India's new space chief begins outlining the country's architecture for putting astronauts on the Moon.
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Rocket Report: SpaceX lands in the Bahamas; ULA tests modified booster
- Thread starter JournalBot
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I was at soccer practice with my girls at Goodmans Bay, New Providence, The Bahamas, heard the sonic boom, then realized it was the booster.
Was kinda neat. How the world has changed but stays the same.
Was kinda neat. How the world has changed but stays the same.
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That is not what would happen. This has been explained before:
https://meincmagazine.com/space/2025/...-short-over-the-bow/?comments=1&post=43525245
Edit to fix link.
Last edited:
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Haven't seen it in the Rocket Reports, but New Glenn seems to be shedding bits:
View: https://x.com/shell_jim/status/1891842756500222212
View: https://x.com/shell_jim/status/1891842756500222212
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I can't help that think Orbex is being a little hopeful expecting ESA to invest in a non-EU company. But I suppose stranger things have happened.
{edit} holy crap, have I really had an account here for a quarter century already? Cripes!
{edit} holy crap, have I really had an account here for a quarter century already? Cripes!
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I’m surprised that this news, posted yesterday by @stefan_lec in last week’s Rocket Report thread, didn’t get coverage. I suppose it must have missed the cutoff?
Jim Free retiring at this point certainly doesn’t seem like a previously-planned move. I can’t believe that it’s unrelated to the Trump regime coming in, and changes to NASA and especially the Artemis programme. I think we should absolutely be expecting more news on this front pretty soon.
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Direct link to your excellent post on that page, to save people scrolling/scanning:
https://meincmagazine.com/space/2025/...-short-over-the-bow/?comments=1&post=43525245
Excellent explanation, thank you for that!
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UK is a member of ESA (as are Norway and Switzerland).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Space_Agency
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Loved that bit from your post:
The current rules remind me of this Sam & Max Hit The Road quote:
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Apropos the recent news of Isar actually completing a first stage integrated static fire, I decided to refresh my memory.
I found this (from Wikipedia) rather entertaining:
Those guys could give Elon Time a serious run for its money...
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Maybe I'm misremembering, but the booster didn't broke free, the nozzle of the booster broke free, but the booster remained attached to Vulcan.
The latter is a more complex problem to diagnose and solve, than the booster breaking free.
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Would be a bit ironic if SpaceX debris rained down upon some Chinese megalopolis at some point...
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So…. it’s exploded?
Seems like a lot of upper stages having been having issues with that lately.
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Ironically, it seems to have exploded after completing passivation.
To be fair, that was the first ever flight of that particular vehicle (and the first ever orbital flight for Blue Origin as a company).
To be harsh, the choice to put a first-ever flight into such a high orbit where junk stays for the long haul was ... a bold one.
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Clearly not industrialised build up area...
https://maps.app.goo.gl/FcCsP89H47KuJTRx5
Poznań suburbs are very densely populated.
I also love people using density of whole country in such a context. USA has 36 inhabitants per square km. Yet some places look like this. https://maps.app.goo.gl/MzYRBZFxV9QDrZFz6?g_st=ac
That's totally useless statistic.
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Centaur seems to be having the same problem. Several of those have broken up in similar orbits.
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Given that we've all been deriding China for dropping uncontrolled debris into the atmosphere (sometimes into their own villages which to be fair was pretty horrendous given the hypergolic fuels), shouldn't we be making a bigger deal of this? I understand the technicalities of why there wasn't an investigation, but this just seems pretty poor to say the least.
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SpaceX's standard practice is a controlled deorbit, while China's standard practice is to put the stage into LEO then tell everyone "good luck, guys, YOLO!". That's a bit of a difference.
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The Chinese aren't doing anything (or very little) to avoid dropping first stages on top of people. At least with a second stage it has to slow down from orbital velocity (which means it gets mostly destroyed), and SpaceX also planned to have a de-orbit burn, which didn't happen in this case.
Remember that SpaceX are also changing their entire Human spaceflight recovery procedures (moving from East to West coast) to avoid debris making it to the ground.
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"Dammit, people. When I specified a 'balloon tank', I didn't mean it should be popping like one!"
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? They are moving allegedly, or the reason for the move is to allegedly avoid debris?
They are definitely moving, because Shannon has already relocated to Long Beach.
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China also purposely leaves upper stages in 700+ km LEO orbits that are stable for centuries. US launch providers aren't allowed to do that.
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The other reason (not mutually exclusive) is that the weather and the seas along that stretch of the West Coast are supposedly calmer and more predictable than in the Gulf of Ahhhemmahem*coughcough* - sorry, something in my throat...
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This Week's Additional Launches
A busy week this week. There are seven launches beyond the next three scheduled for this week, including Intuitive Machines' latest flight to the Moon and Starship Flight 8. I have my doubts that SpaceX will actually get all the FAA red tape out of the way that fast but, they've got it on the schedule, more power to them.
February 24 | 04:42 UTC: Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 12-13 | SLC-40, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida
February 25 | 08:10 UTC: Ceres 1 | Unknown Payload | Site 95A, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China
February 26 | 23:30 UTC: Starship/Superheavy | Starship Flight 8 | Orbital Launchpad A, Starbase, Texas.
February 27 | 00:17 UTC: Falcon 9 | PRIME-1 (IM-2) | LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center. Florida
February 27 | 07:10 UTC: Long March 2C | Unknown Payload | Site 9401 (SLS-2), Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China
February 27 | 21:24 UTC: Soyuz 2.1a | Progress MS-30 | Site 31/6 Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
February 28 | 02:52 UTC: Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 12-20 | SLC-40, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida
A busy week this week. There are seven launches beyond the next three scheduled for this week, including Intuitive Machines' latest flight to the Moon and Starship Flight 8. I have my doubts that SpaceX will actually get all the FAA red tape out of the way that fast but, they've got it on the schedule, more power to them.
February 24 | 04:42 UTC: Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 12-13 | SLC-40, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida
February 25 | 08:10 UTC: Ceres 1 | Unknown Payload | Site 95A, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China
February 26 | 23:30 UTC: Starship/Superheavy | Starship Flight 8 | Orbital Launchpad A, Starbase, Texas.
February 27 | 00:17 UTC: Falcon 9 | PRIME-1 (IM-2) | LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center. Florida
February 27 | 07:10 UTC: Long March 2C | Unknown Payload | Site 9401 (SLS-2), Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China
February 27 | 21:24 UTC: Soyuz 2.1a | Progress MS-30 | Site 31/6 Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
February 28 | 02:52 UTC: Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 12-20 | SLC-40, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida
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Streams for today's Starlink launch from Florida. Due to go up in little over an hour:
Spaceflight Now:
NASA Spaceflight:
Space Affairs:
SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=sl-12-14
Spaceflight Now:
NASA Spaceflight:
Space Affairs:
SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=sl-12-14
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