@Macsen Good to see you again. Any thoughts about Blue Origin? Any insider info on the latest launch and their trajectory as a NASA contractor?
Oh no. Russia’s only crewed-mission launch site has suffered major damage following a rocket launch on Thursday.The Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan will be unable to host launches until repairs are made after part of the launchpad collapse into an exhaust trench during the… pic.twitter.com/69WJN0d0FI— The Independent (@Independent) November 28, 2025 During the launch of Soyuz MS-28 last Friday, exhaust from the Soyuz-2.1b rocket damaged one of the support arms at Site 31/6, Baikonur Cosmodrome. The arm collapsed into the flame trench. It appears to be the arm that the crew would use to access the spacecraft or payload fairing depending on rocket configuration. Early estimates suggest it could take anywhere from several months to up to three years to repair. Now Roscosmos is regretting not upgrading Gagarin's Start. For those wondering, Vostochny Cosmodrome does not have crewed launch capability. And further construction has been paused because the construction company has over $600,000 in unpaid electric bills, and the power company cut service last month. It's probably a good thing Crew Dragon can do orbit boosts for the International Space Station now. But this does make the station's future a bit more murky.
🚀🧑🚀 @POTUS is launching us into a GOLDEN AGE of Space Exploration to celebrate America’s 250th birthday next year by sending U.S. astronauts around the Moon! For this mission, our rocket will take off with the @America250 emblem proudly displayed on SLS solid rocket boosters.… pic.twitter.com/v2F70k9ZmU— NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy (@SecDuffyNASA) December 2, 2025 The America250 logo for next year's American Semiquincentennial has been placed on one of the SRBs of the Space Launch System rocket that will launch Artemis 2. The planned launch date of February 5, 2026, continues to stand firm. There are five cubesats planned to launch from the mission, including payloads from Germany, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea. Hopefully they have been kept charged during the wait time. The backup astronauts are Jenni Gibbons and Andre Douglas. Gibbons backs up Canadian mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, while Douglas appears to be training to step in for any of the American astronauts. If Gibbons was added, she'd be the only member of the crew under the age of 40. Douglas would have just turned 40, and would be the youngest member of the crew if he stepped in. EIther one would be the earliest-born human to travel to the Moon if added. As it currently stands, Christina Koch would be the earliest-born human to travel to the Moon, born in 1979. All involved astronauts were born after Apollo 17, and in fact after Apollo-Soyuz, with commander Reid Wiseman the oldest of them, having just turned 50 last month. If Douglas stepped in for Wiseman or Koch, that would mean he and pilot Victor Glover would share being the first African American astronaut to visit the Moon.
Scientists identified ribose (used in RNA) and – for the first time in any extraterrestrial sample – glucose, a major energy source for life. These sugars join nucleobases and phosphates previously found, demonstrating the full suite of RNA building blocks were present on the… pic.twitter.com/ziYqz0ye4G— NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) December 2, 2025
Roscosmos is really not getting things their way lately. Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev was removed from the SpaceX Crew-12 crew and kicked out of the United States recently for violating ITAR regulations. He was caught taking close-up photos of Merlin 1d engines and various SpaceX documents during an official visit to SpaceX facilities in Hawthorne, California. Those photographs were then transmitted to Russia. He has been replaced by his backup, Andrei Fedyaev. He previously flew on SpaceX Crew-6, which would make him the first Russian cosmonaut to fly twice on the Crew Dragon. It's bad enough that SpaceX is their only path to space for the foreseeable future. Now Russia is even putting that at risk. SpaceX Crew-12 is currently scheduled to launch in February. The crew includes commander Jack Hathaway, pilot Jessica Meir, and ESA mission specialist Sophie Adenot of France.
I'm beginning to wonder if maybe the launch tower collapse at Baikonur was engineered. Recently, a launch was added to the manifest: the debut flight of the Irtysh rocket. Currently scheduled for NET December 20 from Site 45/1, Baikonur Cosmodrome, it is the designated successor to the Soyuz rocket.It has a payload capacity of 18,000 kg to LEO, and will resume use of the Blok DM upper stage designed for Sea Launch's Zenit-3SL rockets. The initial flight will carry a boilerplate that will be launched into a GTO. The Orel spacecraft is still planned for a debut flight in 2028. If Roscosmos doesn't think they can get Site 31/6 repaired in a timely fashion, one has to wonder if they will try to accelerate Orel. Keyword: try. On top of that, it would depend on Irtysh's performance in the coming first launch. And if Angara tells us anything, smooth sailing is not very likely.
60 years ago today, NASA asked Grumman to quote them for four additional Lunar Excursion Modules. The original contract called for 11 completed LMs, not including test articles. The extra modules would begin production in 1969. Eventually, only LM-12 would fly. With the contraction of Project Apollo, it slid into Apollo 17 as LM Challenger. LM-13, intended for Apollo 19, would initially be partially completed by Grumman, but was later completed and restored. It would be lent to HBO for production of the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. It is currently at the Cradle of Aviation Museum on Long Island. LM-14, intended for Apollo 20, was only partially completed as well. It's believed to be scrapped, but there's no certainty on its fate. LM-15, initially intended to become an Apollo Telescope Mount before it was incorporated in the Dry Workshop concept of Skylab, was least complete of the extra LMs, and was definitely scrapped.
Jared Isaacman has finally been confirmed as the 15th Administrator of NASA, and the fourth astronaut to take the role. The vote was 67-30. His initial policy includes an aggressive mission to begin a Moon base by 2030 and work on landing in Mars. Guess Elon needs to get to work on Starship. ******** Artemis 2’s planned launch on February 6, 2026, has been affirmed. Like with Artemis 1, NASA has a monthly cycle of optimal launch windows.
95 years ago today, Robert Goddard conducted his fifth liquid rocket test flight. After months of testing at his new digs in Roswell, he launched his new Goddard 4 rocket for the first time. The Goddard 4 was 11 feet tall, and used a gas pressurant tank to force-feed both gasoline and liquid oxygen into the engine. This resulted in a flight that shattered the standing records of the day. It reached an altitude of 2,000 feet, and a speed of at least 500 mph. The support of the Guggenheim family was beginning to pay off.
The rover for Astrobotic's next lunar landing mission is currently in final testing. The future of lunar mobility 🌖Our FLEX rover can be operated remotely from Earth when astronauts are not present or operated in person by suited astronauts. NASA awarded three contract winners in 2024, and Astrolab has been honored to participate in the development of a Lunar… pic.twitter.com/WqpM6s1JPW— Astrolab (@Astrolab_Space) December 1, 2025 The FLIP rover, designed by Astrolab, is the technology demonstrator for their FLEX rover. FLIP will be capable of carrying 30 kg of cargo. But its successor, the FLEX rover, is a hybrid rover that could be operated autonomously, or driven with two astronauts. If FLIP works, then FLEX could be ready for human use as soon as Artemis 4. As for FLIP, its main objective will be use of a spectrograph designed to look for helium-3. It is believed that the Moon could potentially be a massive bank for helium-3, a stable isotope of helium which could shorten the chain for nuclear fusion reactions. Further research has questioned whether or not it could be an economic route to nuclear fusion. Proponents believe that fusion of helium-3 with deuterium for power generation could be achieved without nuclear fission power, cutting out use of radioactive fuels. FLIP is planned for launch on Astrobotic's Griffin Mission One, which is currently aiming to launch as soon as July 2026.
2025 is in the books. I can't believe this is the 14th time I've done this. 176 launches for the United States (not including Starship, or Electron launches from New Zealand) 165 Falcon 9 5 Atlas V 2 New Glenn 1 each Vulcan, Firefly Alpha, Electron, and Minotaur 93 for the People's Republic of China 13 Long March 2 15 Long March 3 11 Long March 6 7 Long March 4 7 Long March 7 7 Long March 8 6 Ceres-1 5 Kinetica 4 Long March 5 4 Long March 12 4 Jielong 4 Kuaizhou 3 Zhuque 1 each Hyperbola, Gravity-1, and Long March 11 17 for Russia 13 for Soyuz-2 4 for Angara 5 17 for New Zealand, all Electron. Seven for the European Space Agency 4 for Ariane 6 3 for Vega Five for India 2 for GSLV Mk.2 2 for LVM3 1 for PSLV Four for Japan 3 H3 1 H-II Two for South Korea 1 for Naro 1 for HANBIT-Nano One each for Germany, Israel, Australia, and Iran. Now for what's expected this year. India is planning the first test launch of their Gaganyaan spacecraft, and the human-rated LVM3 rocket, some time in January. Some time in the first quarter, the private Agnibaan rocket is planned to be rested, which may bring a reusable first stage. It's going to be a reusable rocket arms race, with Starship Block 3 coming very soon. Stoke Space hopes to launch their Nova rocket from Scotland early this year. Several Chinese "private" rockets are planned for reusability. But the Chinese government does not appear to be wasting their time with it yet. Russia's Irtysh rocket is planned for a first launch in March. But given the problems Russia's been having lately both at Baikonur and at Vostochny, that is far from guaranteed. Psyche will fly by Mars in May. BepiColombo will finally be arriving at Mercury in November. EscaPADE will head off to Mars in November as well. And Europa Clipper will make its ultimate fly-by of Earth on December 3 before heading to Jupiter, with arrival set for April 2030.
It's looking like SpaceX will be taking the first four launches of 2026, and five of the first six. It gets started tomorrow night at 9:09pm EST when they launch CSG-3 atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Pad 4E, Vandenberg SFB. Vandenberg blew its records out of the water last year with 66 orbital launch attempts. CSG-3 is the third satellite in the second generation of COSMO-SkyMed, an Italian reconnaissance satellite that focuses on covering the Mediterranean Sea with a focus on SAR. An exoplanet observatory, Pandora, is planned to also launch from Pad 4E, Vandenberg, NET Monday. The first planned launch by an entity other than SpaceX is currently a PSLV-DL rocket carrying a military payload. It's currently planned for late next Friday at 11:15pm EST.
Thanks for the heads up as I'll head out to the back yard at 6:05 !to watch. I've only seen 2 of the launches previously and they were quite a show!
40 years ago today, the probing of Uranus by Voyager 2 was well underway. Don't look at me like that, you knew this would be coming up again eventually. One of the members of the JPL science team who was working overtime was Stephen Synnott. On this day, he discovered two satellites orbiting Uranus inside the orbits of the five classically-known moons: Juliet and Portia. He would ultimately discover seven of the ten moons found during the Voyager 2 mission. Five of those moons, along with another discovered by Brad Smith, would make up a group known as the "Portia group". That group is slowly de-orbiting, much like Phobos around Mars, and it is believed the group of moons will eventually break up and replenish the rings around Uranus. Synnott would go on to discover the moons Larissa and Proteus around Neptune three years later. Larissa would actually be a recovery find; it is connected to precovery telescopic imagery from 1981, an apparition that astronomers would subsequently lose track of. He was always a key member of the Voyager science team; he assisted Linda Morabito in her studies of the volcanism on Io. He would later be involved in the Galileo, Deep Space 1, Stardust, and Cassini missions.
La mission Artemis 2 ne va pas se poser SUR la Lune, elle va juste en faire le tour (un tour plus éloigné que toutes les anciennes missions Apollo). pic.twitter.com/xNbySSeJve— Eliot (@_incal) January 5, 2026 NASA is continuing to work toward Artemis 2 launching in the evening on February 5, 2026. The Orion command module, CM-003, has been given the callsign Integrity. The ICPS upper stage will place Integrity in a highly-eccentric orbit. It will then separate, and Integrity will do a manual maneuvering exercise with the ICPS. After a day in orbit, the European Service Module will do the heavy lifting to launch Integrity to TLI. It will go into a free return trajectory that will place it at a maximum distance of just over 10,000 km above the far side of the Moon. It will hover behind the Moon for a couple days before beginning its trajectory back to Earth, a four-day journey with mid-course corrections as necessary. Splashdown in the Pacific is planned for February 15. The area where it will take place is not yet disclosed, but it will be supported by a U.S. Navy San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock. Rollout to Pad 39B, Kennedy Space Center, is expected next week. A full wet dress rehearsal will be conducted shortly after. Hopefully they have ironed out the ground-side plumbing issues that plagued Artemis 1.
65 years ago today, a State Commission was held in Moscow led by Konstantin Rudnev, the head of NII-88. The first order of business was reviewing the failures of two Mars launches and the Nedelin catastrophe that past October. They wanted to rush those launches forward so Nikita Khrushchev would have great technological feats to present at his visit to United Nations headquarters. Instead, he would be beating his shoe on the lectern. For his part, Nikolai Kamanin felt the rush that led to the failures, including the deaths of 74 technicians and Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin from the explosion of an R-16 ICBM during fueling and testing, was practically criminal. Looking forward, NII-88 was planning three launch attempts directed toward Venus during the coming launch window in late January and early February. They also had four Vostok spacecraft ready for their next round of testing.
.@SpaceX’s Dragon cargo spacecraft fired its thrusters for over 19 minutes on Dec. 29, boosting the station’s orbit. This marks the fifth reboost of the station during the CRS-33 mission, with one more planned before Dragon returns to Earth in January. https://t.co/BP7nHMlSuH— International Space Station (@Space_Station) December 30, 2025 Back on December 29, Cargo Dragon CRS-33 conducted a 19-minute reboost of the International Space Station. What makes the Cargo Dragon reboost capability possible is the new "boost trunk". Debuted with CRS-33, it adds two more Draco thrusters and separate propellant and pressurant tanks. It first tested the capability back in September with a 15-minute reboost burn. CRS-33 is planned for one more reboost before it undocks in two weeks. ******** Rocket Lab's next-generation Neutron rocket is finally on the manifest. The rocket that Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck once ate his hat over is tentatively scheduled for Q1 2026 from Pad 3, Mid-American Regional Spaceport. Its payload, if any, has not yet been disclosed. But its landing barge has been christened Return on Investment.
A medical issue has arisen on the American side of the International Space Station. The official NASA press release only indicates that this will postpone a spacewalk. Naturally, due to HIPAA, NASA has not disclosed who the medical issue is with. This doesn't mean one of the intended spacewalkers, Michael Fincke or Zena Cardman, is the astronaut that is afflicted. But if there is an ongoing medical situation, it's definitely unwise to have someone outside when they could be needed in a moment's notice. This EVA is planned to add more external equipment to support installation of another iROSA solar array. A second EVA, which will take place a week afterward, is planned to replace an exterior camera and add some navigational equipment outside the Harmony module. ******** UPDATE: @NASA is closely monitoring a stable medical situation involving one International Space Station crew member and evaluating all options, including an early Crew-11 return, with further updates expected within 24 hours. https://t.co/va6c2DZUBQ— International Space Station (@Space_Station) January 8, 2026 As I worked this, we got some breaking news on the situation. Still no details on the issue except that it is stable, but NASA is currently considering an early end to SpaceX Crew-11 and bringing them down to deal with the issue. So whatever and whoever it is, it's with one of the Crew-11 astronauts. NASA stated that they will have more information in the next 24 hours. If Crew-11 does need to leave, we will see what they will do with Crew-12, which is currently scheduled to launch on February 15. If Crew-11 does have to return early, it would be the first American mission to be curtailed due to medical reasons. And the first mission to be medically curtailed since Soyuz T-14 in 1985, which was ended prematurely when commander Vladimir Vasyutin suffered an acute urinary tract infection
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has announced that SpaceX Crew-11 will return over the next few days. They are evaluating accelerating the launch schedule for Crew-12. NASA Chief Medical Officer Dr. James Polk reiterated that the astronaut (still unnamed due to HIPAA) is stable, and the situation is not currently emergent. But it would be best to err on the side of the astronaut's safety and get the crew member to ground-based medical facilities. It was clarified that the issue is medical in nature, and not a traumatic injury. This will not be treated as an emergency de-orbit, though they do have the capability and training to bring it back expediently if the need arises.
As Artemis 2's first launch window approaches, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced the findings of his personally-led final review of the Orion spacecraft heat shield. Concerns were raised with Orion's heat shield due to ablation patterns from Artemis 1. A meeting was held yesterday, attended by Eric Berger, senior space editor for Ars Technica. Isaacman said he had "full confidence" in NASA personnel following the review. One of the sections of the report was titled, "What if we're wrong?" According to the report, if there was actually a failure of a large chunk of the heat shield, the spacecraft might yet survive re-entry to splashdown. 🚨 BREAKING: NASA announces official Artemis II launch windows🚀Following a successful Wet Dress Rehearsal in the coming weeks, NASA will convene a Flight Readiness Review, where mission managers will evaluate all systems before committing to a final launch date.🗓 Launch… pic.twitter.com/f52TfpLAp8— The Launch Pad (@TLPN_Official) January 10, 2026 Currently, rollout for Artemis 2 is scheduled for next Saturday. Each of the next three months will have five launch window days, with each day's window being about two hours. Though procession of the Moon's orbit will place the beginning of the May windows thereafter on April 30.
It is a bit insane that there is so much public access to the internal dialogue. The fact that they are holding an entire “what if we are wrong” discussion makes me feel really good about the decision making process. I Imagine that most lay-people (myself included) would think the opposite. I wish them all the best!
India's space ambitions suffered a major setback as Isro's PSLV-C62 mission ended in failure, with all 16 satellites lost despite a spectacular liftoff from Sriharikota on January 12, 2026.Read more: https://t.co/MqXTTk2bXw#IndiaTodaySocial #ISRO #PSLV #DRDO #Sriharikota pic.twitter.com/O4ZgGRAK2L— IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) January 12, 2026 The latest PSLV rocket took off last night at 11:48pm EST. The third stage lost attitude control, and the payload did not achieve orbit. It marks the first time ISRO has lost foreign payloads, as it carried payloads for Spain, Thailand, Brazil, and Nepal. The same issue befell the previous PSLV launch last May, so this will definitely call into question PSLV's future. Hopefully this doesn't disrupt the HLVM3 launch planned later this month.
An adventure five decades in the making is getting ready to unfold. ******** Reid Wiseman was born on November 11, 1975, in Baltimore. He received a bachelor's in systems engineering from the Navy NROTC at Rensselaer in 1997, and commissioned in the Navy to train as an aviator. After training with the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, he would take part in several carrier tours of the Middle East, taking part in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. After his last carrier tour, he went to Naval Test Pilot School in 2004. Reid would test the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II and Boeing F/A-18 Hornet. He would also get his master's in systems engineering from Johns Hopkins in 2006. He would return to aviation in 2007, with tours of South America and the Middle East, earning a total of nine combat medals over his Navy career. He was chosen to NASA as part of Astronaut Group 20 in 2009. He would spend the middle chunk of 2014 aboard the International Space Station with the crew of Soyuz TMA-13M for Expeditions 40 and 41. Reid would spend 2021 and 2022 as Chief of the Astronaut Office. He was selected to command Artemis 2 in April 2023. He has two daughters. His wife, their mother, died in 2020 after a five-year battle with cancer. His rank in the Navy is Captain.
I did a profile for Victor Glover as part of USCV-1. Nothing's really changed. ******** Christina Hammock was born on January 29, 1979, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but was raised in Jacksonville, North Carolina. After going to a magnet high school for STEM, she graduated with a double bachelor's in electrical engineering and physics from NC State in 2001. She would also get a master's in electrical engineering in 2002, during which she interned at Goddard Spaceflight Center. Following her graduate research, she would be hired formally by NASA, working at Goddard on high-energy astrophysics. She would work at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station from 2004-2007, during which she trained in rescue operations. In 2007, Christina would move to the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins, working on astrophysics in connection with Juno. She would spend 2013 at various NOAA stations in Alaska and American Samoa before being chosen as an astronaut in Group 21 in 2013. She would spend most of 2019 and the first month of 2020 aboard the International Space Station with Expeditions 59, 60, and 61. On October 18, 2019, she took part in the first all-female EVA with Jessica Meir, to refurbish various external electrical systems. She is married to Robert Koch.