Space – Page 5

What happens when DEI becomes DOA in the aerospace industry?

Space / Kris Guyer / March 14, 2025

As part of the executive order, US companies with federal contracts and grants must certify that they no longer have any DEI hiring practices. Preferentially hiring some interns from a pool that includes women or minorities is such a practice. Effectively, then, any private aerospace company that receives federal funding, or intends to one day, would likely be barred under the executive order from engaging with these kinds of fellowships in the future.

US companies are scrambling to determine how best to comply with the executive order in many ways, said Emily Calandrelli, an engineer and prominent science communicator. After the order went into effect, some large defense contractor companies, including Lockheed Martin and RTX (formerly Raytheon) went so far as to cancel internal employee resource groups, including everything from group chats to meetings among women at the company that served to foster a sense of community. When Calandrelli asked Lockheed about this decision, the company confirmed it had “paused” these resource group activities to “align with the new executive order.”

An unwelcoming environment

For women and minorities, Calandrelli said, this creates an unwelcoming environment.

“You want to go where you are celebrated and wanted, not where you are tolerated,” she said. “That sense of belonging is going to take a hit. It’s going to be harder to recruit women and keep women.”

This is not just a problem for women and minorities, but for everyone, Calandrelli said. The aerospace industry is competing with others for top engineering talent. Prospective engineers who feel unwanted in aerospace, as well as women and minorities working for space companies today, may find the salary and environment more welcoming at Apple or Google or elsewhere in the tech industry. That’s a problem for the US Space Force and other areas of the government seeking to ensure the US space industry retains its lead in satellite technology, launch, communications and other aspects of space that touch every part of life on Earth.

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No, that’s not a cosmic cone of shame—it’s NASA’s newest space telescope

Science, Space / Rejus Almole / March 13, 2025

A filter for the Universe

“SPHEREx is going to produce an enormous three-dimensional map of the entire night sky.”

NASA’s SPHEREx observatory after completion of environmental testing at BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado, last year. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/BAE Systems

Satellites come in all shapes and sizes, but there aren’t any that look quite like SPHEREx, an infrared observatory NASA launched Tuesday night in search of answers to simmering questions about how the Universe, and ultimately life, came to be.

The mission launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 8: 10 pm local time (11: 10 pm EDT) Tuesday. Less than 45 minutes later, the Falcon 9’s upper stage released SPHEREx into a polar orbit at an altitude of roughly 420 miles (675 kilometers). Ground controllers received the first signals from the spacecraft, confirming its health after reaching space.

As soon as next month, once engineers verify the observatory is ready, SPHEREx will begin a two-year science mission surveying the sky in 102 colors invisible to the human eye. The observatory’s infrared detectors will collect data on the chemical composition of asteroids, hazy star-forming clouds, and faraway galaxies.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted SPHEREx into orbit. Credit: NASA/Jim Ross

“SPHEREx is going to produce an enormous three-dimensional map of the entire night sky, and with this immense and novel dataset, we’re going to address some of the most fundamental questions in astrophysics,” said Phil Korngut, the mission’s instrument scientist at Caltech.

“Using a technique called linear variable filter spectroscopy, we’re going to produce 102 maps in 102 wavelengths every six months, and our baseline mission is to do this four time over the course of two years,” Korngut said.

Boiling it down

The acronym for the SPHEREx mission is a mouthful—it stands for the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer. Scientists sum up the $488 million mission by saying it seeks answers to three basic questions:

• How did the Universe begin?

• How did galaxies begin?

• What are the conditions for life outside the Solar System?

While it’s possible to sum up these objectives in an elevator pitch, the details touch on esoteric topics like cosmic inflation, quantum physics, and the flatness of spacetime. Philosophically, these questions are existential. SPHEREx will try to punch above its weight.

Built by BAE Systems, SPHEREx is about the size of a subcompact car, and it lacks the power and resolution of a flagship observatory like the James Webb Space Telescope. Webb’s primary mirror spans more than 21 feet (6.5 meters) across, while SPHEREx’s primary mirror has an effective diameter of just 7.9 inches (20 centimeters), comparable to a consumer-grade backyard telescope.

SPHEREx will test the inflationary model, a theory to explain the unimaginably violent moments after the Big Bang. Credit: NASA

But NASA’s newest space telescope has a few advantages. While Webb is designed to peer deep into small slivers of the sky, SPHEREx’s wider field of view will observe the sky in all directions. Like its name might suggest, SPHEREx will capture a spherical view of the cosmos. Color filters overlay the instrument’s detector array to separate light coming into the telescope into its component wavelengths, a process known as spectroscopy. NASA says SPHEREx’s unique design allows it to conduct infrared spectroscopy on hundreds of thousands of objects simultaneously, and more than 600 exposures per day.

“SPHEREx is a testament to doing big science with a small telescope,” said Beth Fabinsky, the mission’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

Because SPHEREx orbits hundreds of miles above the Earth, the telescope flies above the discernible atmosphere, which can absorb faint thermal energy coming from distant astronomical sources. Its detectors must be cold, below minus 360 degrees Fahrenheit, or 55 Kelvin, or the the telescope would be blinded by its own light. This is the reason the spacecraft has such an unusual look.

Many past infrared telescopes used cryogenic coolant to chill their detectors, but this is a finite resource that gradually boils off in space, limiting mission lifetimes. Webb uses a complicated tennis court-sized sunshield to block heat and light from the Sun from its infrared instruments. Engineers came up with a simpler solution for SPHEREx.

Three concentric photon shields extend from the top of the spacecraft to insulate the telescope’s optics and detectors from light from the Sun and the Earth. This design requires no moving parts, boosting the mission’s reliability and longevity. The photon shields look like an Elizabethan collar. Pet owners may know it as the “cone of shame” given to animals after surgeries.

Like NASA’s new half-billion-dollar space telescope, this cheery canine wears his collar with pride. Credit: Michael Macor/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

For SPHEREx, this cone is an enabler, allowing astronomers to map hundreds of millions of galaxies to study inflation, a cosmological theory that suggests the Universe underwent a mind-boggling expansion just after the Big Bang nearly 13.8 billion years ago. Through the process of inflation, the Universe grew a “trillion-trillion-fold” in a fraction of a second, Korngut said.

The theory suggests inflation left behind the blueprint for the largest-scale structures of the Universe, called the cosmic web. Inflation “expanded tiny fluctuations, smaller than an atom, to enormous cosmological scales that we see today, traced out by galaxies and clusters of galaxies,” said Jamie Bock, a cosmologist at Caltech who leads the SPHEREx science team.

“Even though inflation (theory) was invented in the 1980s, it’s been tested over the intervening decades and has been consistent with the data,” Bock said. “While we have this general picture, we still don’t know what drove inflation, why it happened. So what SPHEREx will do will test certain models of inflation by tracing out the three dimensions, hundreds of millions of galaxies, over the entire sky. And those galaxies trace out the initial fluctuations set up by inflation.”

SPHEREx’s telescope will also collect the combined light emitted by all galaxies, all the way back to the cosmic dawn, when the first stars and galaxies shined through the foggy aftermath of the Big Bang. Scientists believe star formation peaked in the Universe some 10 billion years ago, but their understanding of cosmic history is based on observations of a relatively small population of galaxies.

“SPHEREx, with its small telescope, is going to address this subject in a novel way,” Bock said. “Instead of really counting, very deeply, individual galaxies, SPHEREx is going to look at the total glow produced by all galaxies. This cosmological glow captures all light emitted over cosmic history from galaxies, as well as anything else that emits light. So it’s a very different way of looking at the Universe, and in particular, that first stage of star and galaxy formation must also be in this cosmic glow.”

Bock and his science team will match the aggregate data from SPHEREx with what they know about the Universe’s early galaxies from missions like Webb and the Hubble Space Telescope. “We can compare to counts that have been built up with large telescopes and see if we’ve missed any sources of light,” Bock said.

Closer to home

In our own galaxy, SPHEREx will use its infrared sensitivity to investigate the origins and abundance of water and ice in molecular clouds, the precursors to alien solar systems where gas and dust collapse to form stars and planets.

“We think that most of the water and ice in the universe is in places like this,” said Rachel Akeson, SPHEREx science data center lead at Caltech. “It’s also likely that the water in Earth’s oceans originated in the molecular cloud. So how will SPHEREx map the ice in our galaxy? While other space telescopes have found reservoirs of water in hundreds of locations, SPHEREx observations of our galaxy will give us more than 9 million targets, a much bigger sample than we have now.”

As the telescope scans across these millions of targets, its detectors will make measurements of each point in the sky in 102 infrared wavelengths. With the help of spectroscopy, SPHEREx will measure how much water is bound up in these star-forming clouds.

“Knowing the water content around the galaxy is a clue to how many locations could potentially host life,” Akeson said.

The SPHEREx observatory (top) was joined on its ride to space by four small NASA satellites (bottom) setting out to study the solar wind. Credit: Benjamin Fry/BAE Systems

All-sky surveys like SPHEREx’s often turn up surprises because they ingest immense amounts of data. They leave behind enduring legacies by building up catalogs of galaxies and stars. Astronomers use these archives to plan follow-up observations by more powerful telescopes like Webb and Hubble, or with future observatories employing technologies unavailable today.

As it pans across the sky observing distant galaxies, SPHEREx’s telescope will also catch glimpses of targets within our own Solar System. These include planets and thousands of asteroids, comets, icy worlds beyond Pluto, and interstellar objects that occasionally transit through the Solar System. SPHEREx sill measure water, iron, carbon dioxide, and multiple types of ices (water, methane, nitrogen, ammonia, and others) on the surface of these worlds closer to home.

Finding savings where possible

A second NASA mission hitched a ride to space with SPHEREx, deploying into a similar orbit a few minutes after the Falcon 9 released its primary payload.

This secondary mission, called PUNCH, consists of four suitcase-sized satellites that will study the solar corona, or outer atmosphere, a volatile sheath of super-heated gas extending millions of miles from the Sun’s surface. NASA expects PUNCH’s $150 million mission will reveal information about how the corona generates the solar wind, a continuous stream of charged particles streaming out in all directions from the Sun.

There are tangible reasons to study the solar wind. These particles travel through space at speeds close to 1 million mph, and upon reaching Earth, interact with our planet’s magnetic field. Bursts of energy erupting from the Sun, like solar flares, can generate shocks in the solar wind current, leading to higher risks for geomagnetic storms. These have a range of effects on the Earth, ranging from colorful but benign auroras to disruptions to satellite operations, navigation, and communication.

Other NASA spacecraft have zoomed in to observe second-by-second changes in the Sun’s atmosphere, and a fleet of sentinels closer to Earth measure the solar wind after it has traveled through space for three days. PUNCH will combine the imaging capacities of four small satellites to create a single “virtual instrument” with a view broad enough to monitor the solar wind as it leaves the Sun and courses farther into the Solar System.

Hailing a ride to space is not as simple as opening up Uber on your phone, but sharing rides offers a more cost-effective way to launch small satellites like PUNCH. SpaceX regularly launches rideshare flights, called Transporter missions, on its Falcon 9 rocket, sometimes with more than 100 satellites on a single launch going to a standard orbit. Missions like SPHEREx and PUNCH aren’t usually a good fit for SpaceX’s Transporter missions because they have more stringent demands for cleanliness and must launch into bespoke orbits to achieve their science goals.

Matching SPHEREx and PUNCH to the same rocket required both missions to go to the same orbit, and be ready for launch at the same time. That’s a luxury not often available to NASA’s mission planners, but where possible, the agency wants to take advantage of rideshare opportunities.

Launching the PUNCH mission on its own dedicated rocket would have likely cost at least $15 million. This is the approximate price of a mission on Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket, the cheapest US launcher with the muscle to lift the PUNCH satellites into orbit.

“This is a real change in how we do business,” said Mark Clampin, the acting deputy administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, or SMD. “It’s a new strategy that SMD is working where we can maximize the efficiency of launches by flying two payloads at once, so we maximize the science return.”

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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Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is the new leader of Relativity Space

relativity space, Space / Tim Belzer / March 11, 2025

Another Silicon Valley investor is getting into the rocket business.

Former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has taken a controlling interest in the Long Beach, California-based Relativity Space. The New York Times first reported the change becoming official, after Schmidt told employees in an all-hands meeting on Monday.

Schmidt’s involvement with Relativity has been quietly discussed among space industry insiders for a few months. Multiple sources told Ars that he has largely been bankrolling the company since the end of October, when the company’s previous fundraising dried up.

It is not immediately clear why Schmidt is taking a hands-on approach at Relativity. However, it is one of the few US-based companies with a credible path toward developing a medium-lift rocket that could potentially challenge the dominance of SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket. If the Terran R booster becomes commercially successful, it could play a big role in launching megaconstellations.

Schmidt’s ascension also means that Tim Ellis, the company’s co-founder, chief executive, and almost sole public persona for nearly a decade, is now out of a leadership position.

“Today marks a powerful new chapter as Eric Schmidt becomes Relativity’s CEO, while also providing substantial financial backing,” Ellis wrote on the social media site X. “I know there’s no one more tenacious or passionate to propel this dream forward. We have been working together to ensure a smooth transition, and I’ll proudly continue to support the team as Co-founder and Board member.”

Terran R’s road to launch

On Monday, Relativity also released a nearly 45-minute video that outlines the development of the Terran R rocket to date and the lengths it must go to reach the launch pad. Tellingly, Ellis appears only briefly in the video, which features several other senior officials who presumably will remain with the company, including Chief Operating Officer Zach Dunn.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is the new leader of Relativity Space Read More »

What’s behind the recent string of failures and delays at SpaceX?

failures, falcon 9, Space, spacex, starship / Tim Belzer / March 11, 2025

SpaceX has long had a hard-charging culture. Is it now charging too hard?

File photo of a Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Credit: SpaceX

It has been an uncharacteristically messy start to the year for the world’s leading spaceflight company, SpaceX.

Let’s start with the company’s most recent delay. The latest launch date for a NASA mission to survey the sky and better understand the early evolution of the Universe comes Monday night. The launch window for this SPHEREx mission opened on February 28, but a series of problems with integrating the rocket and payloads have delayed the mission nearly two weeks.

Then there are the Falcon 9 first stage issues. Last week, a Falcon 9 rocket launched nearly two dozen Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit. However, one of the rocket’s nine engines suffered a fuel leak during ascent. Due to a lack of oxygen in the thinning atmosphere, the fuel leak did not preclude the satellites from reaching orbit. But when the first stage returned to Earth, it caught fire after landing on a droneship, toppling over. This followed a similar issue in August, when there was a fire in the engine compartment. After nearly three years without a Falcon 9 landing failure, SpaceX had two in six months.

SpaceX has also experienced recent and recurring problems with the Falcon 9 rocket’s expendable upper stage. On February 1, a second stage deorbit burn failed after a Starlink launch. This led to propellant tanks from the stage crashing into western Poland, causing property damage but harming no one. It was the third time in six months that SpaceX had encountered an issue with the Falcon 9 second stage.

Finally, and most publicly, the company’s massive Starship has failed on its last two test flights.

Although the vehicle’s first stage performed nominally during test flights in January and March, returning safely to its launch site, the Starship upper stage exploded spectacularly in flight twice. On both occasions, a fire developed in the engine section of Starship, and the vehicle rained fiery debris trails over the Bahamas and other nearby islands. Air traffic controllers diverted or delayed dozens of commercial airline flights flying through the debris footprint.

Putting this into perspective

These issues have occurred against the backdrop of a largely successful and unprecedented launch performance.

For all of the problems described earlier, the company’s only operational payload loss was its own Starlink satellites in July 2024 due to a second stage issue. Before that, SpaceX had not lost a payload with the Falcon 9 in nearly a decade. So SpaceX has been delivering for its customers in a big way.

SpaceX has achieved a launch cadence with the Falcon 9 rocket that’s unmatched by any previous rocket—or even nation—in history. If the SPHEREx mission launches tonight, as anticipated, it would be the company’s 27th mission of this year. The rest of the world combined, including China and its growing space activity, will have a total of 19 orbital launch attempts.

In the United States, SpaceX’s historic launch competitor, United Launch Alliance, has yet to fly a single rocket this year. In fact, the company has not launched in 156 days. During that time, SpaceX has launched 64 Falcon 9 rockets. So yes, SpaceX has had some technical issues. But it is also flying circles around its competition.

The recent failures are also unlikely to jeopardize, at least in the near term, SpaceX’s globally dominant position. The company provides the Western world’s only human access to orbit, and that’s unlikely to change for a while. SpaceX launches the vast majority of NASA’s science missions, and until United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket becomes certified, it remains the US military’s only way to get larger payloads into space. The company also operates a global Internet network with more than 5 million users, and that number is growing rapidly.

All the same, these recent failures may be telling us something about SpaceX.

What is causing this

Without being inside SpaceX, it is impossible to put a fine point on what precisely is happening to cause these technical issues.

Probably the most significant factor is the company’s ever-present pressure to accelerate, even while taking on more and more challenging tasks. No country or private company ever launched as many times as SpaceX did in 2024. By way of comparison, NASA launched the Space Shuttle 135 times, a comparable number to the total of Falcon 9 launches last year (132), over a 30-year period.

At the same time, the company has been attempting to move its talented engineering team off the Falcon 9 and Dragon programs and onto Starship to keep that ambitious program moving forward.

To put it succinctly, SpaceX is balancing a lot of spinning plates, and the company’s leadership is telling its employees to spin the plates faster and faster.

Multiple sources have indicated that the Starship engineering team was under immense pressure after the January 16 failure to identify the cause of a “harmonic response” in the vehicle’s upper stage that contributed to its loss. The goal was to find and fix the problem as quickly as possible.

Let’s step back and appreciate that Starship is an experimental system, by far the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown, and it catastrophically failed in January. During a span of just seven weeks, the Starship team had to study the failure, address any problems, and prepare new hardware.

How much of this is on SpaceX founder Elon Musk? Some have suggested his deep involvement in the 2024 presidential election, oversight of the Department of Government Efficiency, excessive social media activity, and more—like picking fights with US senators— have distracted him from the problems of SpaceX. And there’s no doubt that Musk has been focused on things other than SpaceX for the last half-year or longer.

However, in Musk’s absence, he has capable lieutenants such as Mark Juncosa leading the way. SpaceX has long had a hard-charging culture instilled by Musk since the founding of the company. Musk’s modus operandi is to push his teams to reach some ambitious goal, and when they do, he sets a new, even more audacious target. It may be not so much Musk’s absence that is causing these issues but rather the company’s relentless culture.

It seems possible that, at least for now, SpaceX has reached the speed limit for commercial spaceflight. When you’re launching 150 times a year and building two second stages a week, it’s hard to escape the possibility that some details are slipping through the cracks. And it’s not just the launches. SpaceX is operating a constellation of more than 7,000 satellites, flying humans into space regularly, and developing an unprecedented rocket like Starship.

The recent failures may be signs of cracks in the foundation.

What are the implications

So far, the consequences of these failures have not been lethal. But space remains a difficult, hazardous game. Reentering debris from a Falcon 9 upper stage could have struck someone in Poland. God forbid, a second stage could fail early in a crewed mission.

The risks of serious problems with Starlink should not be understated, either. There have been unconfirmed rumors in recent months of near misses between Starlink satellites and objects in low-Earth orbit. Additional debris in this increasingly cluttered space would be disastrous.

To date, the Falcon 9 rocket program has not been slowed down by these issues. It’s perhaps not fully appreciated how utterly reliant NASA’s human spaceflight activities are on the Falcon 9. It currently launches the only crew-capable vehicle in Dragon. However, a Cargo version of Dragon also flies on the Falcon 9, and this is NASA’s only way to get scientific experiments back to Earth. And for at least the next year, the only other US cargo vehicle, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus, also must launch on the Falcon 9.

Not just NASA, but every other space station partner outside of Russia, depends on the Falcon 9 for human spaceflight activities. The rocket must fly, and fly safely, or the West will be grounded.

With Starship, the recent failures are a significant setback. Although there will no doubt be pressure from SpaceX leadership to rapidly move forward, there appears to be a debilitating design flaw in the upgraded version of Starship. It will be important to understand and address this. Another launch before this summer seems unlikely. A third consecutive catastrophic failure would be really, really bad.

For the space agency’s Artemis program to return humans to the Moon, Starship’s problems spell more delays. Musk had already signaled in late February that a critical refueling demonstration will now not happen this year. This test is an essential milestone on the path to the Moon, and its delay all but ensures the first lunar landing will not happen in 2027 as currently envisioned.

Most likely, the back-to-back Starship failures will also cement the path forward for Artemis II and Artemis III to fly as planned, with crews flying on the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft.

As for Mars, the red planet remains in the far distance, waiting for SpaceX to address its red flags here on Earth.

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.

What’s behind the recent string of failures and delays at SpaceX? Read More »

After less than a day, the Athena lander is dead on the Moon

intuitive machines, Space / Paul Patrick / March 9, 2025

NASA expected Athena to have a reasonable chance of success. Although it landed on its side, Odysseus was generally counted as a win because it accomplished most of its tasks. Accordingly, NASA loaded a number of instruments onto the lander. Most notable among these was the PRIME-1 experiment, an ice drill to sample and analyze any ice that lies below the surface.

A dark day, but not the end

“After landing, mission controllers were able to accelerate several program and payload milestones, including NASA’s PRIME-1 suite, before the lander’s batteries depleted,” the company’s statement said. However, this likely means that the company was able to contact the instrument but not perform any meaningful scientific activities.

NASA has accepted that these commercial lunar missions are high-risk, high-reward. (Firefly’s successful landing last weekend offers an example of high rewards). It is paying the companies, on average, $100 million or less per flight. This is a fraction of what NASA would pay through a traditional procurement program. The hope is that, after surviving initial failures, companies like Intuitive Machines will learn from their mistakes and open a low-cost, reliable pathway to the lunar surface.

Even so, this failure has to be painful for NASA and Intuitive Machines. The space agency lost out on some valuable science, and Intuitive Machines has taken a step backward with this mission rather than moving forward as it had hoped to do.

Fortunately, this is unlikely to be the end for the company. NASA has committed to a third and fourth mission on Intuitive Machines’ lander, the next of which could come during the first quarter of 2026. NASA has also contracted with the company to build a small network of satellites around the Moon for communications and positioning services. So although the company’s fortunes look dark today, they are not permanently shadowed like the craters on the Moon that NASA hopes to soon explore.

After less than a day, the Athena lander is dead on the Moon Read More »

White House may seek to slash NASA’s science budget by 50 percent

nasa budget, Science, Space / Tim Belzer / March 9, 2025

In many ways, NASA’s science directorate is the crown jewel of the space agency. Nearly all of the most significant achievements over the last 25 years have been delivered by the science programs: Ingenuity flying on Mars, New Horizons swooping by Pluto, images from the James Webb Space Telescope, the discovery of thousands of exoplanets, the return of samples from asteroids and comets, Cassini’s discovery of water plumes on Enceladus, a continuous robotic presence on Mars, and so much more. Even the recent lunar landings by Firefly and Intuitive Machines were funded by NASA’s science directorate.

Of NASA’s roughly $25 billion budget, however, only about 30 percent is allocated to science. For fiscal year 2024, this amounted to $7.4 billion. This spending was broken down into approximately $2.7 billion for planetary science, $2.2 billion for Earth science, $1.5 billion for astrophysics, and $800 million for heliophysics.

NASA science funding since 1980. Credit: Casey Dreier/The Planetary Society

The proposed cuts are being driven by Russell Vought, the recently confirmed director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, which sets budget and policy priorities for a presidential administration. In some sense, the budgetary decisions should not come as a surprise, as they are consistent with what Vought proposed in a “shadow” budget for fiscal-year 2023 as part of his Center for Renewing America.

“The budget also proposes a 50 percent reduction in NASA Science programs and spending, reducing their misguided Carbon Reduction System spending and Global Climate Change programs,” Vought’s organization wrote in its report published in December 2022.

Zeroing out Earth science?

Despite Vought’s desire, however, NASA is expressly charged with studying our planet.

The congressional act that created NASA in 1958 calls for the space agency to expand human knowledge about Earth’s atmosphere and space, and the agency’s Earth observation satellites have substantially increased our understanding of this planet’s weather, changing climate, and land use.

Even if NASA’s Earth science budget were taken to zero, cutting the overall science budget in half would still dramatically reduce funding in planetary science as well as other research areas. Scientists told Ars that NASA would be forced to make difficult decisions, likely including shutting off extended missions such as the Voyager and Curiosity probes on Mars, and possibly even the Hubble Space Telescope. It might be possible to save missions in later stages of development, such as the Dragonfly probe to Saturn’s moon Titan, and the NEO Surveyor mission to search for hazardous asteroids. But it would be impossible to start meaningful new missions to explore the Solar System, potentially setting back planetary exploration a decade.

White House may seek to slash NASA’s science budget by 50 percent Read More »

Rocket Report: Starship fails for a second time; what’s to blame for Vulcan delays?

rocket report, Space / Rejus Almole / March 9, 2025

“During Starship’s ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

The first commercial flight of Ariane 6, operated by Arianespace, lifts off on Thursday. Credit: Arianespace

Welcome to Edition 7.34 of the Rocket Report! What a day in space Thursday was. During the morning hours we saw the triumphant second flight of the Ariane 6 rocket, a pivotal moment for European sovereignty in space. Then Intuitive Machines had a partially successful landing on the Moon. And finally, on Thursday evening, SpaceX’s Starship failed during its second consecutive test flight.

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 sets date for next Alpha launch. Having completed a static-fire test, Firefly Aerospace has set a target date of March 15 for the launch of its “Message in a Booster” mission. The Alpha rocket will launch Lockheed Martin’s LM 400 spacecraft from Vandenberg Space Force Base, with the 52-minute launch window opening at 6: 25 am PT (14: 25 UTC). Lockheed is self-funding the demonstration mission of its new satellite bus, the LM 400, which it says can serve civil, military, and commercial customers.

A slow build … This is Alpha’s second launch for Lockheed Martin, and the first of Firefly’s multi-launch agreement with the company that includes up to 25 missions over the next five years. Alpha is capable of lifting 1 metric ton to low-Earth orbit, and this will be the rocket’s sixth launch since its debut in September 2021. The company has recorded one failure, two partial failures, and two successes during the time. It’s been a slow ramp up for Alpha, with the rocket having launched just a single time in 2024, in July.

Isar Aerospace wins Asian launch contract. A Japanese microgravity services startup named ElevationSpace has become the first Asian customer for Germany’s Isar Aerospace, Space News reports. ElevationSpace said Monday it has booked a launch during the second half of 2026 with Isar Aerospace for AOBA, a 200-kilogram spacecraft designed to test a recoverable platform for space-based experiments and manufacturing. This is a hopeful sign that European startups will have commercial appeal beyond the continent.

Spectrum rocket nearing debut launch … The Japanese firm cited Isar Aerospace’s direct injection capability into low Earth orbit and flexible launch scheduling as key factors in its decision to sign the contract. Isar Aerospace said last month that Spectrum, designed to deliver up to 1,000 kilograms to low-Earth orbit, has completed static-fire testing and is prepared for its first flight from Andøya Spaceport in northern Norway, pending final regulatory approval.

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A small launch site in French Guiana. The French space agency, CNES, has opened a public consultation period for the new multi-user micro-launcher facility at the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, European Spaceflight reports. Last month, the first of four public consultation sessions into the construction of the new Multi-Launcher Launch Complex at the Guiana Space Centre was held at Kourou Town Hall. In March 2021, CNES announced plans to transform the old Diamant launch site into a new multi-use facility for commercial micro-launcher providers, supporting rockets with payloads of up to 1,500 kilograms.

Lots of potential users … The final mission launched from the Guiana Space Centre’s Diamant facility lifted off in 1976, after which it was abandoned and left to be reclaimed by the jungle. In 2019, the site was earmarked for revitalization to serve as a testing ground for the Callisto and Themis reusable rocket booster demonstrators. This testing was, however, always going to serve as a temporary justification for the launch facility’s rebirth. In July 2022, CNES pre-selected Avio, HyImpulse, Isar Aerospace, MaiaSpace, PLD Space, Rocket Factory Augsburg, and Latitude to use the facility. However, MaiaSpace has since allocated the Guiana Space Centre’s old Soyuz launch pad for its partially reusable Maia rocket.

Firefly nets Earth science launch contract. Amid its successful lunar landing, forthcoming Alpha launch, and a new launch contract, Firefly is having one heck of a week. NASA revealed this week that it has selected Firefly Aerospace to launch a trio of Earth science smallsats that will study the formation of storms, Space News reports. The agency said March 4 that it awarded a task order through its Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) contract to Firefly to launch the three-satellite Investigation of Convective Updrafts mission.

Hello, Virginia … NASA did not disclose the value of the task order, a practice it has followed on other VADR awards. The three satellites will launch on a Firefly Alpha rocket from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. NASA did not disclose a launch date in its announcement, but Firefly, in its own statement, said the launch would take place as soon as 2026. Firefly said it will launch the mission from Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia, which has been used by Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket and will also be used by Alpha and the future MLV rocket.

Ariane 6 delivers for Europe when it is needed. Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket lifted off Thursday from French Guiana and deployed a high-resolution reconnaissance satellite into orbit for the French military, notching a success on its first operational flight. “This is an absolute pleasure for me today to announce that Ariane 6 has successfully placed into orbit the CSO-3 satellite,” said David Cavaillolès, who took over in January as CEO of Arianespace, the Ariane 6’s commercial operator. “Today, here in Kourou, we can say that thanks to Ariane 6, Europe and France have their own autonomous access to space back, and this is great news.”

Can no longer rely on US rockets … This was the second flight of Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket, following a mostly successful debut launch last July. The first test flight of the unproven Ariane 6 carried a batch of small, relatively inexpensive satellites. An auxiliary propulsion unit (APU)—essentially a miniature second engine—on the upper stage shut down in the latter portion of the inaugural Ariane 6 flight, after the rocket reached orbit and released some of its payloads. Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister for research and higher education, says Ariane 6 is “proof of our space sovereignty,” as many European officials feel they can no longer rely on the United States.

US launch facilities are not prepared for a surge. Rocket firm executives warned this week that the nation’s primary launch facilities may soon be unable to handle the projected surge in rocket launches, potentially hampering America’s competitiveness in the rapidly expanding commercial space sector, Space News reports. “I don’t think that people realize how many rockets are going to be launching five or eight years from now,” Dave Limp, CEO of Blue Origin, said at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Warfare Conference in Aurora, Colorado.

Support needed for multiple daily launches … Limp’s concerns were echoed by executives from SpaceX and United Launch Alliance during a panel discussion, where all three agreed that the industry must collectively prepare for a future where multiple daily launches become the norm. Jon Edwards, SpaceX’s vice president of Falcon launch vehicles, highlighted that even at Cape Canaveral, the busiest US spaceport, current protocols don’t allow simultaneous launches by different providers.

Falcon 9 first stage fails to land safely. After what appeared to be a routine Starlink mission on Sunday, a Falcon 9 first stage landed on the Just Read the Instructions drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Shortly after the landing, however, a fire broke out in the aft end of the rocket. This damaged a landing leg and caused the rocket to topple over. Florida Today has video of the badly damaged rocket returning to Port Canaveral.

Space remains hard … The Starlink satellites safely reached orbit, so this did not impact the primary mission. However, Falcon 9 landings have become so seemingly routine, such a failure now stands out. This booster was relatively new, having launched three Starlink missions, GOES-U, and Maxar 3. It was only the first-stage booster’s fifth flight. To date, SpaceX has successfully flown a single booster 26 times.

India begins construction of a new launch site. The Indian space agency, ISRO, presently has two operational launch pads at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. The space agency launches Indian and foreign satellites aboard rockets like PSLV and GSLV from here. As it seeks to expand its launch activities, ISRO officially began constructing a new launch site at Kulasekaranpattinam, in Tamil Nadu, this week, The National reports.

Avoiding the dogs … The Kulasekaranpattinam launch site is strategically located near the equator. With open seas to the south of it, the site allows for direct southward launches over the Indian Ocean. This will minimize fuel consumption and maximize payload capacity for small satellite launch vehicles, particularly beneficial for cost-effective commercial satellite launches. The site also avoids the need for complex “dogleg” maneuvers around Sri Lanka.

SpaceX launches Starship on its eighth flight. SpaceX launched the eighth full-scale test flight of its enormous Starship rocket on Thursday evening after receiving regulatory approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. The test flight sought a repeat of what SpaceX hoped to achieve on the previous Starship launch in January, when the rocket broke apart and showered debris over the Atlantic Ocean and Turks and Caicos Islands.

Alas … Unfortunately for SpaceX, the Starship upper stage failed again, in a similar location, with similar impacts. About a minute before reaching the cutoff of the vehicle’s engines en route to space, the upper stage spun out of control and broke apart. “During Starship’s ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost,” SpaceX said in a statement about an hour later. “Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses.” Ars will have full coverage of what is a serious setback for the company.

Amazon culture comes to Blue Origin. Jeff Bezos has moved to introduce a tough Amazon-like approach to his rocket maker Blue Origin, as the world’s third-richest person seeks to revive a company that has lagged behind Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the Financial Times reports. The space company’s founder and sole shareholder has pushed to shift its internal culture with management hires from Amazon, while implementing policies akin to the e-commerce giant, including longer working hours and more aggressive targets.

Work-life balance, what? … Key to Bezos’s effort is chief executive Dave Limp. The former Amazon devices chief was appointed in late 2023 and has been followed in quick succession by several veterans from the $2.2 trillion tech giant, including supply chain chief Tim Collins, chief information officer Josh Koppelman, and chief financial officer Allen Parker. The changes in leadership have been accompanied by significant layoffs. In February, roughly 10 percent of Blue Origin’s more than 10,000-strong workforce was dismissed. Employees are now expected to work longer hours, and badge scanners have been introduced to track employee time similar to Amazon.

Space Force is to blame for Vulcan delays? The debut of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket was delayed more than four years, ultimately from 2019 to January 2024. The first flight went very well, but during the second certification mission in October 2024 there was an anomaly with one of the two solid rocket boosters powering the vehicle. Although the rocket reached its intended orbit, this issue necessitated an investigation. Vulcan has yet to fly again, and with the certification process still ongoing, it is now likely to launch no earlier than sometime this summer.

Spacecraft end up moving to the right … No one is more interested in seeing Vulcan fly than the US Space Force, which has dozens of missions lined up for the rocket. These missions were supposed to be launched between 2022 and 2026. To make up for lost time, the Space Force now hopes to launch 11 national security missions this year (this almost certainly won’t happen). In a curious comment to Space News, Bruno appeared to put some of the blame for delays on the Space Force, rather than Vulcan’s tardiness: Bruno pointed out there is inherent unpredictability in national security launch schedules, noting that “about half of the spacecraft end up needing to move right, and they move right by a lot.” It is a weird comment to make with a rocket that is years late.

Next three launches

March 9: Falcon 9 | SPHEREx & PUNCH | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 03: 09 UTC

March 9: Falcon 9 | Starlink 12-21 | Cape Canaveral, Fla. | 04: 10 UTC

March 10: Electron | The Lightning God Reigns | Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand | 00:oo UTC

Rocket Report: Starship fails for a second time; what’s to blame for Vulcan delays? Read More »

The Starship program hits another speed bump with second consecutive failure

Commercial space, elon musk, launch, NASA, Science, Space, spacex, starship, starship flight 8 / Kris Guyer / March 9, 2025

The flight plan going into Thursday’s mission called for sending Starship on a journey halfway around the world from Texas, culminating in a controlled reentry over the Indian Ocean before splashing down northwest of Australia.

The test flight was supposed to be a do-over of the previous Starship flight on January 16, when the rocket’s upper stage—itself known as Starship, or ship—succumbed to fires fueled by leaking propellants in its engine bay. Engineers determined the most likely cause of the propellant leak was a harmonic response several times stronger than predicted, suggesting the vibrations during the ship’s climb into space were in resonance with the vehicle’s natural frequency. This would have intensified the vibrations beyond the levels engineers expected.

The Super Heavy booster returned to Starbase in Texas to be caught back at the launch pad. Credit: SpaceX

Engineers test-fired the Starship vehicle earlier this month for this week’s test flight, validating changes to propellant temperatures, operating thrust, and the ship’s fuel feed lines leading to its six Raptor engines.

But engineers missed something. On Thursday, the Raptor engines began shutting down on Starship about eight minutes into the flight, and the rocket started tumbling 90 miles (146 kilometers) over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX ground controllers lost all contact with the rocket about nine-and-a-half minutes after liftoff.

“Prior to the end of the ascent burn, an energetic event in the aft portion of Starship resulted in the loss of several Raptor engines,” SpaceX wrote on X. “This in turn led to a loss of attitude control and ultimately a loss of communications with Starship.”

Just like in January, residents and tourists across the Florida peninsula, the Bahamas, and the Turks and Caicos Islands shared videos of fiery debris trails appearing in the twilight sky. Air traffic controllers diverted or delayed dozens of commercial airline flights flying through the debris footprint, just as they did in response to the January incident.

There were no immediate reports Thursday of any Starship wreckage falling over populated areas. In January, residents in the Turks and Caicos Islands recovered small debris fragments, including one piece that caused minor damage when it struck a car. The debris field from Thursday’s failed flight appeared to fall west of the areas where debris fell after Starship Flight 7.

A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration said the regulatory agency will require SpaceX to perform an investigation into Thursday’s Starship failure.

The Starship program hits another speed bump with second consecutive failure Read More »

NASA officials undermine Musk’s claims about ‘stranded’ astronauts

dragon, musk, NASA, Space / Rejus Almole / March 8, 2025

“We were looking at this before some of those statements were made by the President.”

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

Over the last month there has been something more than a minor kerfuffle in the space industry over the return of two NASA astronauts from the International Space Station.

The fate of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who launched on the first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on June 5, 2024, has become a political issue after President Donald Trump and SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the astronauts’ return was held up by the Biden White House.

In February, Trump and Musk appeared on FOX News. During the joint interview, the subject of Wilmore and Williams came up. They remain in space today after NASA decided it would be best they did not fly home in their malfunctioning Starliner spacecraft—but would return in a SpaceX-built Crew Dragon.

“At the President’s request, or instruction, we are accelerating the return of the astronauts, which was postponed to a ridiculous degree,” Musk said.

“They got left in space,” Trump added.

“They were left up there for political reasons, which is not good,” Musk concluded.

After this interview, a Danish astronaut named Andreas Mogensen asserted that Musk was lying. “What a lie,” Mogensen wrote on the social media site Musk owns, X. “And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media.”

Musk offered a caustic response to Mogensen. “You are fully retarded,” Musk wrote. “SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago. I OFFERED THIS DIRECTLY to the Biden administration and they refused. Return WAS pushed back for political reasons. Idiot.”

So what’s the truth?

NASA has not directly answered questions about this over the last month. However, the people who really know the answer lie within the human spaceflight programs at the space agency. After one news conference was canceled last month, two key NASA officials were finally made available on a media teleconference on Friday evening. These were Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, Space Operations Mission Directorate, and Steve Stich, manager, of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which is responsible for Starliner and Crew Dragon flights.

Musk is essentially making two claims. First, he is saying that last year SpaceX offered to bring Wilmore and Williams home from the International Space Station—and made the offer directly to the Biden Administration. And the offer was refused for “political” reasons.

Second, Musk says that, at Trump’s request, the return of Wilmore and Williams was accelerated. The pair is now likely to return home to Earth as part of the Crew 9 mission later this month, about a week after the launch of a new group of astronauts to the space station. This Crew 10 mission has a launch date of March 12, so Wilmore and Williams could finally fly home about two weeks from now.

Let’s examine each of Musk’s claims in light of what Bowersox and Stich said Friday evening.

Was Musk’s offer declined for political reasons?

On July 14, last year, NASA awarded SpaceX a special contract to study various options to bring Wilmore and Williams home on a Crew Dragon vehicle. At the time, the space agency was considering options if Starliner was determined to be unsafe. Among the options NASA was considering were to fly Wilmore and Williams home on the Crew 8 vehicle attached to the station (which would put an unprecedented six people in the capsule) or asking SpaceX to autonomously fly a Dragon to the station to return Wilmore and Williams separately.

“The SpaceX folks helped us with a lot of options for how we would bring Butch and Suni home on Dragon in a contingency,” Bowersox said during Friday’s teleconference. “When it comes to adding on missions, or bringing a capsule home early, those were always options. But we ruled them out pretty quickly just based on how much money we’ve got in our budget, and the importance of keeping crews on the International Space Station. They’re an important part of maintaining the station.”

As a result, the Crew 9 mission launched in September with just two astronauts. Wilmore and Williams joined that crew for a full, six-month increment on the space station.

Stich said NASA made that decision based on flight schedules to the space station and the orbiting laboratory’s needs. It also allowed time to send SpaceX spacesuits up for the pair of astronauts and to produce seat liners that would make their landing in the water, under parachutes, safe.

“When we laid all that out, the best option was really the one that we’re embarking upon now,” Stich said. “And so we did Crew 9, flying the two empty seats, flying a suit for Butch up, and also making sure that the seats were right for Butch’s anthropometrics, and Suni’s, to return them safely.”

So yes, SpaceX has been working with NASA to present options, including the possibility of a return last fall. However, those discussions were being held within the program levels and their leaders: Stich for Commercial Crew and Dana Weigel for the International Space Station.

“Dana and I worked to come up with a decision that worked for the Commercial Crew Program and Space Station,” Stich said. “And then, Ken (Bowersox), we all we had the Flight Readiness Review process with you, and the Administrator of NASA listened in as well. So we had a recommendation to the agency and that was on the process that we typically use.”

Bowersox confirmed that the decision was made at the programmatic level.

“That’s typically the way our decisions work,” Bowersox said. “The programs work what makes the most sense for them, programmatically, technically. We’ll weigh in at the headquarters level, and in this case we thought the plan that we came up with made a lot of sense.”

During the teleconference, a vice president at SpaceX, Bill Gerstenmaier, was asked directly what offer Musk was referring to when he mentioned the Biden administration. He did not provide a substantive answer.

Musk claims he made an offer directly to senior officials in the Biden Administration. We have no way to verify that, but it does seem clear that the Biden administration never communicated such an offer to lower-level officials within NASA, who made their decision for technical rather than political reasons.

“I think you know we work for NASA, and we worked with NASA cooperatively to do whatever we think was the right thing,” the SpaceX official, Gerstenmaier, replied. “You know, we were willing to support in any manner they thought was the right way to support. They came up with the option you heard described today by them, and we’re supporting that option.”

Did Trump tell NASA to accelerate Butch and Suni’s return?

As of late last year, the Crew 9 mission was due to return in mid-February. However, there was a battery issue with a new Dragon spacecraft that was going to be used to fly Crew 10 into orbit. As a result, NASA announced on December 17 that the return of the crew was delayed into late March or early April.

Then, on February 11, NASA announced that the Crew 10 launch was being brought forward to March 12. This was a couple of weeks earlier than planned, and it was possible because NASA and SpaceX decided to swap out Dragon capsules, using a previously flown vehicle—Crew Dragon Endurance—for Crew 10.

So was this change to accelerate the return of Wilmore and Williams politically driven?

The decision to swap to Endurance was made in late January, Stich said, and this allowed the launch date to be moved forward. Asked if political pressure was a reason, Stich said it was not. “It really was driven by a lot of other factors, and we were looking at this before some of those statements were made by the President and Mr. Musk,” he said.

Bowersox added that this was correct but also said that NASA appreciated the President’s interest in the space program.

“I can verify that Steve has been talking about how we might need to juggle the flights and switch capsules a good month before there was any discussion outside of NASA, but the President’s interest sure added energy to the conversation,” Bowersox said.

NASA officials undermine Musk’s claims about ‘stranded’ astronauts Read More »

The X-37B spaceplane lands after helping pave the way for “maneuver warfare”

Boeing, military space, Science, Space, Vandenberg space force base, x-37b spaceplane / Mike M. / March 8, 2025

On this mission, military officials said the X-37B tested “space domain awareness technology experiments” that aim to improve the Space Force’s knowledge of the space environment. Defense officials consider the space domain—like land, sea, and air—a contested environment that could become a battlefield in future conflicts.

Last month, the Space Force released the first image of Earth from an X-37B in space. This image was captured in 2024 as the spacecraft flew in its high-altitude orbit, and shows a portion of the X-37B’s power-generating solar array. Credit: US Space Force

The Space Force hasn’t announced plans for the next X-37B mission. Typically, the next X-37B flight has launched within a year of the prior mission’s landing. So far, all of the X-37B flights have launched from Florida, with landings at Vandenberg and at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where Boeing and the Space Force refurbish the spaceplanes between missions.

The aerobraking maneuvers demonstrated by the X-37B could find applications on future operational military satellites, according to Gen. Stephen Whiting, head of US Space Command.

“The X-37 is a test and experimentation platform, but that aerobraking maneuver allowed it to bridge multiple orbital regimes, and we think this is exactly the kind of maneuverability we’d like to see in future systems, which will unlock a whole new series of operational concepts,” Whiting said in December at the Space Force Association’s Spacepower Conference.

Space Command’s “astrographic” area of responsibility (AOR) starts at the top of Earth’s atmosphere and extends to the Moon and beyond.

“An irony of the space domain is that everything in our AOR is in motion, but rarely do we use maneuver as a way to gain positional advantage,” Whiting said. “We believe at US Space Command it is vital, given the threats we now see in novel orbits that are hard for us to get to, as well as the fact that the Chinese have been testing on-orbit refueling capability, that we need some kind of sustained space maneuver.”

Improvements in maneuverability would have benefits in surveilling an adversary’s satellites, as well as in defensive and offensive combat operations in orbit.

The Space Force could attain the capability for sustained maneuvers—known in some quarters as dynamic space operations—in several ways. One is to utilize in-orbit refueling that allows satellites to “maneuver without regret,” and another is to pursue more fuel-efficient means of changing orbits, such as aerobraking or solar-electric propulsion.

Then, Whiting said Space Command could transform how it operates by employing “maneuver warfare” as the Army, Navy and Air Force do. “We think we need to move toward a joint function of true maneuver advantage in space.”

The X-37B spaceplane lands after helping pave the way for “maneuver warfare” Read More »

Intuitive Machines’ second attempt to land on the Moon also went sideways

clps, intuitive machines, NASA, Space / Kris Guyer / March 7, 2025

Inside a small control room, during the middle of the day on Thursday local time in Texas, about a dozen white-knuckled engineers at a space startup named Intuitive Machines started to get worried. Their spacecraft, a lander named Athena, was beginning its final descent down to the lunar surface.

A little more than a year had passed since the company’s first attempt to land on the Moon with a similarly built vehicle, Odysseus. Due to problems with that spacecraft’s laser rangefinder, it skidded into the Moon’s surface and toppled over.

So engineers at Intuitive Machines had checked, and re-checked the laser-based altimeters on Athena. When the lander got down within about 30 km of the lunar surface, they tested the rangefinders again. Worryingly, there was some noise in the readings as the laser bounced off the Moon. However, the engineers had reason to believe that, maybe, the readings would improve as the spacecraft got nearer to the surface.

“Our hope was that the signal to noise would improve as we got closer to the Moon,” said Tim Crain, chief technology officer for Intuitive Machines, speaking to reporters afterward.

It didn’t. The noise remained. And so, to some extent, Athena went down to the Moon blind. The spacecraft’s propulsion system, based on liquid oxygen and methane, and designed in-house, worked beautifully. But in the final moments, the spacecraft did not quite know where it was relative to the surface.

Probably lying on its side

Beyond that, Crain and the rest of the company, including its chief executive Steve Altemus, could not precisely say what happened. After Athena landed, the engineers in mission control could talk to the spacecraft, and they were able to generate some power from its solar arrays. But precisely where it was, or how it lay on the ground, they could not say a few hours later.

Based on a reading from an inertial measurement unit inside the vehicle, most likely Athena is lying on its side. This is the same fate Odysseus met last year, when it skidded into the Moon, broke a leg, and toppled over.

Intuitive Machines’ second attempt to land on the Moon also went sideways Read More »

When Europe needed it most, the Ariane 6 rocket finally delivered

ariane 6, Arianespace, Europe, france, launch, military space, Science, Space / Paul Patrick / March 7, 2025

“For this sovereignty, we must yield to the temptation of preferring SpaceX.”

Europe’s second Ariane 6 rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Center on Thursday with a French military spy satellite. Credit: ESA-CNES-Arianespace-P. Piron

Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket lifted off Thursday from French Guiana and deployed a high-resolution reconnaissance satellite into orbit for the French military, notching a success on its first operational flight.

The 184-foot-tall (56-meter) rocket lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, at 11: 24 am EST (16: 24 UTC). Twin solid-fueled boosters and a hydrogen-fueled core stage engine powered the Ariane 6 through thick clouds on an arcing trajectory north from the spaceport on South America’s northeastern coast.

The rocket shed its strap-on boosters a little more than two minutes into the flight, then jettisoned its core stage nearly eight minutes after liftoff. The spent rocket parts fell into the Atlantic Ocean. The upper stage’s Vinci engine ignited two times to reach a nearly circular polar orbit about 500 miles (800 kilometers) above the Earth. A little more than an hour after launch, the Ariane 6 upper stage deployed CSO-3, a sharp-eyed French military spy satellite, to begin a mission providing optical surveillance imagery to French intelligence agencies and military forces.

“This is an absolute pleasure for me today to announce that Ariane 6 has successfully placed into orbit the CSO-3 satellite,” said David Cavaillolès, who took over in January as CEO of Arianespace, the Ariane 6’s commercial operator. “Today, here in Kourou, we can say that thanks to Ariane 6, Europe and France have their own autonomous access to space back, and this is great news.”

This was the second flight of Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket, following a mostly successful debut launch last July. The first test flight of the unproven Ariane 6 carried a batch of small, relatively inexpensive satellites. An Auxiliary Propulsion Unit (APU)—essentially a miniature second engine—on the upper stage shut down in the latter portion of the inaugural Ariane 6 flight, after the rocket reached orbit and released some of its payloads. But the unit malfunctioned before a third burn of the upper stage’s main engine, preventing the Ariane 6 from targeting a controlled reentry into the atmosphere.

The APU has several jobs on an Ariane 6 flight, including maintaining pressure inside the upper stage’s cryogenic propellant tanks, settling propellants before each main engine firing, and making fine adjustments to the rocket’s position in space. The APU appeared to work as designed Thursday, although this launch flew a less demanding profile than the test flight last year.

Is Ariane 6 the solution?

Ariane 6 has been exorbitantly costly and years late, but its first operational success comes at an opportune time for Europe.

Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister for research and higher education, says Ariane 6 is “proof of our space sovereignty,” as many European officials feel they can no longer rely on the United States. Baptiste, an engineer and former head of the French space agency, mentioned “sovereignty” so many times, turning his statement into a drinking game crossed my mind.

“The return of Donald Trump to the White House, with Elon Musk at his side, already has significant consequences on our research partnerships, on our commercial partnerships,” Baptiste said. “Should I mention the uncertainties weighing today on our cooperation with NASA and NOAA, when emblematic programs like the ISS (International Space Station) are being unilaterally questioned by Elon Musk?

“If we want to maintain our independence, ensure our security, and preserve our sovereignty, we must equip ourselves with the means for strategic autonomy, and space is an essential part of this,” he continued.

Philippe Baptiste arrives at a government question session at the Senate in Paris on March 5, 2025. Credit: Magali Cohen/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

Baptiste’s comments echo remarks from a range of European leaders in recent weeks.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address Wednesday night that the French were “legitimately worried” about European security after Trump reversed US policy on Ukraine. America’s NATO allies are largely united in their desire to continue supporting Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion, while the Trump administration seeks a ceasefire that would require significant Ukrainian concessions.

“I want to believe that the United States will stay by our side, but we have to be prepared for that not to be the case,” Macron said. “The future of Europe does not have to be decided in Washington or Moscow.”

Friedrich Merz, set to become Germany’s next chancellor, said last month that Europe should strive to “achieve independence” from the United States. “It is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”

Merz also suggested Germany, France, and the United Kingdom should explore cooperation on a European nuclear deterrent to replace that of the United States, which has committed to protecting European territory from Russian attack for more than 75 years. Macron said the French military, which runs the only nuclear forces in Europe fully independent of the United States, could be used to protect allies elsewhere on the continent.

Access to space is also a strategic imperative for Europe, and it hasn’t come cheap. ESA paid more than $4 billion to develop the Ariane 6 rocket as a cheaper, more capable replacement for the Ariane 5, which retired in 2023. There are still pressing questions about Ariane 6’s cost per launch and whether the rocket will ever be able to meet its price target and compete with SpaceX and other companies in the commercial market.

But European officials have freely admitted the commercial market is secondary on their list of Ariane 6 goals.

European satellite operators stopped launching their payloads on Russian rockets after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Now, with Elon Musk inserting himself into European politics, there’s little appetite among European government officials to launch their satellites on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.

The second Ariane 6 rocket on the launch pad in French Guiana. Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja

The Falcon 9 was the go-to choice for the European Space Agency, the European Union, and several national governments in Europe after they lost access to Russia’s Soyuz rocket and when Europe’s homemade Ariane 6 and Vega rockets faced lengthy delays. ESA launched a $1.5 billion space telescope on a Falcon 9 rocket in 2023, then returned to SpaceX to launch a climate research satellite and an asteroid explorer last year. The European Union paid SpaceX to launch four satellites for its flagship Galileo navigation network.

European space officials weren’t thrilled to do this. ESA was somewhat more accepting of the situation, with the agency’s director general recognizing Europe was suffering from an “acute launcher crisis” two years ago. On the other hand, the EU refused to even acknowledge SpaceX’s role in delivering Galileo satellites to orbit in the text of a post-launch press release.

“For this sovereignty, we must yield to the temptation of preferring SpaceX or another competitor that may seem trendier, more reliable, or cheaper,” Baptiste said. “We did not yield for CSO-3, and we will not yield in the future. We cannot yield because doing so would mean closing the door to space for good, and there would be no turning back. This is why the first commercial launch of Ariane 6 is not just a technical and one-off success. It marks a new milestone, essential in the choice of European space independence and sovereignty.”

Two flights into its career, Ariane 6 seems to offer a technical solution for Europe’s needs. But at what cost? Arianespace hasn’t publicly disclosed the cost for an Ariane 6 launch, although it’s likely somewhere in the range of 80 million to 100 million euros, about 40 percent lower than the cost of an Ariane 5. This is about 50 percent more than SpaceX’s list price for a dedicated Falcon 9 launch.

A new wave of European startups should soon begin launching small rockets to gain a foothold in the continent’s launch industry. These include Isar Aerospace, which could launch its first Spectrum rocket in a matter of weeks. These companies have the potential to offer Europe an option for cheaper rides to space, but the startups won’t have a rocket in the class of Ariane 6 until at least the 2030s.

Until then, at least, European governments will have to pay more to guarantee autonomous access to space.

When Europe needed it most, the Ariane 6 rocket finally delivered Read More »