Tag: spaceflight

China launches a “communications technology test satellite”

9:33 am

China today successfully launched what its state-run press called a “communications technology test satellite,” its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China.

No other details about the satellite were released. Nor did that state-run press provide any information about where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

152 SpaceX
72 China (a new record)
15 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 152 to 120.

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Moss placed on the outside of ISS for nine months was still capable of reproducing

9:27 am

Graphic from research paper
Graphic from paper.

Scientists have now demonstrated that moss, a bryophyte, can still reproduce despite spending nine months exposed to the harsh vacuum and radiation environment of space on the outside of ISS.

In fact, the researchers found that more than 80% of the spores survived and were able to germinate. You can read their peer-reviewed paper here [pdf].

That the moss could survive is in itself not as surprising as you might think. When the Apollo 12 astronauts brought back pieces from the unmanned Surveyor-3 lander scientists found a single bacterium that survived in space for more than two years. What makes this new result more significant is that moss isn’t simply bacteria, but plant life far more complex. More important, the results found that the moss was far more tolerant of that harsh environment than other lifeforms. From the paper:

In contrast, desiccation-tolerant animals such as tardigrades (Hypsibius dujardini and Ramazzottius varieornatus) and UV-resistant insects’ hydrated larvae undergoing anhydrobiosis (Polypedilum vanderplanki) failed to match the UVC tolerance observed in P. patens spores. Similarly, spores of bacteria and fungi, such as Bacillus subtilis and Aspergillus niger, showed only limited UVC resistance. Thus, these patterns highlight that certain plant structures, namely spores and seeds, tend to exhibit superior UV resistance, likely due to the presence of specialized UV-screening pigments such as flavonoids and carotenoids, which help protect DNA and cellular structures from UV-induced damage.

As the paper notes in its conclusion:

As pioneer plants, bryophytes have the potential to transform regolith into fertile soil, facilitating ecosystem development on other planets, similar to peat moss improving soil fertility on Earth.

That moss isn’t bother significantly by radiation means any greenhouse on Mars need not be shielded as aggressively as previously thought, at least in the initial stages.

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Maritime Launch Services touts a second non-orbital launch from Spaceport Nova Scotia

8:51 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

The competition between Canada’s two proposed spaceports heated up yesterday when the owner of Spaceport Nova Scotia, Maritime Launch Services, announced that the second launch had taken place there, this time by a rocket startup named T-Minus Engineering.

The launch took place at 11:54 AM, and the mission marked an important milestone in advancing the operational readiness of Spaceport Nova Scotia, critical infrastructure that will provide Canada with sovereign launch capability. The launch was conducted from Spaceport Nova Scotia under approved regulatory and safety frameworks. The demonstration strengthened coordination among launch site teams and stakeholder partners, while refining launch operational procedures and the safety and security systems that govern all activities at the spaceport.

The press release provided no details about the launch itself, though this report noted that the rocket failed to reach its goal of 100 kilometers, the altitude considered by most as the edge of space. The rocket, dubbed Barracuda, is solid-fueled and was apparently designed by T-Minus to demonstrate its capability for hypersonic testing.

This was the second suborbital launch from this spaceport. The first, in 2023, was a student test flight. In both cases, the launches were mostly a PR effort to sell the spaceport, which was first proposed in 2016 but has been unable so far to draw any launch customers. Maritime now also faces competition from the Atlantic Spaceport being proposed by a different company, Nordspace.

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Firefly to provide the launch rocket for Kratos’ hypersonic test vehicles

8:36 am

The rocket/lunar lander startup Firefly yesterday announced that it has signed a partnership deal with the hypersonic test startup Kratos.

In August Kratos partnered with the Australian company Hypersonix to build 20 scramjet test vehicles for the Pentagon for hypersonic test flights. Firefly with this new deal will provide the launch vehicle for getting those scramjets into the air at the speeds required. In fact, it appears Firefly is now going to do with its Alpha rocket the same thing that Rocket Lab did with its Electron rocket, revising it for suborbital testing.

Rocket Lab has already completed six successful HASTE launches. It will be interesting how quickly Firefly can get Alpha reconfigured and launched in this manner. Some of that schedule will also hinge on Kratos’ ability to provide the scramjets. The press release makes no mention of schedule.

Firefly’s action here continues the recent shift by many American space startups from rocketry and space exploration to defense work that is only tangentially related to space. It appears they are all diversifying to grab the expected rich contracts the Pentagon is expected to hand out to develop Trump’s proposed Golden Dome defense system. It also appears that many are diversifying because they have doubts the civilian space industry can sustain them, by itself.

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Spanish rocket startup PLD unveils the first qualification unit of its Miura-5 rocket

8:01 am

1st Miura-5 qualification unit
The 1st Miura-5 qualification unit. Click for original.

The Spanish rocket startup PLD yesterday unveiled the first of two full-scale qualification units it is building to test the design of its Miura-5 orbital rocket, scheduled for a first launch sometime in 2026.

The QM1 unit will serve to qualify two key elements of the launcher. Firstly, the MIURA 5 second stage will undergo a destruction test in the United States to validate the functioning of the Flight Termination System. This test will verify the operation of the explosive charges onboard the vehicle, designed to destroy the launcher in the event of an in-flight anomaly.

Secondly, a Wet Dress Rehearsal will be carried out on the rocket’s first stage – a full propellant loading test that replicates all structural load scenarios during the fuelling and pressurisation phase. This test is essential to validate the behaviour of structures under real operational conditions.

By December (next month) the company hopes to complete a second qualification unit for further testing, followed by the flight rocket, which will be shipped to French Guiana for a launch sometime next year.

Right now PLD and Germany’s Isar Aerospace are in the lead in the race to become the first European rocket startup to reach orbit. Isar — which in March attempted one launch that failed — has already shipped the stages to Norway for its second attempt before the end of this year. PLD thus appears to be just behind, though all this could easily change. This is rocket science y’know.

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SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites

8:48 pm

The beat never stops! SpaceX tonight successfully placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The first stage completed its 23rd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

152 SpaceX (a new record)
71 China
15 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 152 to 119.

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Cracks on Mars

2:47 pm

A cracking Martian surface

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 20, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The camera team describes these features as “ridges,” which in one sense is entirely true. The features are ridges that rise above the surrounding plain. The problem is that they are also cracks, with most showing a distinct central fissure in their middle.

Such double ridged cracks are reminiscent of the surface of dried mud or paint, when it begins to crack and shrink. The surface on each side of a crack pulls away, rising upward slightly as it does so. Is that what we are seeing here, the drying of this surface?

As always, location is critical to understanding the Martian geology.
» Read more

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The DC swamp proposes beating China in space by creating another bureaucracy here on Earth

1:02 pm

Gotta feed those DC pigs!
Gotta feed those DC pigs!

My heart be still: A bi-partisan group of senators, led by Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), yesterday introduced legislation they claim will help the U.S. beat China in space by creating a new government agency called the “National Institute for Space Research,” designed to encourage research in space tied to the proposed commercial space stations.

Reports indicate that China is launching new modules to its Tiangong space station to meet growing demands for science and to boost international cooperation and is developing a new-generation crew spacecraft with two variants: one for low Earth orbit (LEO) and one for crewed lunar missions. China has been actively promoting international cooperation through Tiangong, offering countries like Oman, Egypt, Pakistan, and others opportunities to participate in space research largely for free or at an extremely low cost. China has also offered to train foreign astronauts, garnering interest from countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the UAE to train engineers, scientists, and mission operators for satellite development, and to launch services in which Egypt, Algeria, and Argentina are actively involved. This is a part of China’s broader Belt and Road Initiative, where space cooperation is bundled with tech transfer, loans, development projects, and the like.

This underscores strategic and accelerating investment by foreign adversaries in space-based infrastructure, research, and exploration. China’s ability to offer space-based partnerships to other nations allows it to build soft power and potentially shift international norms in space governance and tech standards.

In response, the Space RACE Act would create a National Institute for Space Research, a federally controlled but independently operated entity designed to coordinate and advance U.S. microgravity research in LEO using next-generation space platforms after the retirement of the ISS.

The last thing this bill will achieve is a stronger American space industry. Rather than funding real research or development in space, this legislation simply creates another Washington government agency supposedly functioning independent of presidential or even congressional oversight (a legal structure the courts have increasingly declared unconstitutional).

This is just more pork. It is also symbolic of the stupidity of our elected officials, who still do not really understand the real reasons beyond the on-going renaissance in America’s space effort. It hasn’t been the government that made it happen. It has been the private dreams of competing companies and individuals, figuring out ways they could make money launching rockets, often with the government acting as a major obstacle. Rather than streamline our bloated government to get it out of the way of this new private sector, these senators want to create more government to dictate how that sector functions.

Ugh. There are times I wish I didn’t have to read the news from DC. It almost always depresses me.

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Blue Origin announces plans to upgrade New Glenn to match SLS

12:25 pm

New Glenn compared to the Saturn-5
Graphic issued by Blue Origin’s CEO comparing
New Glenn to the Saturn-5. Click for source.

In an update posted today, Blue Origin announced that it is planning to begin upgrades to its New Glenn orbital rocket as soon as its very next launch early in 2026, with those upgrades eventually raising the rocket’s capabilities to that of NASA’s overpriced, cumbersome, and poorly designed SLS rocket.

One of the primary enhancements includes higher-performing engines on both stages. Total thrust for the seven BE-4 booster engines is increasing from 3.9 million lbf (17,219 kN) to 4.5 million lbf (19,928 kN). BE-4 has already demonstrated 625,000 lbf on the test stand at current propellant conditions and will achieve 640,000 lbf later this year, with propellant subcooling increasing the current thrust capability from the existing 550,000 lbf.

The total thrust of the two BE-3Us powering New Glenn’s upper stage is increasing from the original design of 320,000 lbf (1,423 kN) to 400,000 lbf (1,779 kN) thrust over the next few missions. BE-3U has already demonstrated 211,658 lbf on the test stand.

These numbers are a little more than half that put out by the Saturn-5 in the 1960s. New Glenn however has a reusable first stage, so it will cost far less to launch, and will be able to do so frequently. These changes will also make it comparable to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy.

These engine upgrades however are only a start. Blue Origin also plans to offer a second more powerful version of New Glenn by adding two BE-4 engines to the first stage and two BE-3U engines to the upper stage.
» Read more

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Rocket Lab sets new annual launch record for the company

11:00 am

Rocket Lab today set new annual launch record for the company, quickly scheduling and launching a payload for a “confidential commercial customer”, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of the company’s two launchpads in New Zealand.

This was the 15th orbital launch by Rocket Lab in 2025, beating the record of 14 the company set in 2025. Rocket Lab has also launched its HASTE suborbital version of Electron three times, so the company has actually completed the equivalent of 18 Electron launches this year, though three were not intended to reach orbit.

What made this launch unusual is that it was not announced in advance, and took place suddenly without revealing the customer. It is likely the customer was flying a classified military payload. UPDATE on November 26, 2025: That customer was actually the commercial imagery company BlackSky, launching another one of its satellites for its constellation used by both the military and the public. The company did not explain why it wished its identity hidden during the launch.)

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

151 SpaceX
71 China
15 Rocket Lab (a new record)
13 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 151 to 119.

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ArianeGroup confirms it is targeting about six Ariane-6 launches in 2026

10:46 am

According to an official with ArianeGroup, the company that builds and owns the Ariane-6 rocket, it hopes in 2026 to double the launch rate from 2025, from four this year to as many as eight launches next.

The Group is ramping up production at its sites in France and Germany for this purpose. The main stage will be manufactured in Les Mureaux, France, and the upper stage in Bremen, Germany. The latter is considered the heart and brain of the rocket, as it is responsible for controlling the final flight section and reaching the target.

In Bremen, the Group developed a serial production process – similar to assembly line production in car manufacturing. Six upper stages are to be produced in parallel at the plant in future. Ten to twelve upper stages are to be completed and delivered each year. “The target of around ten missions per year should be achieved by 2027,” said Franzeck.

Franzeck’s prediction matches that made two weeks ago by the head of Arianespace, which manages Ariane-6 for ArianeGroup.

It is likely that these companies will get at least six launches off in 2026. Whether they can achieve eight is less likely, based on their past recent record. Reaching 10 launches in 2027 is probably more certain however. They have a big 18-launch contract with Amazon to launch its Amazon LEO satellites (formerly Kuiper), and there is great pressure to achieve those launches quickly because of Amazon’s FCC license requirements.

After this however the future of Ariane-6 remains uncertain. It is too expense (being expendable) to compete in the present launch market. Few European companies want to buy it, and there are numerous new reusable rockets about to begin operations.

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Webb captures spiraling shells around massive binary star system

10:31 am

Webb's false color image of shells
Click for original.

Using the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to produce a reasonably detailed map of the four shells that surround a triple-star system of two massive Wolf-Rayet (W-R) stars and an as-yet unseen supergiant, produced by the interaction of the winds that come off the two W-R stars combined with the interaction of the third.

The image to the right is that Webb false-color infrared image, combined with the data from the ground-based Very Large Telescope in Chile. It has been reduced to post here. The researchers have also produced a 3D simulation mapping out those shells, which you can view here.

The scientists have dubbed this system Apep after the Egyptian god of chaos. From the conclusion of the research paper [pdf]:

We imaged the colliding-wind W-R binary Apep with [Webb] and [the Very Large Telescope]. The JWST images detected four concentric dust shells with highly regular and detailed structures surrounding Apep. The mean expansion speed of the dust shells is 90 ± 4 mas yr−1 and the mean spacing between neighboring shells is 17.30″ ± 0.17″ [in degree seconds]. The shell spacing and expansion speed together suggest an orbital period of 193 ± 11 years, which is independent of uncertainties on the distance, and that the dust structure observed was produced over the past 700 years.

It is believed that Wolf-Rayet stars are primary candidates to eventually go supernova. The data for this system also suggests this system could produce a gamma ray burst as well. At present the astronomers estimate the distance to this system to be about 15,000 light years, which means such an explosion would likely poses no risk to us. It would however give scientists a great view of the event, better by many magnitudes compared to previous such explosions.

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India tests new and better restart method for upper stage of its biggest rocket

9:58 am

India’s space agency ISRO has successfully tested new restart method for the engine it uses on the upper stage of its LVM rocket, its biggest rocket that it also intends to use for its manned and interplanetary missions.

For future missions, multiple in-flight restarts of the CE20 engine will be required for mission flexibility towards multi-orbit missions. However, with the present configuration, each restart demands an additional start-up gas bottle and associated systems, leading to a reduction in vehicle payload capability. Hence, achieving boot-strap mode start – where the engine builds up to steady operation without external start-up assistance – is essential.

In this regard, a boot-strap mode start test on the CE20 Cryogenic engine was successfully conducted under vacuum conditions in the High-Altitude Test (HAT) facility at ISRO Propulsion Complex, Mahendragiri on 7th November 2025, for a duration of 10 seconds. A multi-element igniter was employed in both the thrust chamber and gas generator to facilitate boot-strap starting. In this test, following the ignition of the thrust chamber, the gas generator was ignited under tank head conditions, and the turbopumps were started without the use of the start-up system. Subsequently, boot-strap mode build-up and steady-state operation of the engine were successfully demonstrated.

In other words, the engine now be restarted numerous times, giving any payload attached much greater flexibility in positioning and orbital maneuvers. For manned missions this means it can be used to reposition the modules for India’s planned space station, maneuver its manned capsule Gaganyaan, and send interplanetary missions to the Moon and beyond.

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NASA releases numerous images of interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas

9:50 am

Comet 3I/Atlas as seen by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

NASA yesterday released a slew of images of interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas, taken by numerous in-space probes at Mars and elsewhere.

The picture to the right, cropped to post here, is probably the one with the most detail, taken by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) from Mars orbit on October 2, 2025. In addition, images were captured by:

None of these pictures show the comet in any great detail. All however confirm once again that it is a comet, not an interstellar alien spacecraft as some idiots in academia have been proposing wildly. The Maven observations in ultra-violet wavelengths for example identified hydrogen and other isotopes coming off the comet as it is heated by the Sun. MRO’s image to the right once again showed the comet’s coma and tail.

Above all, these observations were great engineering experiments for all the science teams, demonstrating that they could point their instruments in an unplanned direction and capture a very faint object quite far away.

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Katalyst picks Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus rocket to launch its Swift rescue mission

9:28 am

Katalyst's proposed Swift rescue mission
Katalyst’s proposed Swift rescue mission.
Click for original image.

The orbital repair startup Katalyst yesterday announced it has chosen Northrop Grumman’s air-launched Pegasus rocket to launch its mission to rescue NASA Gehrels-Swift space telescope.

Unlike typical launch campaigns that take up to 24 months, Katalyst has under eight months to get its LINK spacecraft on orbit to rescue Swift. Swift’s orbital decay demands an urgent mission, launching before atmospheric drag makes recovery impossible. Pegasus is the only system that can meet the orbit, timeline, and budget simultaneously.

Swift’s orbit at 20.6° inclination is difficult to reach from U.S. launch sites, where most small rockets are limited by launch site to inclinations above ~27°. Pegasus, carried aloft by Northrop Grumman’s L-1011 Stargazer aircraft and released midair at 39,000 feet, offers the flexibility to launch from virtually anywhere on Earth, making it one of the few viable systems capable of achieving Swift’s orbit on a highly compressed timeline.

This plan has numerous unusual aspects. First, the decision by NASA in September 2025 to pick Katalyst was a surprise. The company is new, and has never actually flown a repair mission yet. It got the contract basically because it could quickly reshape its first planned demo mission into a Swift repair mission.

Second, Pegasus was originally created in the 1980s as a low-cost rocket by the company Orbital Sciences (now part of Northrop Grumman). Though it initially undercut the prices of the existing rocket companies, in the long run it failed to offer a viable option. It hasn’t launched in almost five years, and has only been used five times in the past sixteen years. Northrop Grumman stopped making it years ago, and presently only has this one last rocket in its warehouse.

Finally, saving Gehrels-Swift is critical. It has been one of NASA’s most successful relatively low-cost space telescopes, designed to quickly target high energetic events like gamma ray bursts in order to capture the optical component of the blast. Its orbit is fast decaying and if not raised it will burn up in the atmosphere by 2029. To save it however requires a unique and improvised solution as it has no grapple attachment. Katalyst’s rescue spacecraft ““will rely on a custom-built robotic capture mechanism that will attach to a feature on the satellite’s main structure–without damaging sensitive instruments.”

To put it mildly, in many ways this might be one of the most daring NASA missions ever flown.

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Looking for avalanches on Mars

11:59 am

Avalanche scarp on Mars

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

The science team labels this as an “avalanche scarp”. At first glance it appears we are looking at a major mass wasting event flowing downward to cover the lighter banded terrain near the bottom of the picture.

The problem is that the overlying material didn’t move as an avalanche down onto that lighter material. Note that it has within it its own layers. To have flowed over that lower terrain it would have had to do that coherently, its many layers moving in unison. This doesn’t seem probable, though who knows considering the alien nature of Mars.

So what is going on? And why was this picture taken?
» Read more

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More criticism and opposition to Europe’s proposed space law

9:47 am

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

At a conference in Germany this week, officials from the U.S. and several European countries expressed strong reservations about a proposed new European space law that would impose significant regulations on satellite and rocket companies, even if they are not European-based.

The objections by the American representative merely underlined the opposition already expressed by the State Department two weeks ago, when it said the law placed ““unacceptable regulatory burdens on U.S. providers of space services to European customers.”

Objections however were also expressed by officials from the United Kingdom and Liechtenstein. The latter’s comments also suggested further opposition should be expected from other European nations as well.

Liechtenstein is not a member of the EU but is part of the European Economic Area (EEA), said Bianca Lins, lead for space in the Liechtenstein Office for Communications. Since the EU Space Act covers issues like a single market for space services in Europe, “it’s going to be incorporated into the EEA agreement and also means we have to transpose it into national law.”

Her concern, she said, is that the act “does not really consider the international obligations that every sovereign state has,” including responsibilities under the Outer Space Treaty. She expected Liechtenstein, Iceland and Norway — the other EEA states outside the EU — to submit comments on those issues.

The law has also been condemned by companies in the U.S. as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

It is unclear however if the European Union is reconsidering the bill. If it passes it will do significant harm. One possibility is that American companies will pull much of their satellite and launch business out of Europe. And if they do not, it will likely cause them to defy the law, with State Department backing. The EU has no right to impose its rules on American companies.

If the latter occurs, it will thus set a significant legal precedent that suggests the European Union is a toothless non-entity with no real legal power. I suspect this threat above all will force the EU to reconsider the bill.

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Senate demands a second hearing before voting on Isaacman as NASA administrator

9:25 am

Jared Isaacman
Billionaire Jared Isaacman

Despite being days from a confirmation vote in June after undergoing a Senate hearing previously — when Trump nominated Jared Isaacman for NASA administrator the first time — the Senate has now demanded a second hearing before it will schedule a second confirmation vote on Isaacman.

Sen. Ted Cruz has scheduled a Dec. 3 hearing for Jared Isaacman, the billionaire entrepreneur and commercial astronaut renominated to lead NASA, before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. … The new hearing will mean that Isaacman will not be confirmed by the Senate in the next batch of nominees, which will likely see the floor in the first week of December.

Trump first nominated Isaacman in December 2024, only to withdraw that nomination in May 2025. Trump then renominated Isaacman two weeks ago.

This extra hearing means Isaacman will likely not be confirmed as NASA administrator until early in 2026. It also means he will probably not be in a position to review and reconsider NASA’s plans to send astronauts around the Moon in the February-April time frame, using an Orion capsule with a questionable heat shield and an untested environmental system.

In fact, I suspect this decision to hold hearings was pushed by Cruz partly to make sure Isaacman couldn’t review those plans. Cruz has made it his goal to save SLS and Orion, no matter the cost, and appears willing to play whatever games necessary to prevent any actions that would delay or impact NASA’s present plans.

This however is not the only reason this new hearing has been scheduled. It appears a lot of Senators, especially the Democrats, want to question Isaacman about Isaacman’s 62-page policy paper that was leaked to many in DC in the past few months. It is certain that questioning will have no impact on the final vote (Isaacman is expected to be confirmed handily), but it will allow these senators to preen before the camera, for no good purpose.

The bottom line however is that Isaacman will not be in place early enough to review and change that Artemis-2 mission. It means that almost certainly NASA will once again fly a manned mission that places schedule above engineering, putting four human lives at risk using a spacecraft that has not be vetted properly.

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Canada commits a half billion to European Space Agency projects

8:53 am

During a conference yesterday, Canada’s industry minister Mélanie Joly announced that her government has increased its budget for European Space Agency (ESA) projects to a total of $528 million over the next three to five years.

This funding increases is quite significant, approximately ten times greater than Canada’s previous budget commitments to ESA projects.

Few details were provided on how the money would be spent.

Joly said the investment would advance research and development of Canadian-made space technologies for both civilian and defence purposes. These include satellite communications, Earth observation, space exploration, positioning, navigation and timing, and space situational awareness, she said.

While most of the western world is shifting to the capitalism model, where the government buys what it needs from products owned by the private sector, it appears the present leftwing Canadian government under Mark Carney is moving instead in the direction of the Soviet model, whereby the government builds and owns the projects itself. This ESA commitment falls into that latter category, at least on the surface. Much however will depend on how ESA and Canada eventually decide to spend the cash.

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SpaceX and China complete launches

11:35 pm

Two launches on opposites sides of the globe this evening.

First, SpaceX launched another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral. The first stage completed its 12th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Next (November 19th local time), China placed three classified satellites into orbit, its Long March 2C rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. China’s state-run press would only say the satellites were for “space environment exploration and related technology verification,” an utterly meaningless statement. That state-run press also said nothing about where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

151 SpaceX (a new record)
71 China (a new record)
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 151 to 118.

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Mexican anti-Musk activists whine about SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch operations

1:27 pm

Chicken Little is once again panicking
Chicken Little is once again panicking

Mexican anti-Musk activists have now announced new complaints against SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch operations, claiming the soft-splash down of its Superheavy boosters in the Gulf of Mexico is damaging marine life, and the company’s effort to remove its stage and debris is further damaging the ocean floor.

Conibio Global A.C., a marine biodiversity organization in Mexico, launched “Expedition Booster 2025” this summer in partnership with the state of Tamaulipas and the Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas. The group is studying how booster landings near Playa Bagdad may be affecting wildlife and nearby communities. “We have 20 kilometers of space debris, which amounts to tons,” said Jesus Elias Ibarra Rodriguez, president of Conibio Global A.C. “If you go right now, you’ll find three or five pieces of plastic or metal or electrical parts from the thruster, even tanks—there is already a lot of debris.”

Researchers report that sea turtles and dolphins often mistake smaller debris for food, which can lead to deadly ingestion. They also documented debris fragments measuring between two and 10 meters long. According to the group, 3-D sonar imaging shows that a platform used in July to remove debris may have caused additional damage to the seafloor. “This platform has three structures that were sunk and anchored to the seafloor,” Rodriguez said. “During the investigation, we realized that it caused damage and holes when its structures were wedged in while removing the engines, and the engines were damaging the seabed and the species that live in the area.”

In other words, SpaceX is evil for dropping Superheavy in the Gulf, and it is also evil for removing it. Or to put this in real terms, these activists simply don’t want SpaceX to do anything. Their goal is to shut the company down entirely.

Moreover, their research is clearly bogus and overwrought. The entire world has been dropping lower stages in the oceans for more than three-quarters of a century, with no documented harm to marine life or the oceans. These faux scientists are simply puffing up their work to use this as a hammer against SpaceX.

Their complaint meanwhile appears somewhat bogus as well. They are “in communication” with Mexican authorities, and only “plan to present [their] findings” to that government eventually. In other words, their complaint hasn’t been filed with the government, but with our compliant propaganda press (in this case a local Texas news outlet), who are always glad to push the leftist agenda, no matter how idiotic.

Hat tip to Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.

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Cracking scallops in the Mars

12:32 pm

Cracking scallops on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on September 27, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labels this “scallop-hosting mantle”. In other words, the surface here has a mantle of material that is for a variety of reason cracking and producing these north-facing scallops. That mantle also appears layered, since it descends downward in terraced steps as you travel north. This particular terrace drops about 40 feet.

Scientists believe [pdf] these scallops are formed in connection with the sublimation of underground ice.

According to [one hypothesis] scallop formation should be ongoing at the present time. Sublimation of interstitial ice could induce a collapse of material, initially as a small pit, then growing southward because of greater solar heating on the southern side. Nearby scallops would coalesce together as can be seen to have occurred.

In the case of the image to the right, this sublimation is also accompanied by a drying process similar to cracks one sees in dried mud. As the ice sublimates away the remain material shrinks and cracks.
» Read more

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German rocket startup Isar wins another launch contract

9:43 am

Isar's first launch attempt fails
Spectrum falling seconds after its launch
in March 2025

The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace today won a new launch contract from the satellite aggregator SEOPS for a 2028 launch of its new Spectrum rocket.

SEOPS today announced during SpaceTech Expo it has purchased a dedicated launch on Isar Aerospace’s ‘Spectrum’ rocket. Targeted for launch in 2028, this marks SEOPS’ first collaboration with Isar Aerospace, expanding the company’s European launch capabilities.

SEOPS acts as an agent for satellite companies building small cubesats, arranging the launches for them because these companies often don’t have the resources or experience to do the job themselves. The choice of Isar’s Spectrum rocket suggests SEOPS wants to encourage new launch options, since Isar has only launched Spectrum once, and that launch was a failure. This contract acts to strengthen Isar’s future by giving it a powerful customer. It also gives SEOPS a European launch option, something that will attract European smallsat makers to it.

Isar is presently preparing Spectrum for its second launch out of Norway’s Andoya spaceport, with road closure announcements suggesting it will occur prior to December 21, 2025. If successful Isar will be the first new European rocket company in decades to reach orbit. It will also be the first German company to do so, ever. And it will give Andoya spaceport first place in the race to become Europe’s first orbital spaceport.

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Blue Origin targeting from 12 to 24 New Glenn launches in 2026

9:22 am

New Glenn prior to its first launch in January 2025
New Glenn on the launchpad prior to its
first launch in January 2025

Following the second successful launch last week of its New Glenn rocket, including a successful recovery of its first stage, Blue Origin’s CEO David Limp says the company’s goal for 2026 will be to attempt between 12 and 24 launches.

Limp said success on New Glenn’s second flight would set the company up for a significant increase in cadence. The company is building enough hardware for “well above” a dozen flights in 2026, with the upper-end limit of 24 launches. The pacing item is second stages. Right now Blue Origin can build one per month, but the production rate is increasing.

A pace of one launch a month would be unprecedented for Blue Origin in numerous ways. Since 2017 the company has built a poor reputation for slow and tentative operations. It took years for it to finally begin building BE-4 engines at a rate that could serve both it and its customer ULA. It took years to get New Glenn off the ground, a half decade later than initially announced. Moving from a lazy tortoise to a enthusiastic hare so quickly would thus seem very unlikely.

Blue Origin however has a major 27-launch contract with Amazon to launch its Amazon LEO constellation (formerly known as “Kuiper”). And Amazon desperately needs those launches to happen soon, as it only has 154 satellites in orbit and needs to get about another 1400 launched by July 2026 to meet its FCC license.

Even so, Limp noted that the next New Glenn launch will be to send its Blue Moon Mark-1 unmanned lunar lander to the Moon, and the best schedule he could offer was a launch sometime in the first quarter of ’26. If so, his prediction for the total launches in 2026 seems overly optimistic, at a minimum.

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Will China launch a rescue Shenzhou capsule to Tiangong-3 in one week?

9:07 am

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

According to this report at Space News late yesterday, China has issued a road closure notice for its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China suggesting it will launch a Long March 2F rocket carrying a rescue Shenzhou capsule to Tiangong-3 on November 25, 2025, one week from today.

An airspace closure notice issued Nov. 17 indicates that China is preparing the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft and a Long March 2F rocket for launch at around 11:10 p.m. Eastern Nov. 24 (0410 UTC, Nov. 25) from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert. China’s human spaceflight agency has yet to publicly announce the plan. [emphasis mine]

This rescue mission is necessary because the Shenzhou-20 capsule that brought the previous crew to the station is now unusable, having sustained damage in one window from an impact of “space debris.” That crew came back to Earth last week on the Shenzhou-21 that ferried the present crew to space, leaving that present crew without a lifeboat.

The highlighted sentence is important, because it is very possible that road closure notice could be for a different launch not yet announced by China. It is quite routine for China to keep the specifics of a launch secret until the last minute, which means it is dangerous to assume this road closure is specifically for the Long March 2F rocket set to carry the Shenzhou-22 capsule to Tiangong-3.

Previous reports only yesterday had noted that preparing that rocket and capsule would likely take at a minimum 10 to 20 days, and even that schedule would be “difficult.” Getting ready in only one week thus seems unlikely.

At the same time, there is great urgency to launch, as the three-person crew presently on Tiangong-3 has no lifeboat there should anything serious go wrong.

Expect China’s state-run press to clarify the situation, when it decides to do so.

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Echostar subsidiary Hughesnet now sending its customers to Starlink

8:01 am

Following the purchase by SpaceX of much of Echostar’s spectrum, its subsidiary Hughesnet appears to be on the verge of shutting down as it is now referring its present and future customers to Starlink.

Hughesnet is preparing to refer its own customers to rival Starlink after its parent company, EchoStar, reached a deal to sell radio spectrum to SpaceX. The referral program is mentioned in a 10-Q SEC filing that Hughesnet released on Friday. The 66-page document includes a section about the EchoStar-SpaceX deal and what it means for Hughesnet’s business. “The commercial agreements will also provide for a fee-based referral program that lets us refer existing HughesNet customers and new Starlink customers to SpaceX,” the document says, without elaborating.

The article also notes that the company lacks the cash on hand to function over the next 12 months, and has lost more than half its customer base in the past year.

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Perseverance moves on

10:30 am

Perseverance panorama, November 16, 2025
Click for high resolution version. For original images, go here, here, and here.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! It appears that during the government shutdown the science team for the Perseverance rover on Mars made the decision to leave an area they had been exploring for the past two months, driving the rover aggressively to the southwest and in a direction that had been unplanned.

The overview map to the right illustrates that move, with the blue dot marking the rover’s present position. The white dotted line indicates its actual travels, while the red dotted line shows the planned route. According to that planned route, the plan had been to move south and back up onto the top of the rim of Jezero Crater. For reasons that the science team has not explained, they decided instead to head to the southwest, away from the crater rim.

The panorama above was created by stitching together three images released today by Perseverance’s left navigation camera (see here, here, and here). The yellow lines on the overview map indicate my guess as to the area covered by this panorama. Note Perseverance’s tracks on the left. I think this panorama shows us the area the rover traveled in this recent move.

Note also the barrenness of the terrain. This is truly an alien world. It has an atmosphere that produces a very faint wind, that over eons can erode things. This is why this exterior wall of the rim of Jezero crater is so relatively smooth. Crater rims are usually places of jagged broken rock, thrown out by the impact. That very thin Martian atmosphere over time has smoothed that terrain.

This landscape also has no life. Except for some spots in the polar regions, it is literally impossible to find any place on Earth so devoid of life.

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Thailand rejects Starlink

9:18 am

Because of local laws forbidding the operation of any foreign-owned telecommunications company in Thailand, its government has rejected any sale of Starlink terminals inside the country.

The Digital Economy and Society Ministry has rejected a proposal from SpaceX to provide Starlink low-orbit satellite internet services in Thailand through a 100% foreign-owned company, citing national security concerns and legal restrictions. “If the company wants to set up a wholly owned firm, there will be no opportunity … to cooperate, as telecom ownership is directly linked to our digital security system,” minister Chaichanok Chidchob said on Friday.

This is the same problem that SpaceX has faced in a number of other third world countries, such as India and South Africa. In South Africa the government demanded SpaceX give up some or all of its ownership rights as well as impose a variety of racial or employment quotas that SpaceX considers unacceptable. Thus, no Starlink. In the case of India, the government insisted that its own telecom companies get a cut. SpaceX then managed to negotiate deals with each, where those companies market the Starlink terminals for SpaceX.

Apparently, no such deal has yet been worked out in Thailand.

Expect a deal eventually, however. The article notes that Thailand’s neighbor Vietnam has a Starlink deal allowing its citizens to sign up without restrictions. That agreement is going to put great pressure on Thailand

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Europe finalizes transfer of Vega-C rocket back to its builder, Italian company Avio

9:05 am

European Space Agency logo

In an agreement signed on November 14, 2025, the European Space Agency (ESA) completed the transfer of the Vega-C rocket, formerly controlled by the government-owned company Arianespace, back to the Italian company Avio.

Following decisions taken by the ESA Council in 2023, the revision of the Launchers Exploitation Declaration (LED) was finalized on 10 July 2025 and the Guiana Space Centre Agreement was signed on 23 October 2025. The LEAs signed today translate the LED mandate to ESA into concrete detailed implementation arrangements between ESA and the launch operators.

The two arrangements signed today – one with Arianespace and ArianeGroup for Ariane 6, and one with Avio for Vega-C – define the roles and responsibilities of each operator and ESA’s role in monitoring its implementation. They also establish the framework for cooperation between the parties to ensure Europe’s continued autonomous access to space through the exploitation of ESA-developed launchers from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

The quote above also details other changes. The Ariane-6 rocket is now controlled by a partnership of Arianespace and ArianeGroup, with the bulk of control by the latter, a private company that owns the rocket. Though Arianespace retains some management rights, its part in the rocket’s future has been reduced significantly.

Meanwhile, ownership and control of the French Guiana spaceport has now been transferred entirely from Arianespace and back to France’s space agency CNES. CNES has been running things more or less for the past year or so, but this makes the change official.

All in all, these agreements continue ESA’s shift in the past two years away from the government-run model, centralized under Arianespace control, to the capitalism model, where the government is merely a customer, buying what it needs from independent, competing, privately-owned companies. While these agreements highlight Avio and ArianeGroup, Europe also has a flock of new rocket startups (Isar, Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD) on verge of their first launches.

If Europe maintains its commitment to this shift, it should see some exciting developments in space in the coming years.

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China begins hurried preparations to launch rescue Shenzhou capsule to Tiangong-3

6:01 am

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

According to China’s state run press, it has begun emergency procedures to quickly launch the Shenzhou-22 capsule — originally scheduled to carry the next crew to its Tiangong-3 station in April 2026 — in order to provide the present station crew a lifeboat and a return capsule.

The China Manned Space Agency has started preparations for the launch of an unmanned spacecraft to carry a full cargo load, including provisions for astronauts and equipment for the Tiangong space station, according to a senior engineer. Zhou Yaqiang, who works with the agency’s general technical bureau, told China Central Television on Saturday that all systems involved in the upcoming Shenzhou-22 cargo mission “are busy getting ready for it, testing the rocket and the spaceship and preparing the payloads”.

The Shenzhou-22 spacecraft will be launched in due course to dock with the Tiangong space station, the agency said.

The report provided no details on when this launch would occur, though another Chinese report said getting the rocket (a Long March 2F) and capsule ready in the next 10 to 20 days would be “difficult.”

At the moment, the three astronauts on Tiangong-3 have no lifeboat. Should anything go wrong at the station before that launch they will have no way to get back to Earth, unless they use the damaged Shenzhou-21 capsule still docked to the station. That capsule has cracks in a window, caused by what the Chinese think was an impact from “space debris.” The Chinese have already determined it is not safe for human travel. Thus, using it in an emergency would be a desperate act.

Since the first space station, Salyut-1, was launched and occupied in 1971, this is the first time that a crew has been in space with absolutely no way to get home. The press last year repeatedly claimed the Starliner crew was “stranded” on ISS, but that wasn’t so. They could have always come home on their Starliner craft, as was proven when it returned unmanned with no problems. NASA had simply made the decision to be cautious and wait for the launch of next Dragon to bring them home instead.

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