undocked the chase satellite from its target satellite.

According to ISRO, the in-orbit performance of the docked satellites was extensively analysed, with a viable operational window identified from March 10 to March 25. Isro plans to conduct further experiments with the satellites in the coming days.

…Now that the undocking is complete, more docking attempts are expected to evaluate: How precisely ISRO can execute multiple docking maneuvers, how well the algorithms perform under various conditions, how the integrated inertial systems function and how the propulsion system performs during repeated operations.

These rendezvous and docking capabilities are essential for India to achieve its goal of building a manned space station and resupplying it on a regular basis.

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Ohio lawmakers lobby Trump to move NASA headquarters there

9:26 am

In a letter [pdf] dated March 11, 2025 to both vice president J.D. Vance and Jared Isaacman, presently nominated to become NASA administrator, a group of federal and state lawmakers from Ohio urged the Trump administration to move the agency’s headquarters to their state.

“While we recognize that other states, including Florida, Alabama, and Texas, may pursue similar proposals, Ohio presents a uniquely advantageous case due to its rich aerospace heritage, lower operational costs, and central role in the nation’s technology and defense sectors,” read the letter, signed by Ohio Republican Reps. Max Miller, Troy Balderson, Mike Carey, Warren Davidson, Jim Jordan, Dave Joyce, Bob Latta, Michael Rulli, Dave Taylor and Mike Turner and Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur. Buckeye State Sens. Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted, both Republicans, signed onto the letter as well.

Florida officials have already made their own proposal for capturing NASA headquarters. Based on this growing lobby effort, it really looks like the Trump administration is serious about scaling down NASA’s headquarters and moving it from the District of Columbia.

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ULA pinpoints reason a nozzle fell off a Vulcan rocket side booster during last launch

9:11 am

During a press briefing earlier this week, ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno noted that a manufacturing defect was the reason a nozzle fell off one of the two solid-fueled strap-on boosters during the second launch of the company’s new Vulcan rocket.

In a March 12 media roundtable, Tory Bruno, president and chief executive of ULA, said the anomaly was traced to a “manufacturing defect” in one of the internal parts of the nozzle, an insulator. Specific details, he said, remained proprietary. “We have isolated the root cause and made appropriate corrective actions,” he said, which were confirmed in a static-fire test of a motor at a Northrop test site in Utah in February. “So we are back continuing to fabricate hardware and, at least initially, screening for what that root cause was.”

The company however still awaits approval by the Pentagon to begin Vulcan commercial military launches. That delay has forced it to shift its first launch in 2025 from Vulcan to an Atlas-5 launch of Amazon’s first set of operational Kuiper satellites. Bruno also revealed during the press briefing that the company has scaled down the number of launches it hopes to complete in 2025 from 20 to 12, with the reduction caused almost entirely by fewer Vulcan launches.

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NASA releases Blue Ghost movie landing while Firefly prepares lander to observe solar eclipse of the Moon by Earth

8:54 am

NASA today released a fantastic movie of Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander as it touched down on the Moon on March 2, 2025, taken by four cameras mounted on the underside of its Blue Ghost lunar lander.

I have embedded the movie below.

The compressed, resolution-limited video features a preliminary sequence that NASA researchers stitched together from SCALPSS 1.1’s four short-focal-length cameras, which were capturing photos at 8 frames per second during the descent and landing.

The sequence, using approximate altitude data, begins roughly 91 feet (28 meters) above the surface. The descent images show evidence that the onset of the interaction between Blue Ghost’s reaction control thruster plumes and the surface begins at roughly 49 feet (15 meters). As the descent continues, the interaction becomes increasingly complex, with the plumes vigorously kicking up the lunar dust, soil and rocks — collectively known as regolith. After touchdown, the thrusters shut off and the dust settles. The lander levels a bit and the lunar terrain beneath and immediately around it becomes visible.

Engineers will use this imagery to better anticipate and possibly reduce the amount of dust kicked up during future landings.

Meanwhile, Firefly engineers are preparing the lander to observe tomorrow night’s lunar eclipse, but from a completely different perspective. On Earth we will see the Earth’s shadow slowly over five hours cross the Moon. On the Moon Blue Ghost will see the Earth cross in front of the Sun. Because of our home world’s thick atmosphere, there should be a ring remaining during totality.

Because the Moon will be in shadow during the eclipse, the challenge will be power management, operating the spacecraft solely on its batteries.
» Read more

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SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites but scrubs manned Dragon launch

8:37 am

SpaceX yesterday attempted two launches from its Florida launchpads, but only got one off. First the company placed another 21 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral. The first stage completed its 22nd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

In the second launch from the Kennedy Space Center, SpaceX had to scrub the launch because of a problem with the hydraulic system operating a support clamp arm. The flight is now rescheduled for no earlier than tomorrow at 7:03 pm (Eastern).

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

28 SpaceX
11 China
3 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world, including American companies, in total launches, 28 to 20.

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Graceful isolated dunes at the edge of the sea of dunes that surrounds Mars’ north ice cap

12:44 pm

Graceful isolated dunes on the edge of the dune sea that surrounds Mars' north pole
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 29, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). I have also rotated it so north is up. Labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” it was likely taken not as part of any specific research request but to fill a gap in the schedule in order to maintain the camera’s proper temperature.

In this case the timing allowed the camera team to capture this breath-taking picture of these graceful arching dunes sitting in what is likely the near-surface ice sheet that covers much of the red planet’s high latitudes. That sheet is not pure ice, but a complex mixture of ice, dirt, dust, and sand, covered during the winter by a thin mantle of dry ice.

The isolated dunes appear to be ridges sticking up from that flat terrain, but this impression is probably incorrect, based on the location.
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SpaceX inks Starlink deals with India’s two largest telecom operators

9:21 am

In a sign that suggests OneWeb is losing the competition to begin satellite internet access to India, SpaceX this week has signed two Starlink deals with India’s two largest telecom operators.

Jio Platforms, the subsidiary of India’s conglomerate Reliance Industries and the country’s largest telecom operator, Wednesday announced a partnership with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to offer Starlink’s satellite broadband internet services to its customers in India. Under the agreement, which is subject to regulatory approvals, Jio and SpaceX will explore using Starlink to extend the telco’s offerings, while Jio will sell Starlink equipment through its retail outlets and online storefronts, the telco said in a press statement.

…Earlier Wednesday, Airtel, India’s second-biggest telco, announced a similar partnership with SpaceX to offer Starlink through its channels. The Airtel partnership is also subject to SpaceX’s regulatory approvals in the country, which are in process with IN-SPACe and the Department of Telecommunications.

SpaceX had previously tried to bring Starlink to India by selling subscriptions directly to customers but was forced to pull back when the government denied it regulatory approval. These two deals suggest that the government wanted SpaceX to partner with Indian companies, keeping some of its profits in-country.

These deals also suggest that OneWeb is failing to provide good service to the Indian market, even though it is half owned by a major Indian investor and got regulatory approval several years ago. The design of OneWeb’s system requires the construction of ground stations to link its satellite constellation with the ground operations, and it appears this added step is causing delays that is forcing the telecom industry to look elsewhere. For example, the same thing has happened in the Falkland Islands, which signed first with OneWeb (which is also half owned by the UK government) but has now approved Starlink because OneWeb wasn’t able to provide its service on time.

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Astronomers discover 128 more moons around Saturn

9:01 am

Using a ground-based telescope, astronomers have now identified 128 new moons circling Saturn, bringing its moon count to 274, more than the total moons around all the other planets in the solar system combined.

Edward Ashton at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan, and his colleagues found the new moons with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, revealing dozens that have previously evaded astronomers. They took hours of images of Saturn, adjusted them for the planet’s movement through the sky and stacked them on top of each other to reveal objects that would otherwise be too dim to see.

All the new moons are between 2 and 4 kilometres in diameter and are likely to have been formed hundreds of millions or even billions of years ago in collisions between larger moons, says Ashton.

That Saturn has so many moons should surprise no one. Saturn actually has possibly millions, maybe even billions, of moons, if you count every particle in its rings. In fact, the gas giant poses a problem for astronomers in defining what a moon actually is. How small must an object be before you stop calling it a moon?

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SpaceX launches NASA space telescope plus four solar satellites; China launches 18 communication satellites

8:43 am

Two launches to report: First, China yesterday successfully completed its first Long March 8 launch from its new launchpad at its coastal Wenchang spaceport, placing 18 satellites for SpaceSail internet constellation, the fifth group so far launched.

China’s state run press noted that the launchpad is designed to allow the Long March 8 rocket to launch every seven days, a pace needed to place these giant Chinese satellite constellations into orbit.

Next, in the early morning hours today SpaceX successfully launched two different NASA science missions, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The prime payload was SPHEREx, a space telescope designed to make an all-sky survey. The secondary payload was PUNCH, four satellites forming a constellation to study the Sun.

The rocket’s first stage completed its third flight, landing back at Vandenberg.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

27 SpaceX
11 China
3 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

As happened last year, SpaceX handily leads the rest of the world, including American companies, in total launches, 27 to 20. This lead will be extended tonight should the company’s next manned Dragon launch to ISS go off as planned.

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Athena located from lunar orbit

3:12 pm

Athena on the Moon
Click for original master image.

Using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), scientists have now located and photographed Intuitive Machines lunar lander Athena where it sits on its side on the Moon.

The picture to the right, reduced to post here, shows that location with the small arrow. This is definitely on Mons Mouton, the intended landing zone about 100 miles from the Moon’s south pole. However at the best magnification provided by the LRO science team, the rover is not visible. Reader James Fincannon was puzzled by this and downloaded the highest resolution version of this image and sent it to me. I have added it to the picture as the inset. Athena is the little white dot in the center of a small 65-foot-wide crater. Note that its shadow falls in the opposite direction of all the shadows in the craters, as the lander projects upward from the surface while the craters descend downward.

One can’t help questioning the quality of the lander’s landing software, if it ended up picking the center of this small crater to touch down, especially considering there appear to be large relatively clear flat areas all around.

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Relativity provides detailed video update on the development of its Terran-R rocket

12:46 pm

The rocket startup Relativity yesterday uploaded a 42-minute long video on Youtube describing in great detail the status of its Terran-R rocket, providing a great deal of information about its design, construction, and goals, including the significant changes the company has made from its much smaller Terran-1 rocket.

I have embedded that video below.

Several take-aways: First, the video devotes a long segment explaining why the company has abandoned its long expressed goal of making a rocket entirely 3D printed. It found with Terran-1 that 3D printing the rocket’s body and fairing was not cost effective. It took too long and was too expensive. Using aluminum is faster and cheaper, especially as Relativity is no longer doing this in-house. Instead, it appears they are partnering long term with specific outside vendors for the rocket shells, tanks, and domes, as well as the fairings.

Second, the company is aiming to make the rocket’s first stage reusable from the start, making the first landing attempts on the first launch. They also recognize that success will take time and many attempts, similar to SpaceX’s experience a decade ago.

Third, they are pushing to go into major production of the rocket by 2026, so that when they launch the first time they will have more rockets ready to quickly follow up with more launches. This schedule is extremely fast, as they only started rocket development in the spring of 2023.

Finally and most important, the video provides no dates for that first launch. Previous releases from the company had suggested a 2026 first launch, and officials in the video implied that they might be ready by 2026, but no one said so directly. My guess is that 2026 is no longer realistic (not that it ever was), and they are beginning to prepare the public for a later launch date.

One other new development at Relativity not mentioned in the video. The company has named former Google CEO Eric Schmidt as its new CEO, with the company’s founder, Tim Ellis, stepping down as CEO to transition to the company’s board of directors. This change could be related to rumors last year that the company was having problems.
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Poland fires head of its space agency

10:29 am

Apparently due to his failures in min-February dealing with debris dropped on Poland from a de-orbiting Falcon 9 upper station, the government has fired the head of its space agency.

The President of the Polish Space Agency, Grzegorz Wrochna, has been dismissed following a botched response to the uncontrolled re-entry of a Falcon 9 second stage that scattered debris across multiple locations in Poland.

It appears Wrochna’s office had sent its reports on the debris to the wrong email address, so that the people higher up in the command chain were not informed properly about what was happening. This failure was then compounded in early March when the space agency’s computer systems were hacked, forcing it to shut down its access to the internet.

You might ask why Poland even has a space agency, and if you do you are asking the right question. The nation does not have “a space program,” which would require an agency. Instead it has a handful of new rocket startups, mostly focused on suborbital flights. All these need is the right legal framework to succeed, not a bureaucracy telling them what to do.

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Europe’s Hera probe to fly past Mars tomorrow

10:22 am

As part of its journey to the binary asteroid Didymos/Dimorphos, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera probe will slingshot past Mars tomorrow, obtaining images and data of both the red planet and its moon Deimos.

Three instruments will gather data, a navigational camera, and infrared camera, and a spectral camera, with the goal mostly to calibrate the instruments and make sure they are working as designed. The data won’t be available until the next day, when the ESA will hold a webcast unveiling the images.

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SpaceX officials provide cause of loss Falcon 9 first stage after successful landing

9:45 am

Damaged Falcon 9 booster laying on its side on drone ship as it returns to port
The damaged Falcon 9 booster laying on its side
on its drone ship as it returns to port.

At a press conference yesterday, SpaceX officials outlined the results of its investigation into the loss of Falcon 9 first stage when it fell over on its drone ship shortly after a successful landing.

Speaking at a news conference following a flight readiness review for the Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station, Bill Gerstenmaier, vice president of Build and Flight Reliability at SpaceX, said about 85 seconds into the launch of the Starlink 12-20 mission, there was a fuel leak in the first stage booster, tail number B1086, and kerosene sprayed onto a hot component of the engine. He said that caused it to vaporize and become flammable.

Because there wasn’t enough oxygen to interact with the leaked fuel, it didn’t catch fire during the ascent, he said. But about 45 seconds after B1086 landed on their droneship, ‘Just Read the Instructions,’ there was enough oxygen available to get into the engine compartment and a fire broke out. “It subsequently blew out the barrel panel on the side of the rocket, just like it was designed to. The fire was all contained in the engine compartment,” Gerstenmaier said. “Even if we would’ve had a problem during ascent, this shows that the fire and the damage would be contained in just a single engine out, which still allows us to accomplish the entire mission.”

The company is still working to determine the cause of the leak itself.

Though the article and video at the link make a big deal about the FAA grounding SpaceX’s Falcon 9 fleet, the agency’s actions here were quite trivial compared to its behavior when Biden was president. It grounded the fleet for only a few days, while SpaceX did its initial investigation, and then immediately accepted the above conclusions from SpaceX and lifted the grounding, even though the company has not yet determined the leak’s cause.

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Space Force awards development contracts to eight startups

9:27 am

The Space Force’s commercial office, dubbed SpaceWERX, announced March 8, 2025 that it has awarded development contracts to eight startups totaling $440 million.

Each STRATFI agreement is worth up to $60 million, with SpaceWERX and several defense agencies contributing up to $30 million per project. Private investors provide matching funds to scale innovations that have already demonstrated viability through prototype development.

The winners — Albedo, Beast Code, CesiumAstro, Gravitics, LeoLabs, Rise8, Umbra and Xona — were announced March 8 at an event at the Capital Factory in Austin, Texas.

Of these companies, Gravitics is probably the most interesting, as it is attempting to become a major American provider of space station modules. It already has a $125 million contract with Axiom to build a small module for that company’s station. This new contract from the Space Force suggests the Pentagon is considering launching its own space station, or possibly attaching a Gravitics module to one of the four private stations presently being built. Below is my present ranking of these four stations:

  • Haven-1, being built by Vast, with no NASA funds. The company is moving fast, with Haven-1 to launch and be occupied in 2026 for a 30 day mission. It hopes this actual hardware and manned mission will put it in the lead to win NASA’s phase 2 contract, from which it will build its much larger mult-module Haven-2 station..
  • Axiom, being built by Axiom, has launched three tourist flights to ISS. There are rumors it is experiencing cash flow issues, but it is also going to do a fourth ISS tourist flight this spring, carrying passengers from India, Hungary, and Poland.
  • Orbital Reef, being built by a consortium led by Blue Origin and Sierra Space. Though Blue Origin has apparently done little, Sierra Space has successfully tested its inflatable modules, including a full scale version, and appears ready to start building the station’s modules for launch.
  • Starlab, being built by a consortium led by Voyager Space, Airbus, and Northrop Grumman. It recently had its station design approved by NASA.
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Blue Ghost activates NASA drill, prepares for hot lunar noon

9:16 am

Map of lunar landing sites
Landing sites for both Firefly’s Blue Ghost and
Ispace’s Resilience

More than a week after landing in Mare Crisium, ground controllers have prepared Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander for surviving the very hot lunar noon while also activating NASA’s LISTER drill, which proceeded to successfully drill down into the lunar surface below the lander.

Mounted below Blue Ghost’s lower deck, NASA’s Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER) payload is a pneumatic, gas-powered drill developed by Texas Tech University and Honeybee Robotics that measures the temperature and flow of heat from the Moon’s interior.

I have embedded below the video of this drilling operation. At this moment it appears that nine of the lander’s payloads have completed their tasks successfully, with no indication yet that the tenth playload will have problems. All in all, Firefly has succeeded in establishing itself now as the leading private company capable of launching spacecraft to other worlds.
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