A Falcon 9 rocket launched yesterday afternoon at 1:42pm EDT from Pad 40, Cape Canaveral, with the NROL-69 mission. It was later revealed to be the tenth pair of Gen3 Naval Ocean Surveillance System satellites. NOSS tracks ships and submarines by their RADAR signals. The first two generations were launched in sets of three, while Gen3, which has been in use since 2001, has launched in pairs. They are always launched at a 63° inclination. Initially, they were launched exclusively from Vandenberg, but with Gen3, they began experimenting with launches from Cape Canaveral. Gen1 was launched by the Atlas E/F rocket, and later Atlas H. Gen2 was launched by the Titan IV. Gen3 was launched initially by the Atlas IIAS, with one Atlas III launch, then Atlas V 401, with one using an Atlas V 411. This is the second to be launched with the Falcon 9. One Gen1 launch failed in December 1980 due to a booster section engine failure. One Gen2 launch failed due to damage to a Titan IV booster casing in August 1993. A Gen3 launch in June 2007 was subjected to an early shutdown of its Centaur upper stage, though the satellites were able to reach their intended orbits under their own power. ******** For the past week, German private aerospace firm Isar Aerospace has been attempting to launch their first Spectrum rocket from Andøya Space Center, Norway. But various issues have caused delays. Their next launch window actually opens shortly at 7:30am EDT.
Happy 97th birthday to NASA astronaut Jim Lovell. Born in Cleveland, his father died in a car accident when he was 5, and his mother raised him with her family at various points in the Midwest. He would ultimately become an Eagle Scout, and would attend a naval aviator cadet program at Wisconsin for two years while also playing football for the Badgers, before transferring to Navy in 1948. In his first year at Navy, Jim wrote a treatise on liquid rocket propulsion. He received his bachelor's in 1952 and was commissioned as an ensign, then immediately married his high school sweetheart, Marilyn Gerlach. The pair would go on to have two sons and two daughters together. He went to aviator training at NAS Pensacola, then finished at Moffett Field in San Francisco with the McDonnell F2H Banshee fighter jet. He would conduct his first cruise on the aircraft carrier USS Shangri-La, completing 107 carrier landings with various fighter jets. He would then go to Naval Test Pilot School at NAS Patuxent River in 1958, in the same class as Wally Schirra and Pete Conrad. Jim would graduate at the top of their class. He was a finalist for the Mercury Seven, but was not selected. Instead, he would become the Navy's program manager for the McDonnell F-4 Phantom II fighter jet; in this program, John Young would be one of his direct subordinates. He would also go to Aviation Safety School at Southern Cal in 1961. In 1962, he gave NASA another go, and was selected to the New Nine. Under the direction of Gus Grissom, he was placed in charge of recovery systems for Project Gemini. Jim would be assigned as junior pilot of Gemini 7 under command pilot Frank Borman, with their two-week mission becoming the pinnacle of the long-duration phase of Project Gemini. They would also serve as the rendezvous target for the repurposed Gemini 6A mission, the first American tandem space missions and, at that point, the first actual close rendezvous between two manned spacecraft. He would then be command pilot for Gemini 12, an Agena Target Vehicle docking mission where junior pilot Buzz Aldrin would finally iron out the persistent issues NASA had been having with extravehicular activity to that point. Unlike the two missions before, they did not increase Gemini 12's orbit due to issues with the ATV's engines during ascent. For Project Apollo, Jim Lovell was placed as backup command module pilot for the fourth crew, with Neil Armstrong as commander, and Buzz Aldrin in the LM pilot position. But when Michael Collins, who was CM pilot for the third crew under Frank Borman, suffered a herniated disc in his neck, Lovell was shuffled into that slot. This would be an interesting turn of fate. His crew would ultimately fly Apollo 8, the first manned circumlunar mission, in December 1968. Another twist would come in 1969. Jim was placed in command of the backup crew of Apollo 11, with Bill Anders as his CM pilot, and Fred Haise as his LM pilot. Then they were shuffled from Apollo 14 to Apollo 13 after Alan Shepard was put in command of the former crew, to give him more training time. In addition, Anders retired, and was replaced by Ken Mattingly. Who then was swapped with Jack Swigert after their backup LM pilot, Charlie Duke, caught German measles, for which Ken was the only other crewmember who didn't previously have it. Of course, we already know what happened with Apollo 13, as an oxygen tank explosion in the service module pre-empted Jim becoming the fifth man to walk on the Moon. But a perilous rescue led to the crew's lives being saved...and ultimately, to Jim becoming something of a folk hero later on. Jim retired from NASA, and the Navy (final rank Captain), in 1973. He worked in various executive roles in the private sector before retiring in 1991. He would spend much of the 90s in charge of the National Eagle Scout Association. He wrote a book about Apollo 13, Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, in 1994. It was swiftly purchased and turned into the film Apollo 13, directed by Ron Howard and released in 1995. He was played by Tom Hanks, with Kathleen Quinlan playing Marilyn, a role for which she earned an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Jim lives in a retirement community in northern Chicagoland. Marilyn died on August 27, 2023, aged 93, after 71 years of marriage. He is currently the oldest living astronaut and the only remaining member of the New Nine.
223 years ago today, German astronomer Heinrich Olbers discovered the asteroid 2 Pallas. Pallas is among the most unique planetoids in the Solar System. Its orbital inclination relative to the Sun is 34.8°, making it almost entirely inaccessible to space probes with current technology. And the eccentricity of its orbit is almost as great as that of Pluto. It has a nearly 1:1 orbital resonance with Ceres, but their orbits are offset greatly enough that collision is highly unlikely. It also has two different resonances with Jupiter, being 5:2 over an 83-year period, and 18:7 over a 91,000-year period. There were apparitions of possible small satellites for Pallas in 1978 and 1980, but both were disproven. Imagery of some detail was obtained of Pallas in 2017 by the Very Large Telescope in Chile. Dawn had a proposed mission extension that would see it head to Pallas after Ceres, but their relative inclinations made transfer impossible. There was a proposal to send a smallsat to Pallas as a hitchhiker with the Psyche spacecraft, but it was ultimately deemed unfeasible. Some albedo features have been identified, with the provisional naming convention based on weapons of European antiquity.
Next crew on deck 🚀 As part of NASA's @SpaceX #Crew11 mission, four crew members have been selected from three space agencies to launch to the @Space_Station later this year for a long-duration stay aboard the orbiting laboratory. Meet the members: https://t.co/u9FUr1ob6Z pic.twitter.com/Lrcm1gQLZ6— NASA (@NASA) March 28, 2025 The crew of SpaceX Crew-11 has finally been announced. And it goes a ways toward telling us the status of Starliner. Taking up command will be Zena Cardman, who was originally commander of SpaceX Crew-9 before the Starliner Crewed Flight Test went awry, resulting in her and Stephanie Wilson being bumped from the mission to permit Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams to return with that flight. Her pilot will be Michael Fincke, moving him off Starliner-1. They will be joined by Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov. The mission will fly aboard Crew Dragon Endeavour. It has a launch date of NET July 2025. ******** .@NASA and @BoeingSpace are making progress toward crew certification of the company’s CST-100 #Starliner system following the Crew Flight Test to @Space_Station.Joint teams are working to resolve Starliner’s in-flight anomalies and preparing for propulsion system testing in… pic.twitter.com/0roYsQeQDu— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) March 27, 2025 As for Starliner, Boeing is continuing to test its propulsion system so that they can finally iron out all the bugs that have lingered now for three straight test flights. Officially, NASA is stating that they want to certify Starliner and go right to operational flights. But there are rumors that NASA wants another uncrewed flight before sending a crew on it again. As it stands, 70% of the issues are resolved, but the remaining issues are expected to take much of this year to resolve. It's growing unlikely that Starliner will fly in 2025.
Spectrum failed very shortly after liftoff but it undoubtedly still provided massive amounts of data for Isar Aerospace to learn and improve from. pic.twitter.com/7c53JYnxd9— Booster 10 (@booster_10) March 30, 2025 The Spectrum launch finally took place yesterday morning at 7:30pm EDT. Within seconds, the rocket began breaking apart, and the engines failed. It then dove into the water just offshore from the launchpad. At bare minimum, at least the infrastructure wasn't damaged. But who knows when Isar will try again? ******** Two launches planned from Cape Canaveral today. First, a Starlink launch is planned for 4pm EDT from Pad 40. Then, the crewed polar orbit mission Fram2 is planned to launch at 9:47pm EDT from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. The four-person crew, led by entrepreneur Chun Wang, is set to become the first crew to launch into polar orbit. It will be pretty much an exact polar orbit of 90° inclination at 450 km altitude, not the 98° inclination of a polar SSO. Crew Dragon Resilience will have special abort modes which will prevent potential landing in Cuba or Panama should a launch abort take place.
Get ready for the National Security Space Launch GPS III-7 mission slated for May 2025!🚀 A partnership between #SpaceForce’s SSC & SpOC, our GPS III satellite will launch with M-Code tech that’s 3x more accurate & 8x more resistance to jamming. #Guardians https://t.co/WNw0trBy3F pic.twitter.com/Ho1RuaP5DE— Space Systems Command (@USSF_SSC) April 7, 2025 Following the success of the Rapid Response Trailblazer mission on December 16, 2024, that saw the eighth GPS Block III satellite, Sally Ride, launched in quick turnaround, the seventh GPS Block III, Katherine Johnson, is now set to follow, and will be launched next month. In the meantime, the second Project Kuiper launch is finally getting off the ground. 27 satellites will be launched atop an Atlas V 551 rocket from Pad 41, Cape Canaveral, at 7pm EDT on Wednesday night. Cargo Dragon CRS-32 is set to launch to the International Space Station on Monday, April 21, at 3am EDT. Among its cargo is a pair of atomic clocks for an ESA experiment. ******** Video of the Isar Aerospace "Full Spectrum" Launch at Andøya. 📸 video: @isaraerospace / @AndoyaSpace pic.twitter.com/mnZel9l0Vc— Selshevneren (@selshevneren) March 30, 2025 As for the first launch of the Spectrum rocket, it did not go as planned. Within seconds of liftoff at 5:30am EDT, it began to break apart. Its pitchover went way too far, and its engines cut off. Instead of an RSO destruct which could've rained debris all over the spaceport, the rocket instead fell into the fjords offshore and exploded on impact. At least the spaceport wasn't damaged. But we'll see what Isar has to say about what went wrong, and their plans going forward.
Georgi Shonin was born on August 3, 1935, in Yuvenky, Ukrainian SSR. During the Great Patriotic War, his family hid a Jewish family while Ukraine was occupied by Nazi Germany in the wake of Operation Barbarossa. His father fought for the Red Army, but went missing at some point, and never came back. His plan was to become a pilot, and he earned his Naval aviator wings in early 1957. He served in the Baltic Fleet, a naval aviation unit of the Soviet Air Force. Shonin would be part of the original group of cosmonaut candidates in 1960. With all the interruptions in the Soviet space program, Georgi would need to wait until 1969 to finally fly. He would take the commander spot on Soyuz 6 with flight engineer Valeri Kubasov. Their primary mission was to film the docking of Soyuz 7 and Soyuz 8, and the subsequent crew transfer. But yet another failure of their Igla docking radars pre-empted it. Still, Soyuz 6 was able to conduct the first orbital materials engineering experiments. They would remain in orbit for five days. From that point, he took a managerial role with the Almaz program. But health issues precluded involvement in future spaceflights, and Georgi left the space program in 1979. He returned to the Soviet Air Force and took various commands throughout the 1980s. He retired in 1990 as a lieutenant general. In 1989, he was named as the final president of the USSR Aeronautical Sports Federation. Georgi died 28 years ago today of a heart attack in Star City, Moscow, aged 61. He left his third wife, and four children between his first two marriages. He is buried at a private cemetery in the Moscow suburb of Leonikha.
55 years ago today, the last pair of Vela nuclear detonation detection satellites were launched atop a Titan IIIC rocket from Pad 40, Cape Kennedy. While it is unknown if Vela 6A and 6B ever got that use, another thing they were hoping to do with them is discover astronomical X-ray and Gamma ray burst sources. They found two candidates, but both satellites' X-ray detectors failed in 1972. The satellites would be shut down in 1985. At that time, the Air Force had claimed they were the longest-running satellites. Both re-entered in 1992. This launch would be the last to use the Titan IIIC designation, as it would subsequently be replaced by the slightly-updated Titan 23C.
We're finally getting close to another Minotaur launch. A Minotaur IV rocket will carry NROL-174, a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. It's currently scheduled to launch from Pad 8, Vandenberg, on Wednesday afternoon at 3pm EDT. It will be the first Minotaur IV launch in five years. The tenth batch of Starshield reconnaissance satellites is set to launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Pad 3E, Vandenberg, on Saturday morning at 8:47am EDT. ******** ESA's Vega-C rocket is trying to do something it's never done before: have consecutive successful launches. The payload is going to be BIOMASS, part of ESA's Living Earth Program. It is planned to use SAR to measure Earth's forest biomass. Launch is planned for April 29 at 5:15am EDT from Pad V, Guiana Space Centre. ******** In news that is out of this world, Lucy will be doing its first fly-by, asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson, on April 20. It will give the mission team their first taste of high-speed encounters with small objects. Something Hera did on March 22 with Deimos. (EDIT: I initially put Hera in the first paragraph, too. Sometimes I think one thing, then my brain races ahead and I type something else.) While flying by Mars on its way to follow up the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), it did a gravity assist at Mars, flying by at a distance of 5,000 km. This put it only 300 km away from Deimos. The encounter provided a perfect opportunity for ESA to test Hera's main imager, the Asteroid Framing Camera, as well as Hyperscout H, its hyperspectral imager, and JAXA's Thermal Infrared Imager (TIRI). Hera is currently set to reach asteroid 65803 Didymos next December.
24 years ago today, GSAT-1 was launched atop the first Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) from Pad 1, Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The first attempt at by India at a medium-lift launch vehicle, it took the unique step of strapping liquid rocket boosters on a solid core first stage. At launch, this combined for around 1.9 million lb-f of thrust. It then had a hypergolic second stage powered by a Vikas 4 engine, and a cryogenic third stage with an engine provided by Russia and derived from the N1 rocket. Although considered a developmental flight, the payload was intended to be used. GSAT-1 was to provide communications infrastructure for rural parts of India. The problem ended up being the third stage. It cut off 12 seconds too early. Analysts believe a contributing factor was the fact that the flight computer was derived from the PSLV, which had only ever done LEO launches previously. After GSAT-1's perigee motor finished its job, it was still far short of a full geostationary orbit. Attempts to use the onboard RCS only ended up with the satellite running out of fuel, still 2,000 km short of a full GEO, and drifting 13° E per day. GSAT shut the satellite down per ITU regulations. GSLV Mark I was only launched six times, and only saw complete success twice. This launch was considered a partial failure. But the other three failures were connected to issues with the boosters, not the upper stage.
The hits keep coming for Sentinel and Northrop Grumman. One of their buildings that produces an ingredient in solid rocket motor propellant in Promontory blew up. Luckily, no one seriously injured. https://www.ksl.com/article/5129761...otors-destroyed-in-promontory-point-explosion Oddly, my neighbor was a Project Leader for Sentinel and was getting really burned out with all the setbacks, and just took a new job with a significant promotion to go to L3. He’s much happier and less stressed, plus he isn’t commuting 65miles each way almost every workday.
Our #LucyMission took a look at asteroid Donaldjohanson, its second asteroid encounter on its journey to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids. The first images reveal a unique fragment of an asteroid that formed about 150 million years ago! Find out more: https://t.co/Bgg5CkQfYd pic.twitter.com/lgZRG8Qngh— NASA (@NASA) April 21, 2025 Yesterday, Lucy completed its encounter with asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson, flying within 1,000 km. You might notice I previously named this one Donaldjohnson. That's a mistake others have made. And are still making. Donald Johnson, huh? pic.twitter.com/2tHT4os1dk— Eben Brown (FOX) 🇺🇸 (@FoxEbenBrown) April 21, 2025 But it is actually named after Donald Johanson, the Swedish-American anthropoligist that discovered Lucy, the name of the earliest complete skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis, an ancient protohominid. The scientists behing the Trojan asteroid exploration mission that would eventually be named Lucy included asteroid 1981 EQ5 as part of their flight path. They decided to propose the name, and it was approved by the Minor Planet Center on Christmas Day, 2015. The next stop for Lucy will be the Trojan asteroid 3548 Eurybates, currently planned for August 2027.
40 years ago today, Challenger was launched on STS-51-B from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. It was the second flight of Spacelab, and the first one with the module fully activated. For this and future Spacelab missions, the crew was split into two 12-hour shifts, working round-the-clock on various experiments. The Gold shift consisted of commander Robert Overmyer, Don Lind, William Thornton, and Taylor Wang. The Silver shift consisted of pilot Frederick Gregory, Norm Thagard, and Lodewijk van den Berg. (Van den Berg was a Dutch-American NASA astronaut. There were no ESA astronauts for this mission.) With the mission, Thornton extended his lead as the oldest man to fly in space to date, setting the age now at 56. The crew had one of the oldest aggregate ages, with three astronauts (Thornton, Lind, van den Berg) in their fifties. At 41, Norm Thagard was the youngest. During the mission, Gregory became the first African American Shuttle pilot.
Firefly Alpha Flight 6 launched last Monday, but a mishap happened on first stage separation. Recontact occured, and the withdrawing first stage ended up knocking off the second stage's engine bell. Something didn't go very well when separating the second stage from Alpha, so I made a comparison and there is clearly a difference, but Firefly has not yet commented, leave your opinion. pic.twitter.com/olLKiIQCvQ— TechDan (@TechDanC) April 29, 2025 Firefly permitted it to continue firing. Although it achieved 320 km altitude, it failed to reach orbital velocity. It came around and impacted in the Pacific Ocean, barely clearing Antarctica. ******** SpaceX is essentially launching Starlink satellites every other day. The next non-Starlink flight on the schedule is Axiom Mission 4, planned for May 29 at 1pm EDT. But there is tentative planning for a Starshield flight and the next GPS Block III satellite. SXM-10, the replacement for the failed SXM-7 satellite for SiriusXM, is prenciled in for June 6.
I've mentioned superguns in the past. Massive cannons that were popularized by Jules Verne, and became a terrifying science fact during World War I. But they weren't used that much in World War II. Though Nazi Germany definitely had an idea for one. One of the so-called Vengenace Weapons, which included the V-1 flying bomb and the V-2 ballistic missile, was the V-3 supergun. Smaller versions were used to bombard Luxembourg as the United Nations marched toward Germany entering 1945. But the biggest one was being built at the Fortress of Mimoyecques on the coast of France near Calais. It was a static supergun which would be aimed permanently at London. Its barrel had a length of 100 metres and a diameter of 15 cm. 97kg shells would be propelled by a series of electrically-fired charges. Its construction, however, never got very far. It was under constant British and American bombardment as the Luftwaffe ceded air superiority in the latter half of the War. Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., the eldest brother of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, died in one of the raids. It was abandoned by the Nazis about a month after D-Day. The United Kingdom, however, was not interested in giving France any ideas. They worked in secret in the waning months of the war to destroy the supergun. 80 years ago today, the final movement of the campaign began. 500 pounds of British bombs and captured Nazi plastique were detonated in service tunnels within Mimoyecques. A further 25 lbs. of explosives five days later would destroy the entrances to the tunnels. When he found out about this action, French supreme commander Charles de Gaulle was absolutely livid. He felt it was a violation of French sovereignty. The site lay abandoned for several decades. But interest in the site would be piqued when a mushroom farm was planted in the tunnels in 1969. The entrances were fully rehabilitated through the 1970s, and the tunnels were again electrified. A museum was opened in 1984. Its manager retired in 2008, and it would close for two years before a refurbished museum with new management opened on July 1, 2010. The new management was formed primarily to protect a bat colony that had taken up residence in the tunnels.
Happy 73rd birthday to NASA astronaut Donald McMonagle. Born in Flint Michigan, he was appointed to Air Force, where he earned his bachelor's in astronautical engineering in 1974. After a year of pilot training in Mississippi and Florida, he did a year-long tour of South Korea focusing on the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. He spent the rest of the 70s in the American southwest as a trainer in the F-15 Eagle. In 1981, Don went to Air Force Test Pilot School, and spent the early 80s checking out the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. During this time, he earned his master's in mechanical engineering from Cal State-Fresno in 1985. After going through Air Command and Staff College in 1986, he was selected to NASA in the pilot track of Group 11 in 1987. Once there, Don would do something truly unique among NASA astronauts. For his first mission, STS-39 aboard Discovery in April 1991, he would be a mission specialist. That was a DoD experimental mission. He would then be a pilot for STS-54 aboard Endeavour in January 1993. That mission would deploy the fifth TDRSS satellite. Then he would command Atlantis for STS-66 with the ATLAS-3 SPACELAB payload in November 1994. In 1996, Don would take charge of a new EVA Project Office to prepare EMUs and tools for use at the International Space Station. He left the Astronaut Office in 1997, but transferred to Kennedy Space Center, where he became the chairman of the Mission Management Team, becoming the final authority to approve each Shuttle launch. He retired from NASA and the Air Force (final rank Colonel) in 2000 and went into private industry. He took an executive role at Raytheon in 2006. He is married, and has two children.
Last night at 8:29pm EDT, ISRO launched EOS-09 atop a PSLV-XL rocket. During the third stage firing, the engine failed. The payload was lost. It was the first launch failure for PSLV since the IRNSS-1H launch in August 2017 when the payload fairing failed to separate. EOS-09 was intended to replace EOS-04, which launched in February 2022. ******** SpaceX is just about ready for the ninth test flight of Starship. The unique part of this flight is that it will feature the first reflight of one of the boosters, with Booster 14.2 being reflown. Only four of its Raptor engines has been replaced since its first flight with Flight 7. The upper stage will be Ship 35. SpaceX needs to work through the issues with the last two upper stages to get the Human Launch System ready, and the first planned flight to Mars with the 2026 launch window. The launch is currently planned for Monday, May 26, at 7:30pm EDT. There are a total of four Starlink launches planned this week, with two each on Tuesday and Saturday. The next GPS Block III launch is currently penciled in for next Friday, May 30.
The Axiom Orbital Station is now being planned to largely be independent of the International Space Station. With New Glenn's continued delays, and Axiom's own difficulties, it's now planned that the Payload Power Thermal Module (PPTM), its equivalent of a functional cargo block, would launch first, and initially be berthed to the International Space Station; current imagery suggests it will be berthed at Harmony nadir. This was originally planned to be the last component to be installed before the initial modules were undocked from the ISS. The launch is planned for 2027. Once the first habitation module arrived, it would then undock from the ISS. Hab-1 would launch in early 2028 under current plans. An airlock module and second habitation module would follow, with the first manufacturing module attached in the early 2030s. Hab-2 would bring the planned Canadarm3 remote manipulator. There are still plans to repurpose MLPM Raffaello for use by the Axiom Station. But it will not be taking Canadarm2 with it.
60 years ago today, the US National Academy of Sciences officially recommended to NASA that astronauts returning from the Moon should be quarantined. The recommendation was made in a report titled "Potential Hazards of Back Contamination from the Planets". The full recommendation was that all technology be thoroughly studied before potential decontamination to make sure they were not carrying any extraterrestrial microbes. They also recommended that outer garments somehow be discarded before return to Earth. NASA determined this was not possible. These recommendations were not limited to the Moon. So it's likely that some sort of quarantine regime similar to the procedures set in place for Project Apollo will be employed when humans go to Mars.
Starship launched for its ninth flight test Monday night at 8:23pm EDT. All 33 engines on Booster 14.2 worked perfectly during ascent. Its descent was intentionally steered to study off-nominal performance. SpaceX was satisfied with how it endured a steep angle of attack. One of the 13 engines for descent failed after ignition, and the booster exploded before impact in the Gulf of Mexico. Ship 35 suffered a propellant leak after cut-off, and could not conduct any of its planned in-space tests. It safed itself when it went empty, and re-entered destructively over the Indian Ocean. ******** Success 8: Achieved ✅🌔 RESILIENCE has now completed all orbital maneuvers while in lunar orbit and is now readying for its landing attempt on June 5, 2025 (UTC/EDT). This marks a critical turning point for Mission 2 - the final technical milestone before descent.… pic.twitter.com/YeQpiciEQy— ispace (@ispace_inc) May 31, 2025 RESILIENCE has completed its lunar orbital maneuvers, and it is on schedule for a landing at Mare Frigoris Thursday afternoon at around 3:24pm EDT.
I hope @Macsen is doing well. A lot has been going on in the space world this last week, and I’m eager for his updates and perspective!
I've been alright, at least physically. Work has had me busy, and I was in Atlanta this past weekend. But thanks for your concern. ******** After 11 years of developmental launches, Angara is finally set for its first operational launch. An Angara A5 rocket is planned to launch a classified payload to geosynchronous orbit at 11 pm EDT next Wednesday night. It will take place from Site 35/2, Plesetsk Cosmodrome. Russia is currently planning to launch the first segment of their new solo space station at the end of 2027. But Orel, their replacement for the Soyuz spacecraft, will have several test flights to the International Space Station in the latter portion of the 2020s. The first three are planned uncrewed in 2028, with the third atop a human-rated variant of the Angara A5, the Angara A5P. They are aiming to have a crewed test flight to the ISS by the end of 2028. ******** Continued delays in Ariane 6 have resulted in payload moves. Viasat-3 APAC is still penciled in for H1 2025, but currently has no rocket attached on the manifest. Another Viasat-3 comsat is penciled in for the Atlas V 551 rocket also for H1. The next Ariane 6 launch is penciled in for August carrying a MetOp-SG satellite, which will combine features from the Sentinel Earth observation satellite series. ******** The next Vulcan launch is penciled in for July, and will be the first VC4S variant with four SRMs. It will carry payloads for the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Space Force, and NASA. SpaceX has two heavy-duty Falcon 9 launches planned for July that will result in first stage expenditures. One will launch a comsat for Israel, and the other will launch another European Meteosat weather satellite that will feature Sentinel-4 Earth observation equipment.
Happy 81st birthday to NASA astronaut James van Hoften. Born in Fresno, he got a bachelor's in civil engineering from Berkeley in 1966, then a master's in hydraulic engineering from Colorado State in 1968. After that, he was commissioned in the Navy, and trained to be a naval aviator. He flew 60 combat missions over Vietnam in 1972 primarily flying the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. After returning from Vietnam, Ox (his callsign) returned to Colorado State and got his doctorate in hydraulic engineering in 1976. He would then become a civil engineering professor at the University of Houston, where he wrote papers studying hydraulics as it applied both to air turbulence and biology. He spent the rest of the 70s with the Navy Reserve, and would also spend time with the Texas Air National Guard; I couldn't find what his final ranks were in either. He was selected to NASA in the mission specialist track of Group 8 in 1978. He supported GNC for the Space Shuttle orbiter. His first mission was STS-41-C, where he visited Solar Max and was involved with Pinky Nelson in the spacewalks to repair it from Challenger in April 1984. Ox would put his satellite repair expertise to use aboard Discovery on STS-51-I in September 1985 where he and William Fisher would fix the trigger lever on Leasat 3 to get it to properly deploy to GTO after its failed deployment a few months earlier with STS-51-D. He was planned to take part in STS-61-G, which would have deployed Galileo with a Centaur upper stage from Atlantis in May 1986. But...well, you know. Ox retired from NASA at that time, and would spend time in the 1990s with engineering project management firm Bechtel. Among his projects was building the new Hong Kong International Airport, which opened in 1998. He would later be Director of Projects for the UK National Air Traffic Service; in 2009, he was named as a non-executive director for Gatwick Airport. He is married, and has three children.
Lots of activity is scheduled for this week. It begins with the third Atlas V launch for Amazon's Project Kuiper, currently planned for 1:35pm EDT this afternoon from Pad 41, Cape Canaveral. It will certainly be a good way for Lockheed Martin to pare down its surplus of Atlas V rockets that it couldn't otherwise sell. Meanwhile, SpaceX has Starlink launches planned for tonight, early Wednesday morning, and early Friday morning. They are also planning on launching Axiom Mission 4 to the International Space Station early Thursday morning at 5am EDT. And they have their next mass rideshare launch, Transporter-14, planned for Friday afternoon at 4:30pm EDT. ******** Axiom Mission 4 was actually delayed a few days because of a new leak discovered in the Zvezda module. Everyone is saying the ISS is falling apart. But all these leaks seem to be happening on the Russian side. Maybe if they didn't have so much of their riches committed to conquering Ukraine and propping up Iran. Elon Musk has suggested that plans to retire the ISS may need to be accelerated. Of course, we don't know how development is going with his deorbit solution. Not to mention how that would affect the Axiom Station. And Axiom Space is under enough pressure these days. And don't get me started on the Lunar Gateway and Project Artemis.
Some consider Project Artemis to be a dead man walking in terms of NASA projects. But that is far from a certainty. Though the future of the Space Launch System is looking tenuous with all the turmoil at Boeing, that doesn't mean NASA's main in-house human spaceflight program will not continue in some form, even as many look for grander ambitions like finally getting humanity to the surface of Mars. At the very least, Artemis 2 remains a go. This just in: NASA and @DLR_en will partner to fly new radiation sensors aboard the 10-day Artemis II mission to the Moon and back. The test flight will be the first with crew under @NASAArtemis.This collaboration supports our research to safeguard the health of astronauts as… pic.twitter.com/tLDZ7mzJNx— NASA (@NASA) June 17, 2025 NASA and the German Aerospace Center have agreed on a background radiation experiment for Artemis 2. This also sheds some light on the current plans. The official NASA article is implying a mission length of ten days. This might suggest a more traditional Apollo-style mission profile of going directly to the Moon, then using a free return like Apollo 13. The mission will have a closest approach of the Moon at around 7,400 km. This should still make the Artemis 2 the furthest crewed spacecraft from Earth for the moment. Another of the highlight experiments for the mission will be an optical communications experiment. They are looking to use a 10cm telescope to project laser signals to ground stations in California and New Mexico. The hope is a downlink as fast as 260 Mbps. Despite fears of delays, the mission is currently penciled in for as early as April 2026.