Space – Page 18

A Soviet-era spacecraft built to land on Venus is falling to Earth instead

kosmos 482, russia, Space, space debris, venera, Venus / Rejus Almole / May 9, 2025

Kosmos 482, a Soviet-era spacecraft shrouded in Cold War secrecy, will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere in the next few days after misfiring on a journey to Venus more than 50 years ago.

On average, a piece of space junk the size of Kosmos 482, with a mass of about a half-ton, falls into the atmosphere about once per week. What’s different this time is that Kosmos 482 was designed to land on Venus, with a titanium heat shield built to withstand scorching temperatures, and structures engineered to survive atmospheric pressures nearly 100 times higher than Earth’s.

So, there’s a good chance the spacecraft will survive the extreme forces it encounters during its plunge through the atmosphere. Typically, space debris breaks apart and burns up during reentry, with only a small fraction of material reaching the Earth’s surface. The European Space Agency, one of several institutions that track space debris, says Kosmos 482 is “highly likely” to reach Earth’s surface in one piece.

Fickle forecasts

The Kosmos 482 spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, now part of Kazakhstan, aboard a Molniya rocket on March 31, 1972. A short time later, the rocket’s upper stage was supposed to propel the probe out of Earth orbit on an interplanetary journey toward Venus, where it would have become the third mission to land on the second planet from the Sun.

But the rocket failed, rendering it unable to escape the gravitational grip of Earth. The spacecraft separated into several pieces, and Russian engineers gave up on the mission. The main section of the Venus probe reentered the atmosphere in 1981, but for 53 years, the 3.3-foot-diameter (1-meter) segment of the spacecraft that was supposed to land on Venus remained in orbit around the Earth, its trajectory influenced only by the tenuous uppermost layers of the atmosphere.

The mission was part of the Soviet Union’s Venera program, which achieved the first soft landing of a spacecraft on another planet with the Venera 7 mission in 1970, and followed up with another successful landing with Venera 8 in 1972. Because it failed, Soviet officials gave the next mission, which would have become Venera 9, a non-descriptive name: Kosmos 482.

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NASA scrambles to cut ISS activity due to budget issues

international space station, Space, trump budget / Rejus Almole / May 8, 2025

Canceling the tracker layer upgrade to the spectrometer would also not be catastrophic. The addition of a silicon tracker layer on top of the detector would increase the amount of data from the $2 billion physics experiment over the next five years by a factor of three. However, the experiment has been in operation since 2011, so it has had ample time to collect information about dark matter and other fundamental physics in the universe.

Cutting crews down to size

The real eye-catching proposal in NASA’s options is reducing the crew size from four to three.

Typically, Crew Dragon missions carry two NASA astronauts, one Roscosmos cosmonaut, and an international partner astronaut. Therefore, although it appears that NASA would only be cutting its crew size by 25 percent, in reality, it would be cutting the number of NASA astronauts on Crew Dragon missions by 50 percent. Overall, this would lead to an approximately one-third decline in science conducted by the space station. (This is because there are usually three NASA astronauts on station: two from Dragon and one on each Soyuz flight.)

It’s difficult to see how this would result in enormous cost savings. Yes, NASA would need to send marginally fewer cargo missions to keep fewer astronauts supplied. And there would be some reduction in training costs. But it seems kind of nuts to spend decades and more than $100 billion building an orbital laboratory, putting all of this effort into developing commercial vehicles to supply the station and enlarge its crew, establishing a rigorous training program to ensure maximum science is done and then to say, ‘Well, actually we don’t want to use it.’

NASA has not publicly announced the astronauts who will fly on Crew-12 next year, but according to sources, it has already assigned veteran astronaut Jessica Meir and newcomer Jack Hathaway, a former US Navy fighter pilot who joined NASA’s astronaut corps in 2021. If these changes go through, presumably one of these two would be removed from the mission.

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The company with the world’s largest aircraft now has a hypersonic rocket plane

hypersonic vehicles, Mojave, Space, stratolaunch, ursa major, Vandenberg space force base / Rejus Almole / May 7, 2025

“Demonstrating the reuse of fully recoverable hypersonic test vehicles is an important milestone for MACH-TB,” said George Rumford, director of the Test Resource Management Center, in a statement. “Lessons learned from this test campaign will help us reduce vehicle turnaround time from months down to weeks.”

Krevor said Talon-A carried multiple experiments on each mission but did not offer any details about the nature of the payloads, citing proprietary reasons and customer agreements.

“We cannot disclose the nature of those payloads, other than to say typical materials, instrumentation, sensors, etc.,” he said. “The customers were thrilled with their ability to recover the payloads shortly after landing.”

Stratolaunch completed the first powered flight of a Talon-A vehicle last year, when the rocket plane launched over the Pacific Ocean and fired its liquid-fueled Hadley engine—produced by Ursa Major—for about 200 seconds. The Talon-A1 vehicle accelerated to just shy of hypersonic speed, then fell into the sea as planned and was not recovered.

That set the stage for Talon-A2’s first flight in December.

Military officials previously stated they set up the MACH-TB program to enable more frequent flight testing of hypersonic weapon technologies, including communication, navigation, guidance, sensors, and seekers. Stratolaunch aims for monthly flights of the Talon-A rocket plane by the end of the year and eventually wants to ramp up to weekly flights.

“These flights are setting the stage now to increase the cadence of hypersonic flight testing in this country,” Krevor said. “The ability to have a fully reusable hypersonic flight architecture enables a very high cadence of flight along with a lot of responsiveness. The DoD can call Stratolaunch if there’s a priority program, and we can have a hypersonic flight next week, assuming the readiness of all the other technologies and payloads.”

Pentagon officials in 2022 set a goal of growing US capacity for hypersonic testing from 12 to 50 flight tests per year. Krevor believes Stratolaunch will play a key part in making that happen.

Catching up

So, why is hypersonic flight testing important?

The Pentagon seeks to close what it views as a technological gap with China, which US officials acknowledge has become the world’s leader in hypersonic missile development. Hypersonic weapons are more difficult than conventional missiles for aerial defense systems to detect, track, and destroy. Unlike ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons ride at the top of the atmosphere, enhancing their maneuverability and ability to evade interceptors.

Hypersonic flight is an unforgiving environment. Temperatures outside the Talon-A vehicle can reach up to 2,000° Fahrenheit (1,100° Celsius) as the plane plows through air molecules, Krevor said. He declined to disclose the duration, top speed, and maximum altitude of the December and March test flights but said the rocket plane performed a series of “high-G” maneuvers on the journey from its drop location to Vandenberg.

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FAA green-lights Starship launches every other week from Starbase

Space, space.spacex, spacex, starship / Tim Belzer / May 7, 2025

Although we are still waiting for SpaceX to signal when it will fly the Starship rocket again, the company got some good news from the Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday.

After a lengthy review, the federal agency agreed to allow SpaceX to substantially increase the number of annual launches from its Starbase launch site in South Texas. Previously, the company was limited to five launches, but now it will be able to conduct up to 25 Starship launches and landings during a calendar year.

“The FAA has determined that modifying SpaceX’s vehicle operator license supporting the increased launch and landing cadence of the Starship/Super Heavy launch vehicle would not significantly impact the quality of the human environment,” states the document, known as a Mitigated Finding of No Significant Impact. This finding was signed by Daniel P. Murray, executive director of the FAA’s Office of Operational Safety.

This ruling follows a draft finding issued six months ago that indicated this would be the final outcome.

Assessing all of the impacts

Among the impacts considered were increased trucking operations to deliver water and various propellants needed to support Starship launches. An earlier analysis by the FAA found that, to support a cadence of 25 launches a year, the vehicle presence on State Highway 4 to Boca Chica Beach will grow from an estimated 6,000 trucks a year to 23,771 trucks annually.

Because of this, the FAA is requiring SpaceX to undertake dozens of mitigating actions. For example, for trucks, it has sought to reduce employee miles driven on the primary artery leading to the Starbase launch site.

“The Proposed Action would increase annual truck traffic, but mitigation measures like employee shuttles and limiting water truck deliveries to daytime hours would help reduce traffic impacts to wildlife,” the FAA document states.

FAA green-lights Starship launches every other week from Starbase Read More »

Tuesday Telescope: After spacewalking, an astronaut strikes lightning

daily telescope, Space, tuesday telescope / Mike M. / May 6, 2025

Welcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light—a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we’ll take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.

Most astronauts these days are fairly anonymous, and chances are you have never heard of Nichole Ayers. And that’s OK.

But sometimes it’s worth pausing for a moment to reflect on just how accomplished these people are. Ayers, 36, flew the supersonic F-22 stealth aircraft in the international war against the Islamic State and rose to become a major in the US Air Force before being selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021. Oh, yeah, she also completed a master’s degree in computational and applied mathematics at Rice University.

For her first spaceflight, Ayers launched on the Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station in March. This flight got a fair amount of media attention, but that was largely because the arrival of Crew-10 allowed the Crew Dragon spacecraft to which Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were assigned to return home. Since then, Ayers has spent 50 days in space, astronauting. This included a spacewalk last week, her first, alongside veteran astronaut Anne McClain.

As they returned to the airlock, the Earth below started to put on a lightning show, and Ayers took note, mesmerized. A day later, she picked up a camera and captured some additional lightning strikes, saying, “I am so amazed by the view we have up here of our Earth’s weather systems.” I’ve chosen my favorite of these photos for today’s post.

Source: Nichole Ayers/NASA

Do you want to submit a photo for the Daily Telescope? Reach out and say hello.

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SpaceX pushed “sniper” theory with the feds far more than is publicly known

Features, Space / Mike M. / May 5, 2025

“It came out of nowhere, and it was really violent.”

The Amos 6 satellite is lost atop a Falcon 9 rocket. Credit: USLaunchReport

The rocket was there. And then it decidedly was not.

Shortly after sunrise on a late summer morning nearly nine years ago at SpaceX’s sole operational launch pad, engineers neared the end of a static fire test. These were still early days for their operation of a Falcon 9 rocket that used super-chilled liquid propellants, and engineers pressed to see how quickly they could complete fueling. This was because the liquid oxygen and kerosene fuel warmed quickly in Florida’s sultry air, and cold propellants were essential to maximizing the rocket’s performance.

On this morning, September 1, 2016, everything proceeded more or less nominally up until eight minutes before the ignition of the rocket’s nine Merlin engines. It was a stable point in the countdown, so no one expected what happened next.

“I saw the first explosion,” John Muratore, launch director for the mission, told me. “It came out of nowhere, and it was really violent. I swear, that explosion must have taken an hour. It felt like an hour. But it was only a few seconds. The second stage exploded in this huge ball of fire, and then the payload kind of teetered on top of the transporter erector. And then it took a swan dive off the top rails, dove down, and hit the ground. And then it exploded.”

The dramatic loss of the Falcon 9 rocket and its Amos-6 satellite, captured on video by a commercial photographer, came at a pivotal moment for SpaceX and the broader commercial space industry. It was SpaceX’s second rocket failure in a little more than a year, and it occurred as NASA was betting heavily on the company to carry its astronauts to orbit. SpaceX was not the behemoth it is today, a company valued at $350 billion. It remained vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the launch industry. This violent failure shook everyone, from the engineers in Florida to satellite launch customers to the suits at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC.

As part of my book on the Falcon 9 and Dragon years at SpaceX, Reentry, I reported deeply on the loss of the Amos-6 mission. In the weeks afterward, the greatest mystery was what had precipitated the accident. It was understood that a pressurized helium tank inside the upper stage had ruptured. But why? No major parts on the rocket were moving at the time of the failure. It was, for all intents and purposes, akin to an automobile idling in a driveway with half a tank of gasoline. And then it exploded.

This failure gave rise to one of the oddest—but also strangely compelling—stories of the 2010s in spaceflight. And we’re still learning new things today.

The “sniper” theory

The lack of a concrete explanation for the failure led SpaceX engineers to pursue hundreds of theories. One was the possibility that an outside “sniper” had shot the rocket. This theory appealed to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who was asleep at his home in California when the rocket exploded. Within hours of hearing about the failure, Musk gravitated toward the simple answer of a projectile being shot through the rocket.

This is not as crazy as it sounds, and other engineers at SpaceX aside from Musk entertained the possibility, as some circumstantial evidence to support the notion of an outside actor existed. Most notably, the first rupture in the rocket occurred about 200 feet above the ground, on the side of the vehicle facing the southwest. In this direction, about one mile away, lay a building leased by SpaceX’s main competitor in launch, United Launch Alliance. A separate video indicated a flash on the roof of this building, now known as the Spaceflight Processing Operations Center. The timing of this flash matched the interval it would take a projectile to travel from the building to the rocket.

A sniper on the roof of a competitor’s building—forget the Right Stuff, this was the stuff of a Mission: Impossible or James Bond movie.

At Musk’s direction, SpaceX worked this theory both internally and externally. Within the company, engineers and technicians actually took pressurized tanks that stored helium—one of these had burst, leading to the explosion—and shot at them in Texas to determine whether they would explode and what the result looked like. Externally, they sent the site director for their Florida operations, Ricky Lim, to inquire whether he might visit the roof of the United Launch Alliance building.

SpaceX pursued the sniper theory for more than a month. A few SpaceX employees told me that they did not stop this line of inquiry until the Federal Aviation Administration sent the company a letter definitively saying that there was no gunman involved. It would be interesting to see this letter, so I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the FAA in the spring of 2023. Because the federal FOIA process moves slowly, I did not expect to receive a response in time for the book. But it was worth a try anyway.

No reply came in 2023 or early 2024, when the final version of my book was due to my editor. Reentry was published last September, and still nothing. However, last week, to my great surprise and delight, I got a response from the FAA. It was the very letter I requested, sent from the FAA to Tim Hughes, the general counsel of SpaceX, on October 13, 2016. And yes, the letter says there was no gunman involved.

However, there were other things I did not know—namely, that the FBI had also investigated the incident.

The ULA rivalry

One of the most compelling elements of this story is that it involves SpaceX’s heated rival, United Launch Alliance. For a long time, ULA had the upper hand, but in recent years, it has taken a dramatic turn. Now we know that David would grow up and slay Goliath: Between the final rocket ULA launched last year (the Vulcan test flight on October 4) and the first rocket the company launched this year (Atlas V, April 28), SpaceX launched 90 rockets.

Ninety.

But it was a different story in the summer of 2016 in the months leading up to the Amos 6 failure. Back then, ULA was launching about 15 rockets a year, compared to SpaceX’s five. And ULA was launching all of the important science missions for NASA and the critical spy satellites for the US military. They were the big dog, SpaceX the pup.

In the early days of the Falcon 9 rocket, some ULA employees would drive to where SpaceX was working on the first booster and jeer at their efforts. And rivalry played out not just on the launch pad but in courtrooms and on Capitol Hill. After ULA won an $11 billion block buy contract from the US Air Force to launch high-value military payloads into the early 2020s, Musk sued in April 2014. He alleged that the contract had been awarded without a fair competition and said the Falcon 9 rocket could launch the missions at a substantially lower price. Taxpayers, he argued, were being taken for a ride.

Eventually, SpaceX and the Air Force resolved their claims. The Air Force agreed to open some of its previously awarded national security missions to competitive bids. Over time, SpaceX has overtaken ULA even in this arena. During the most recent round of awards, SpaceX won 60 percent of the contracts compared to ULA’s 40 percent.

So when SpaceX raised the possibility of a ULA sniper, it came at an incendiary moment in the rivalry, when SpaceX was finally putting forth a very serious challenge to ULA’s dominance and monopoly.

It is no surprise, therefore, that ULA told SpaceX’s Ricky Lim to get lost when he wanted to see the roof of their building in Florida.

“Hair-on-fire stuff”

NASA officials were also deeply concerned by the loss of the Falcon 9 rocket in September 2016.

The space agency spent much of the 2010s working with SpaceX and Boeing to develop, test, and fly spacecraft that could fly humans into space. These were difficult years for the space agency, which had to rely on Russia to get its astronauts into space. NASA also had a challenging time balancing costs with astronaut safety. Then rockets started blowing up.

Consider this sequence from mid-2015 to mid-2016. In June 2015, the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a cargo version of the Dragon spacecraft into orbit exploded. Less than two weeks later, NASA named four astronauts to its “commercial crew” cadre from which the initial pilots of Dragon and Starliner spacecraft would be selected. Finally, a little more than a year after this, a second Falcon 9 rocket upper stage exploded during flight.

Video of CRS-7 launch and failure.

Even as it was losing Falcon 9 rockets, SpaceX revealed that it intended to upend NASA’s long-standing practice of fueling a rocket and then, when the vehicle reached a stable condition, putting crew on board. Rather, SpaceX said it would put the astronauts on board before fueling. This process became known as “load and go.”

NASA’s safety community went nuts.

“When SpaceX came to us and said we want to load the crew first and then the propellant, mushroom clouds went off in our safety community,” Phil McAlister, the head of NASA’s commercial programs, told me for Reentry. “I mean, hair-on-fire stuff. It was just conventional wisdom that you load the propellant first and get it thermally stable. Fueling is a very dynamic operation. The vehicle is popping and hissing. The safety community was adamantly against this.”

Amos-6 compounded these concerns. That’s because the rocket was not shot by a sniper. After months of painful investigation and analysis, engineers determined the rocket was lost due to the propellant-loading process. In their goal of rapidly fueling the Falcon 9 rocket, the SpaceX teams had filled the pressurized helium tanks too quickly, heating the aluminum liner and causing it to buckle. In their haste to load super-chilled propellant onto the Falcon 9, SpaceX had found its speed limit.

At NASA, it was not difficult to visualize astronauts in a Dragon capsule sitting atop an exploding rocket during propellant loading rather than a commercial satellite.

Enter the FBI

We should stop and appreciate the crucible that SpaceX engineers and technicians endured in the fall of 2016. They were simultaneously attempting to tease out the physics of a fiendishly complex failure; prove to NASA their exploding rocket was safe; convince safety officials that even though they had just blown up their rocket by fueling it too quickly, load-and-go was feasible for astronaut missions; increase the cadence of Falcon 9 missions to catch and surpass ULA; and, oh yes, gently explain to the boss that a sniper had not shot their rocket.

So there had to be some relief when, on October 13, Hughes received that letter from Dr. Michael C. Romanowski, director of Commercial Space Integration at the FAA.

According to this letter (see a copy here), three weeks after the launch pad explosion, SpaceX submitted “video and audio” along with its analysis of the failure to the FAA. “SpaceX suggested that in the company’s view, this information and data could be indicative of sabotage or criminal activity associated with the on-pad explosion of SpaceX’s Falcon 9,” the letter states.

This is notable because it suggests that Musk directed SpaceX to elevate the “sniper” theory to the point that the FAA should take it seriously. But there was more. According to the letter, SpaceX reported the same data and analysis to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Florida.

After this, the Tampa Field Office of the FBI and its Criminal Investigative Division in Washington, DC, looked into the matter. And what did they find? Nothing, apparently.

“The FBI has informed us that based upon a thorough and coordinated review by the appropriate Federal criminal and security investigative authorities, there were no indications to suggest that sabotage or any other criminal activity played a role in the September 1 Falcon 9 explosion,” Romanowski wrote. “As a result, the FAA considers this matter closed.”

The failure of the Amos-6 mission would turn out to be a low point for SpaceX. For a few weeks, there were non-trivial questions about the company’s financial viability. But soon, SpaceX would come roaring back. In 2017, the Falcon 9 rocket launched a record 18 times, surpassing ULA for the first time. The gap would only widen. Last year, SpaceX launched 137 rockets to ULA’s five.

With Amos-6, therefore, SpaceX lost the battle. But it would eventually win the war—without anyone firing a shot.

Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston.

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White House budget seeks to end SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway programs

budget, Gateway, orion, sls, Space / Paul Patrick / May 4, 2025

Several sources in the space community, therefore, believe it is indeed plausible that SLS and Orion will be phased out over the next five years in favor of far less expensive commercial rockets and spacecraft. NASA will thus be asked to beat China to the Moon with the legacy systems and then identify more affordable options for future missions to the Moon.

Mars ambitions

One area that will see increased spending under the Trump administration’s proposed budget is human space exploration.

“By allocating over $7 billion for lunar exploration and introducing $1 billion in new investments for Mars-focused programs, the Budget ensures that America’s human space exploration efforts remain unparalleled, innovative, and efficient,” the document states.

Under the Trump administration, NASA will seek to reach both the Moon and Mars. The goal, stated in the document, is to refocus NASA “on beating China to the Moon and putting the first human on Mars.” Unfortunately, there is no information on what these “Mars-focused programs” will be. Some of this new funding would almost certainly go to SpaceX. The company, founded by Trump ally Elon Musk, explicitly focuses on establishing human settlements on Mars.

Although lunar and Mars exploration receive increases, the budget seeks to reduce the agency’s commitment to the International Space Station, while still flying it until 2030. “The Budget reduces the space station’s crew size and onboard research,” the document states. “Crew and cargo flights to the station would be significantly reduced. The station’s reduced research capacity would be focused on efforts critical to the Moon and Mars exploration programs.”

It is likely that Congress will oppose some of these changes, particularly the cuts to science programs and the reduction in activity on the International Space Station. But that story will play out in the coming months as the laborious budget process unfolds.

White House budget seeks to end SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway programs Read More »

We finally know a little more about Amazon’s super-secret satellites

Amazon, atlas v, broadband, Internet, kuiper, launch, Science, Space, united launch alliance / Kris Guyer / May 3, 2025

“Elon thinks we can do the job with cheaper and simpler satellites, sooner,” a source told Reuters at the time of Badyal’s dismissal. Earlier in 2018, SpaceX launched a pair of prototype cube-shaped Internet satellites for demonstrations in orbit. Then, less than a year after firing Badyal, Musk’s company launched the first full stack of Starlink satellites, debuting the now-standard flat-panel design.

In a post Friday on LinkedIn, Badyal wrote the Kuiper satellites have had “an entirely nominal start” to their mission. “We’re just over 72 hours into our first full-scale Kuiper mission, and the adrenaline is still high.”

The Starlink and Kuiper constellations use laser inter-satellite links to relay Internet signals from node-to-node across their networks. Starlink broadcasts consumer broadband in Ku-band frequencies, while Kuiper will use Ka-band.

Ultimately, SpaceX’s simplified Starlink deployment architecture has fewer parts and eliminates the need for a carrier structure. This allows SpaceX to devote a higher share of the rocket’s mass and volume capacity to the Starlink satellites themselves, replacing dead weight with revenue-earning capability. The dispenser architecture used by Amazon is a more conventional design, and gives satellite engineers more flexibility in designing their spacecraft. It also allows satellites to spread out faster in orbit.

Others involved in the broadband megaconstellation rush have copied SpaceX’s architecture.

China’s Qianfan, or Thousand Sails, satellites have a “standardized and modular” flat-panel design that “meets the needs of stacking multiple satellites with one rocket,” according to the company managing the constellation. While Chinese officials haven’t released any photos of the satellites, which could eventually number more than 14,000, this sounds a lot like the design of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.

Another piece of information released by United Launch Alliance helps us arrive at an estimate of the mass of each Kuiper satellite. The collection of 27 satellites that launched earlier this week added up to be the heaviest payload ever flown on ULA’s Atlas V rocket. ULA said the total payload the Atlas V delivered to orbit was about 34,000 pounds, equivalent to roughly 15.4 metric tons.

It wasn’t clear whether this number accounted for the satellite dispenser, which likely weighed somewhere in the range of 1,000 to 2,000 pounds at launch. This would put the mass of each Kuiper satellite somewhere between 1,185 and 1,259 pounds (537 and 571 kilograms).

This is not far off the estimated mass of SpaceX’s most recent iteration of Starlink satellites, a version known as V2 Mini Optimized. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has launched up to 28 of these flat-packed satellites on a single launch.

We finally know a little more about Amazon’s super-secret satellites Read More »

Rocket Report: Starbase the city is coming soon; Alpha remains in beta

rocket report, Space / Paul Patrick / May 2, 2025

All the news that’s fit to lift

“A commitment to keeping on with the Moon mission is the key requirement.”

Europe’s Biomass satellite has launched aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Credit: ESA – M. Pédoussaut

Welcome to Edition 7.42 of the Rocket Report! For about a decade now, we’ve been following the development of the Starbase facility in South Texas. Up until 2019, progress was slow, but then the Starship program kicked into high gear, and SpaceX built up a production site beneath tents. The area has come a long way since then, and as soon as this weekend, there may be a new municipality, Starbase, in Texas.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Firefly’s Alpha rocket fails again. Firefly Aerospace launched its two-stage Alpha rocket from California early Tuesday, but something went wrong about two-and-a-half minutes into the flight, rendering the vehicle unable to deploy an experimental satellite into orbit for Lockheed Martin, Ars reports. The booster stage jettisoned from Alpha’s upper stage two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, and that’s when things went awry. A bright cloud of white vapor appeared high in the sky, indicating an explosion—or something close to it.

Not a great record … A short time later, Firefly released a statement acknowledging a “mishap during first stage separation… that impacted the Stage 2 Lightning engine nozzle.” Firefly is one of just a handful of active US launch companies with rockets that have reached low-Earth orbit, but its Alpha rocket hasn’t established a reliable track record. In six flights, Alpha has amassed just two unqualified successes. Two prior Alpha launches deployed their payloads in lower-than-planned orbits, and the rocket’s debut test flight in 2021 failed soon after liftoff.

Hypersonic missile launches from the Cape. The US military launched a long-range hypersonic missile last Friday morning from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on a test flight that, if successful, could pave the way for the weapon’s operational deployment later this year. The Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon fired out of a canister on a road-mobile trailer shortly after sunrise on Florida’s Space Coast, then headed east over the Atlantic Ocean propelled by a solid-fueled rocket booster, Ars reports.

Getting into the game … The new missile is poised to become the first ground-based hypersonic weapon fielded by the US military. Russia has used hypersonic missiles in combat against Ukraine. China has “the world’s leading hypersonic missile arsenal,” according to a recent Pentagon report on Chinese military power. After a successful test flight from Cape Canaveral last year, the long-range hypersonic weapon—officially named “Dark Eagle” by the Army earlier this week—will give the United States the ability to strike targets with little or no warning.

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Vega launches Biomass satellite. A Vega C rocket successfully launched an Earth science satellite for the European Space Agency, a mission officials said was also a demonstration of European space sovereignty, Space News reports. The 1,250 kg Biomass satellite was built by Airbus Defence and Space as part of ESA’s Earth Explorer program of Earth science missions. The launch was the first for the Vega C since its return to flight in December 2024, nearly two years after a launch failure on a mission designated VV22.

Space sovereignty a priority … After the launch, officials emphasized the importance of having both Vega C and the larger Ariane 6 rocket in operation. “In the current context, full of uncertainty and with some geopolitical evolution,” said David Cavaillolès, chief executive of Arianespace, “the fact that we are able to cover any mission with our two launchers is something that is of utmost importance.” There are four more Ariane 6 and two more Vega C launches planned for this year, with the next being another Vega C launch in July.

Europe tests P160C rocket booster. The European Space Agency said that the initial test of its P160C solid-propellant rocket motor, on April 24, was a success. The test firing lasted for more than two minutes, completing a full burn and expending all of its propellant as would happen during a launch. This new booster is a larger version of the P120C motor currently in use as a strap-on booster by the Ariane 6 rocket and as the core stage of the Vega C rocket.

We need more power, Scotty … Compared to the P120C, the new booster holds 14 percent more propellant, for a total of 167 metric tons, and is a meter taller. The larger and more powerful booster will allow Ariane 6 and Vega-C to launch heavier payloads into different orbits and destinations. It will also be used by the next-generation Vega-E rocket. The upgraded booster is important for the Ariane 6 to meet its commitment to launch hundreds of Project Kuiper satellites for Amazon.

ULA launches its first rocket of the year. The first 27 operational satellites for Amazon’s Kuiper broadband network lifted off from Florida’s Space Coast on Monday evening on an Atlas V rocket, the opening salvo in a challenge to SpaceX’s dominant Starlink global Internet service, Ars reports. Monday’s milestone launch kicks off a test campaign in low-Earth orbit to verify the functionality and performance of Amazon’s satellites. In a statement earlier this month, Amazon said it planned to begin providing service to customers later this year.

Putting the Atlas V to the test … The Atlas V, manufactured by United Launch Alliance, flew in its most powerful configuration, with five strap-on solid rocket boosters and an extended nose cone to accommodate the Kuiper satellites. Amazon’s 27 spacecraft added up to become the heaviest payload ever launched by an Atlas V in 102 missions. Amazon is using the Atlas V to boost its first batches of satellites to orbit and aims to launch thousands more Kuiper satellites in the next few years.

SpaceX launches 50th rocket of the year. The California company launched two separate Starlink missions within six hours of each other on Monday. The second of these, the Starlink 12-10 mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, was the company’s 50th of the year, Spaceflight Now reports.

That’s quite a cadence you’ve got there … Since there are so many, it is kind of boring keeping count of Falcon 9 missions these days, but with 50 launches in the first third of the year, the company is on pace for 150 Falcon family launches this year. For what it’s worth, the company also recently launched its 250th Starlink mission overall, a pretty remarkable feat in less than six years.

Isaacman commits to Artemis II and III as is. The US Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday advanced the nomination of private astronaut and businessman Jared Isaacman as the next administrator of NASA to the Senate floor, setting up the final step before he is confirmed, Ars reports. The vote was not unanimous, at 19–9, with all of the nay votes coming from senators on the Democratic side of the aisle. However, some key Democrats voted in favor of Isaacman, including the ranking member of the committee, Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

Approval was contingent on support for Artemis … Notably, both Cantwell and the committee’s chair, Republican Ted Cruz of Texas, cited Isaacman’s support for the Artemis Program, and flying the next two missions on the Space Launch System rocket, as critical factors in their support. “A commitment to keeping on with the Moon mission is the key requirement we have to have in this position,” Cantwell said. “While it’s not clear to me where the Trump administration ultimately will end up on the NASA budget, and I have concerns about some of their proposed cuts today, Mr. Isaacman seems to be committed to the current plan.”

NASA swaps an Artemis II rocket engine. A couple of weeks ago, ground teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida removed one of the four main engines from the Space Launch System rocket slated to send four astronauts on a voyage around the Moon next year, Ars reports. NASA officials ordered the removal of one of the massive rocket’s RS-25 main engines after discovering a hydraulic leak on the engine’s main oxidizer valve actuator, which controls the flow of super-cold liquid oxygen propellant into the engine’s main combustion chamber.

Installed two years ago … In its place, technicians installed another RS-25 engine from NASA’s inventory to the bottom of the rocket’s core stage, which is standing vertical on its mobile launch platform inside the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy. This is the first time NASA has replaced a main engine on the SLS core stage. The four RS-25 main engines had been installed on the core stage in 2023 while the rocket lay horizontally inside its factory in New Orleans before its shipment to Florida.

China eyes stainless steel, like Starship. A Chinese state-owned rocket maker is making progress in producing large diameter stainless steel tanks for its next-generation launch vehicles, Ars reports. The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology has announced the development of prototype 5.0-meter and 10.6-meter-diameter stainless steel propellant tanks over the past month, with the latter marking a breakthrough for the country’s super heavy-lift rocket plans.

Working toward Long March 9 … The 10.6-meter-diameter, 9.0-meter-high tank is part of the development of the Long March 9, a future reusable super heavy-lift rocket designed for large lunar and infrastructure missions that would transform the country’s launch capabilities. It is also being used in early mission concepts for crewed Mars missions. The Long March 9 project has morphed in recent years from an expendable rocket designed to facilitate crewed lunar missions, to a reusable, stainless-steel project for major infrastructure missions. The changes follow the development and demonstrated progress of SpaceX’s Starship.

A vote is coming on Starbase, the city. Nearly 10 years after SpaceX began operating in a small community in Cameron County just a few miles inland of the Gulf Coast, employees who live there and other residents will vote to incorporate their Starbase community as Texas’ newest city. If the majority of them vote yes on Saturday, the leaders they elect at the same time will have the responsibility of creating a city from the ground up, the Texas Tribune reports.

Given who is voting, a yes vote is likely … As a Type C municipality, Starbase will have a commission form of government—a mayor and two commissioners—who will be elected by the voters on the same day they vote to incorporate. Their terms in office last two years, unlike the typical four-year terms held by officials in larger cities. SpaceX leaders have made no secret of their plans to grow Starbase. “Incorporating Starbase will streamline the processes required to build the amenities necessary to make the area a world-class place to live—for the hundreds already calling it home, as well as for prospective workers eager to help build humanity’s future in space,” Starbase Manager Kathryn Lueders wrote recently.

However, SpaceX loses contest over beach access. Proposed legislation that would have handed authority to SpaceX to issue closures of Boca Chica Beach and the nearby road died after a vote by state lawmakers on Monday, Chron.com reports. The vote was close, with seven members of the Texas House State Affairs Committee against and six members in favor of Senate Bill 2188, which is the companion to state Rep. Janie Lopez’s House Bill 4660. SpaceX sought more control over when it could control the main road leading to and from the Starbase site for launch-related activities.

Battle is not over yet … The South Texas Environmental Justice Network celebrated the bills’ demise, saying it also stopped an associated bill that would have made it a Class B misdemeanor for unauthorized people to remain at a closed beach, as it would be an “FAA-designated hazard area.” The group said the bills’ defeat is a “significant victory” in preserving beach access for future generations. Going forward, Cameron County in South Texas can retain authority over beach closures near SpaceX’s launch facilities. Still, a retooled version of the bill could wind up going through the legislature before it adjourns at the end of May.

Next three launches

May 3: Falcon 9 | Starlink 15-3 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 18: 13 UTC

May 4: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-84 | Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 08: 48 UTC

May 5: Long March 12 | Unknown payload | Wenchang Space Launch Site, China | 11: 05 UTC

Rocket Report: Starbase the city is coming soon; Alpha remains in beta Read More »

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft hits a speed bump on the way to a metal asteroid

asteroid, electric propulsion, jet propulsion laboratory, Maxar, NASA, planetary science, psyche, Science, solar system, Space / Rejus Almole / May 1, 2025

An illustration depicts a NASA spacecraft approaching the metal-rich asteroid Psyche. Though there are no plans to mine Psyche, such asteroids are being eyed for their valuable resources. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Each electric thruster on Psyche generates just 250 milli-newtons of thrust, roughly equivalent to the weight of three quarters. But they can operate for months at a time, and over the course of a multi-year cruise, these thrusters provide a more efficient means of propulsion than conventional rockets.

The plasma thrusters are reshaping the Psyche spacecraft’s path toward its destination, a metal-rich asteroid also named Psyche. The spacecraft’s four electric engines, known as Hall effect thrusters, were supplied by a Russian company named Fakel. Most of the other components in Psyche’s propulsion system—controllers, xenon fuel tanks, propellant lines, and valves—come from other companies or the spacecraft’s primary manufacturer, Maxar Space Systems in California.

The Psyche mission is heading first for Mars, where the spacecraft will use the planet’s gravity next year to slingshot itself into the asteroid belt, setting up for arrival and orbit insertion around the asteroid Psyche in August 2029.

Psyche launched in October 2023 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on the opening leg of a six-year sojourn through the Solar System. The mission’s total cost adds up to more than $1.4 billion, including development of the spacecraft and its instruments, the launch, operations, and an experimental laser communications package hitching a ride to deep space with Psyche.

Psyche, the asteroid, is the size of Massachusetts and circles the Sun in between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. No spacecraft has visited Psyche before. Of the approximately 1 million asteroids discovered so far, scientists say only nine have a metal-rich signature like Psyche. The team of scientists who put together the Psyche mission have little idea of what to expect when the spacecraft gets there in 2029.

Metallic asteroids like Psyche are a mystery. Most of Psyche’s properties are unknown other than estimates of its density and composition. Predictions about the the look of Psyche’s craters, cliffs, and color have inspired artists to create a cacophony of illustrations, often showing sharp spikes and grooves alien to rocky worlds.

In a little more than five years, assuming NASA gets past Psyche’s propulsion problem, scientists will supplant speculation with solid data.

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft hits a speed bump on the way to a metal asteroid Read More »

Firefly’s rocket suffers one of the strangest launch failures we’ve ever seen

alpha rocket, Commercial space, Firefly Aerospace, launch, Lockheed Martin, Science, Space, Vandenberg space force base / Rejus Almole / April 30, 2025

The rocket’s first stage may have exploded moments after it separated from the upper stage.

Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket on its launch pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Credit: Jack Beyer/Firefly Aerospace

Firefly Aerospace launched its two-stage Alpha rocket from California early Tuesday, but something went wrong about two-and-a-half minutes into the flight, rendering the rocket unable to deploy an experimental satellite into orbit for Lockheed Martin.

The Alpha rocket took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base about 140 miles northwest of Los Angeles at 6: 37 am PDT (9: 37 am EDT; 13: 37 UTC), one day after Firefly called off a launch attempt due to a technical problem with ground support equipment.

Everything appeared to go well with the rocket’s first-stage booster, powered by four kerosene-fueled Reaver engines, as the launcher ascended through fog and arced on a southerly trajectory over the Pacific Ocean. The booster stage jettisoned from Alpha’s upper stage two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, and that’s when things went awry.

A blast from below

A bright cloud of white vapor appeared high in the sky, indicating an explosion, or something close to it. A moment later, the upper stage’s single Lightning engine ignited for a six-minute burn to accelerate into orbit.

A ground-based infrared camera caught a glimpse of debris in the wake of the upper stage, and then Firefly’s live video stream switched to a camera onboard the rocket. The rear-facing view showed the Lightning engine stripped of its exhaust nozzle but still firing. Shards of debris were visible behind the rocket, but the video did not show any sign of the discarded first stage booster, which was expected to fall into the Pacific south of Vandenberg.

The upper stage engine kept firing for more than six minutes, when it shut down and Firefly announced that the rocket reached orbit. The rocket was programmed to release its single payload, a nearly 2-ton technology demonstration satellite built by Lockheed Martin, approximately 13 minutes into the mission. Firefly ended its live webcast of the launch before confirming separation of the satellite.

A short time later, Firefly released a statement acknowledging a “mishap during first stage separation… that impacted the Stage 2 Lightning engine nozzle.” As a result, the rocket achieved an orbit lower than its target altitude, Firefly said. The privately held Texas-based launch company amended its statement later Tuesday morning to remove the clause about the lower-than-planned orbit.

Another update from Firefly early Tuesday afternoon confirmed the launch failed. The company said the rocket “experienced a mishap between stage separation and second stage ignition that led to the loss of the Lightning engine nozzle extension, substantially reducing the engine’s thrust.”

The launcher reached an altitude of nearly 200 miles (320 kilometers) but did not reach orbital velocity, according to Firefly.

“The stage and payload have now safely impacted the Pacific Ocean in a cleared zone north of Antarctica,” Firefly said. “Firefly recognizes the hard work that went into payload development and would like to thank our mission partners at Lockheed Martin for their continued support. The team is working closely with our customers and the FAA to conduct an investigation and determine root cause of the anomaly.”

While Firefly’s live video of the launch lacked a clear, stable view of first-stage separation, the appearance of white vapor is a sign that the rocket was likely emitting propellant. It wasn’t immediately obvious whether the first stage recontacted the upper stage after separation or if the booster exploded and harmed the upper stage engine.

You can watch a replay of Firefly’s stage separation below.

Whatever the case, it’s an interesting mode of failure. Maybe it’s not as bizarre as Astra’s sideways launch in 2021, something every rocket geek should know about. Also, there’s the time Astra’s upper stage launched itself through a half-open payload fairing in 2022. United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket lost a nozzle from one of its solid rocket boosters on a test flight last year, but the launch vehicle persevered and continued its climb into orbit.

The third flight of SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket failed in 2008 when its first stage collided with its upper stage moments after separation. An investigation determined residual thrust after shutdown of the first-stage engine pushed the booster into the bottom of Falcon 1’s upper stage, so SpaceX lengthened the time between main engine cutoff and staging. SpaceX’s next flight was successful, making Falcon 1 the first privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit.

The only time a rocket’s first stage has exploded after separation, at least in recent memory, was in 2023, when a North Korean booster blew up before it fell into the sea. The explosion did not damage the rocket’s upper stage, which continued into orbit on North Korea’s only successful satellite launch in nearly a decade. The incident fueled speculation that North Korea intentionally destroyed the booster to prevent South Korea or the United States from recovering it for inspections.

Great expectations

Firefly is one of just a handful of active US launch companies with rockets that have reached low-Earth orbit, but its Alpha rocket hasn’t established a reliable track record. In six flights, Alpha has amassed just two unqualified successes. Two prior Alpha launches deployed their payloads in lower-than-planned orbits, and the rocket’s debut test flight in 2021 failed soon after liftoff.

Now, Alpha has again missed its aim and didn’t reach orbit at all.

The Alpha rocket is capable of hauling a payload of up to 2,270 pounds (1,030 kilograms) to low-Earth orbit, putting Firefly’s launcher in a performance class above Rocket Lab’s Electron booster and below larger rockets like SpaceX’s Falcon 9. There’s no reliable commercial launch vehicle in the United States in this middle-of-the-road performance range. One potential competitor—ABL Space Systems—abandoned the satellite launch business last year to focus on missile defense and hypersonic testing.

There are several European launchers in operation or development—Arianespace’s Vega, Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum, and Rocket Factory Augsburg’s RFA One—with lift capacities comparable or slightly higher than Firefly’s Alpha.

File photo of a Firefly Alpha rocket lifting off in 2023. The launch on Tuesday occurred in foggy conditions.

Firefly argues that its Alpha rocket services a niche in the market for satellites too large to fly with Rocket Lab or too small to merit a dedicated flight with SpaceX. Firefly has some contract wins to bear this out. The launch on Tuesday was the first of up to 25 Alpha flights booked by Lockheed Martin to launch a series of tech demo satellites. The first of these was Lockheed Martin’s 3,836-pound (1,740-kilogram) LM-400 satellite, which was lost on Tuesday’s mission.

NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Reconnaissance Office, the US Space Force, and several more commercial customers have also reserved slots on Firefly’s launch schedule. With these contracts, Firefly has the fourth-largest launch confirmed backlog of any US launch company, following SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and Rocket Lab.

While Firefly continues flying the Alpha rocket, its engineers are developing a larger Medium Launch Vehicle in partnership with Northrop Grumman. Last month, Firefly celebrated the most significant accomplishment in its 11-year history—the first fully successful landing on the Moon by a commercial entity.

But while Firefly’s first missions at its founding were to build rocket engines and launch small satellites, other markets may ultimately prove more lucrative.

Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, argues rockets like Firefly’s Alpha are in a “no man’s land” in the launch market. “It’s too small to be a useful rideshare mission, and it’s too big to be a useful dedicated rocket” for smallsats, Beck told Space News.

Firefly might have a good strategy to prove Beck wrong. But first, it needs a more reliable rocket.

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

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Tuesday Telescope: Yes, you can see stars in space, and they’re spectacular

daily telescope, Space, tuesday telescope / Rejus Almole / April 29, 2025

NASA Astronaut Don Pettit returned to Earth 10 days ago, landing in Kazakhstan. During his latest mission, his third long-duration on the International Space Station, Pettit brought his brand of wonderment to the assignment.

During his time in microgravity, Pettit, an inveterate tinkerer, said he likes to spend his free time either doing experiments in microgravity he cannot do on Earth or taking images to bring the experience back home. At a news conference Monday, Pettit was asked why he took so many images—670,000!—during his most recent stay on the space station.

“When I’m looking out the window, just enjoying the view, it’s like, ‘Oh, wow, a meteor. Look at that. Man, there’s a flash there. What’s that? Oh, look at that volcano going off. Okay, where’s my camera? I gotta record that.’ And part of this drive for me is when your mission is over, it’s photographs and memories. When you want to share the experience with people, you can share the memories through verbal communication, like we’re doing now, but the photographs are just another dimension of sharing what it’s like. It’s an experience where most people on Earth right now can’t share, and I can try to give them a glimpse through my imagery.”

Tuesday Telescope: Yes, you can see stars in space, and they’re spectacular Read More »