The Space Review

[Orionid]

14/IV 2025 [53-56]

53) Review: Mars and the Earthlings
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 7, 2025



Mars and the Earthlings: A Realistic View on Mars Exploration and Settlement
by Cyprien Verseux, Muriel Gargaud, Kirsi Lehto, and Michel Viso (eds.)
Springer, 2025
hardcover, 452 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-3-031-66880-7
US$179.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3031668804/spaceviews

To say that opinions about exactly when humans will make to Mars widely vary is an understatement. At one end is Elon Musk, who has argued that Starship could be ready to send people to Mars as soon as the end of the decade, once the vehicle has proven its ability to perform robotic landings, quickly building up a large presence. At the other end are those skeptical that humans will ever be able to live in significant numbers there given its hostile conditions (as an essay in The Atlantic put it several years ago, “Mars Is a Hellhole.”) NASA has fallen somewhere in between, suggesting human missions might be feasible in 2040s as part of its Moon to Mars Architecture.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4964/1

54) The best space telescope you never heard of just shut down
by Laura Nicole Driessen Monday, April 7, 2025


Artist’s impression of the Gaia spacecraft in front of the Milky Way. (credit: ESA/ATG medialab; background: ESO/S. Brunier)

On Thursday 27 March, the European Space Agency (ESA) sent its last messages to the Gaia spacecraft. They told Gaia to shut down its communication systems and central computer and said goodbye to this amazing space telescope.

Gaia has been the most successful ESA space mission ever, so why did they turn Gaia off? What did Gaia achieve? And perhaps most importantly, why was it my favorite space telescope?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4965/1

55) Anything but expendable (part 1)


Figure 1. The launch of Intelsat-708 aboard the Long March CZ-3B launch vehicle on February 15, 1996. In these stills taken from the CCTV video, the rocket can be seen veering off course seconds after liftoff. (credit: CCTV)

A history of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA)

Prologue: The grim ’90s

It was Valentine’s Day 1996: launch day at Space Systems Loral’s headquarters building overlooking San Francisco Bay. Members of the Intelsat-708 mission team had assembled to view its launch aboard a “Long March” CZ-3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan, China, from a series of monitors.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4966/1

56) Space policy: The Moon and Mars simultaneously
by Doug Plata, MD, MPH Monday, April 7, 2025


With fleets of reusable ships, large and growing international bases could be established on both the Moon and Mars. (credit: SpaceX)

In a nutshell, this article proposes that America’s human spaceflight (HSF) policy be directed to go both to the Moon and Mars simultaneously for exploration and the development of permanent bases. This is based upon accepting the likelihood of the emergence of multiple heavy-lift commercial transportation systems that will be far more cost-effective than NASA’s current plans. The idea that we cannot go to Mars without establishing a base on the Moon is not obviously true and something that SpaceX certainly does not believe.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4967/1

15/IV 2025 [57-60]

57) Space commerce: face the risk, seize the opportunities
by Norm Mitchell Monday, April 14, 2025


A new era of space commercialization opens up opportunitites on the Moon and elsewhere. (credit: ESA/P. Carril)

Imagine it’s 1625 and you’re an ambitious young entrepreneur. The world’s most powerful nations have pushed wooden shipbuilding technology to unprecedented heights. The oceans are no longer the barrier to commerce that they once were. New continents have been discovered. Known continents are more accessible because traders can avoid rugged, dangerous overland routes.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4968/1

58) Anything but expendable (part 2)
by Darren A. Raspa Monday, April 14, 2025

A history of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA)


ESPA ring schematics, from “ESPA: EELV Secondary Payload Adapter with whole-spacecraft isolation for primary and secondary payloads” Maly, Haskett, et al.

[Part 1 was published last week.]

Part 2: A new hope for space launch innovation

In New Mexico, the defense space organizational infrastructure and physical footprint were growing. In 1993 at the Air Force Phillips Lab’s Space and Missile Technology and Space Experiments Directorates on Kirtland Air Force Base, construction began on a new headquarters building that would also be a test lab for space structures and prove pivotal to the EELV program. The space defense presence on the west side of Kirtland was growing. The previous summer, the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) had consolidated four separate reporting units and stood up the Space Experimentation Program Office. The newly aligned programs included the Rocket Systems Launch Program (RSLP), the Space Test Program (STP), the Research and Development Space and Missile Operations (RDSMO) program, and Test & Evaluation functions located at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Beginning in June of 1993, SMC’s Research, Development, Test & Evaluation activities at Los Angeles Air Force Base (STP), Onizuka Air Station (RDSMO), and San Bernardino (RSLP) were moved to collocate beside the Phillips Lab on Kirtland.[1]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4969/1

59) Lessons learned from critical reviews of Gen. Saltzman’s “Competitive Endurance”
by Brian G. Chow Monday, April 14, 2025


Gen. B. Chance Saltzman speaks at the 40th Space Symposium last week. (credit: Space Foundation)

Two years ago, Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations (CSO) of the US Space Force, called on both government insiders and external experts to “think deeply and critically” about his proposed theory of success for the Space Force, Competitive Endurance. In response, critical reviews have been published, fostering a broader exchange of ideas and feedback that are essential for refining the theory as it remains in the proposal stage.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4970/1

60) All of the above, or none?
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 14, 2025


Jared Isaacman speaks at his April 9 Senate confirmation hearing on his nomination to be NASA administrator. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Since Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, and especially since he was sworn in nearly three months ago, the space community has wondered what the administration would do with NASA. Trump’s comments about his desire to have astronauts plant the American flag on Mars raised questions about his commitment to continue the Artemis lunar exploration campaign. Rumors of proposed major cuts to NASA science programs also created concerns.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4971/1

16/IV 2025 [61-64]

61) Review: Planetary Defenders
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 21, 2025



Planetary Defenders
directed by Scott Bednar and Jessie Wilde
75 min., not rated
https://plus.nasa.gov/video/planetary-defenders/

Last year, NASA officially entered the streaming era. The agency retired its long-running NASA TV linear television channel, best known for coverage of missions, briefings, and related events, interspersed with documentaries, educational shows, and other historical programming. In its place was a streaming service called (what else?) NASA+. No longer would you have to go through the weekly listings for NASA TV (something very few people likely ever did) to see if and when a program would be airing; you could watch it when you wanted.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4972/1

62) Anything but expendable (part 3)
by Darren A. Raspa Monday, April 21, 2025

A history of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA)


Original PDR ESPA concept schematic.

[Part 2 was published last week.]

Part 3: Building the ring

Conor Johnson started CSA Engineering with a vision to bring company ownership to its employees. “We were totally poor and young,” he recalls. “Every year that we made money, we gave that money back as bonuses to our employees.” Johnson came armed with a PhD from Clemson and a background in structural dynamics as a former Air Force officer and experience at a San Francisco Bay Area materials and engineering firm. With only a few dozen employees, Johnson had been known to work alongside his technicians solving a mechanical challenge. CSA had proven themselves supporting Phillips Lab programs and SMC/STP missions in the 1990s; their partnership with the follow-on Air Force Research Lab would change the face of the entire US space launch enterprise into the 21st century. They were quickly awarded a Phase I SBIR contract in the amount of $78,000 to design a multi-port secondary payload adapter.[1]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4973/1

63) Space weather and spaceflight
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 21, 2025


Space weather created increased atmospheric drag that shortened the lives of Capella Space’s Whitney series of radar imaging satellites. (credit: Capella Space)

At the same time the White House delivered bad news to NASA’s science programs in the form of its near-final “passback” budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 (see “All of the above, or none?”, The Space Review, April 14, 2025), it was offering its own radical changes to NOAA. That included major changes to the GeoXO line of next-generation weather satellites, proposing to cut between two to four of the five instruments planned for those satellites because they were deemed to focus more on climate rather than weather.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4974/1

64) “A bonafide frigging flight”: How NS-31 broke spaceflight norms and created an online uproar
by Deana L. Weibel Monday, April 21, 2025


The six women who flew on Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-31 mission April 14: Kerianne Flynn, Katy Perry, Lauren Sánchez, Aisha Bowe, Gayle King, and Amanda Nguyen (credit: Blue Origin)

Introduction: a joyful disruption

On Monday morning, April 14, I found myself rushing across the parking lot to my office. I wanted to catch the Blue Origin flight, New Shepard-31, on my desktop computer screen rather than settling for the small screen of my phone. I didn’t realize until that morning what a joy it would be to see women being recognized and celebrated for going into space after several weeks of NASA’s successes with diversity being increasingly obscured. I was enjoying the feeling of seeing a barrier broken, even if, as some have suggested, the whole thing was nothing more than part of an oligarchical plot to let women have a minor win so we’d be quiet for a while.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4975/1

16/IV 2025 [65-68]

65) Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
by Chris Impey Monday, April 28, 2025

An astronomer explains how much evidence scientists need to claim discoveries like extraterrestrial life


Astronomers claim to have detected a molecule in the atmosphere of an exoplanet they consider to be a biosignature, but many others are not convinced. (credit: A. Smith/N. Mandhusudhan)

The detection of life beyond Earth would be one of the most profound discoveries in the history of science. The Milky Way galaxy alone hosts hundreds of millions of potentially habitable planets. Astronomers are using powerful space telescopes to look for molecular indicators of biology in the atmospheres of the most Earth-like of these planets.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4976/1

66) Isaacman revisited
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 28, 2025


Jared Isaacman followed up on his April 9 confirmation hearing with written answers to additional questions from senators. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled to take up Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA administrator, voting whether to advance the nomination to the full Senate for a later confirmation vote. That confirmation is now all but inevitable, given no public Republican opposition to him. The main question will be how many Democratic senators, if any, also vote in favor of his nomination in committee or the full Senate.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4977/1

67) The real space race: China will send a crew to orbit Mars by 2050
by Kristin Burke Monday, April 28, 2025


The Long March 10, a rocket being developed to support China’s plans for landing humans on the Moon, will likely play a tole in plans for human missions to Mars as well. (credit: CCTV)

The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) scientific community established China’s broad timelines for crewed Moon and Mars missions simultaneously in 2009. At that time, the Chinese Academy of Science’s (CAS’s) 40-year technology forecast called Space Science & Technology in China: A Roadmap to 2050 was largely seen as unofficial and aspirational.[1] However, the scientists’ forecast for a crewed Moon landing “around 2030” has turned out to be an accurate prediction, assuming all goes to plan.[2] This report examines CAS’s second prediction for “crewed Mars exploration around 2050.”[3]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4978/1

Aktywność inspekcyjna Rosjan na orbicie.

68) Project Nivelir: Russia’s inspection satellites (part 1)
by Bart Hendrickx Monday, April 28, 2025


The Kosmos-2558 satellite photographed in orbit. Source

Two Russian satellites launched in 2022 and 2024 have been monitoring two big American electro-optical reconnaissance satellites orbiting several dozen kilometers above them. Their missions are reminiscent of two others launched in 2017 and 2019. All that Russia has officially revealed about their objectives is that they are intended for Earth remote sensing and inspection of other satellites in orbit. However, the two first satellites each deployed a small subsatellite that in turn released a high-speed object which the Pentagon believes is an anti-satellite weapon. While the latest two satellites have so far not ejected any subsatellites, they are undoubtedly being closely watched. After the launch of the latest satellite last year, US Space Command called it “a likely counterspace weapon presumably capable of attacking other satellites in low Earth orbit”.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4979/1

[Orionid]

17/V 2025 [69-72]

69) Some doubts about Jared Isaacman
by A.J. Mackenzie Monday, May 5, 2025


Jared Isaacman speaks at his April 9 Senate confirmation hearing on his nomination to be NASA administrator. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Sometime this month, barring an unforeseen event, Jared Isaacman will become NASA’s next administrator. That became clear when the Senate Commerce Committee voted to send his nomination to the full Senate, with every Republican—and a few Democrats—voting in favor of it. The only question is when the Senate will find time to take up the nomination: maybe this week, maybe next, but certainly not too long from now.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4980/1

70) Playing catchup
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 5, 2025


A United Launch Alliance Atlas V lifts off April 28 carrying the first set of 27 operational Project Kuiper satellites for Amazon. (credit: ULA)

Last Monday evening, an Atlas V lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. If you hadn’t been paying close attention to the launch, you might think it was a classified mission. Shortly after the Centaur upper stage separated and ignited its RL10 engine, United Launch Alliance wrapped up its webcast of the launch at the request of the customer. ULA provided a few brief updates afterwards, but no details until more than 90 minutes after liftoff when it announced payload separation.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4981/1

71) Project Nivelir: Russia’s inspection satellites (part 2)
by Bart Hendrickx Monday, May 5, 2025


Optical telescope likely installed aboard the Nivelir parent satellites. Source: TsNIIKhM website

Optical payloads

As explained in part 1, the goals of NPO Lavochkin’s 14F150 satellites are both Earth remote sensing and long-distance space surveillance, while TsNIIKhM’s 14F162 subsatellites appear to be designed for close-up inspections of satellites and, if necessary, their destruction. Although the payloads needed for the observations largely remain shrouded in mystery, some information on them can be gleaned from open sources.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4982/1

72) Dark territory: the National Reconnaissance Office, satellite inspection, and anti-satellite weapons in the early 1970s
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, May 5, 2025


Launch of a Program 437AP (Alternate Payload) inspection spacecraft in the mid-1960s from Johnston Island in the Pacific. The 437AP and its nuclear-armed ASAT variant were both limited in capabilities, and Johnston Island facilities were vulnerable to storms. The ASAT was put in standby mode in the early 1970s and retired by 1974. (credit: USAF)

In the early 1970s, the super-secret National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) considered taking on a new mission—satellite inspection. This would have required an American satellite to closely approach another satellite to photograph it and take other measurements. Even if such an action was not considered a direct threat, it would demonstrate an American capability to rendezvous with and destroy other satellites. The policy questions associated with doing this were huge: not only the international implications, but whether an agency dedicated to gathering intelligence about adversaries on the ground and at sea should also become involved in close operations against other satellites.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4983/1

18/V 2025 [73-76]

73) Review: Extraterrestrial Life   
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 12, 2025



Extraterrestrial Life: We Are Not Alone
by Antonino Del Popolo
Springer, 2025
paperback, 156 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-3-031-83496-7
US$37.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3031834968/spaceviews

It’s a familiar trajectory for astrobiology stories. Scientists announce the discovery of a biosignature, or at least a potential biosignature, on another world in our solar system or beyond. The announcement is made at a conference, or in a paper provided to media under embargo, resulting in a surge of stories touting the discovery. Then other scientists step in and poke holes in the original discovery: a flaw in the methodology, perhaps, or alternative explanations that don’t require life. The discovery becomes far less convincing.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4984/1

74) Why we are so scared of space, and how this fear can drive conspiracy theories
by Tony Milligan Monday, May 12, 2025


Some people worry about the threats asteroids pose to Earth, while others worry about the threat posed by efforts to prevent such impacts (credit: ESA)

There are many home-grown problems on Earth, but there’s still time to worry about bad things arriving from above. The most recent is the asteroid 2024 YR4, which could be a “city killer” if it hits a heavily populated area of our planet in the early years of the next decade.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4985/1

75) Russian and Chinese development of radiofrequency directed energy weapons (RF DEW) for counterspace
by Markos Trichas and Matthew Mowthorpe Monday, May 12, 2025


The Numizmat satellite launched by Russia in 2022 includes a UWB and HPM payloads[4]

High-power microwave weapons deployed in space have been under research and development by both Russia and China for the last three decades. Their devastating potential has perhaps not received as much attention as other ASAT capabilities that, in our assessment, are further behind in development. This is despite the launch by Russian of the Numizmat satellite, which is considered to be a possible developmental radiofrequency directed energy weapon.[1]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4986/1

76) Budget cuts and the fraying of international partnerships
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 12, 2025


The White House's 2026 budget proposal would cancel the lunar Gateway, a NASA-led program with contributions from Canada, Europe, Japan and the UAE. (credit: NASA)

Even if you know the axe is falling, it doesn’t make it any less painful.

It was clear for weeks that the White House would propose major cuts to NASA in its fiscal year 2026 budget request. The leak of the near-final “passback” budget from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in April revealed plans to cut NASA’s science funding by nearly 50%, cancelling several major missions (see “All of the above, or none?”, The Space Review, April 14, 2025). Even before that, it appeared likely that some parts of Artemis, like the Space Launch System and lunar Gateway, would also be threatened, perhaps as part of a promised redirection of human spaceflight from the Moon to Mars.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4987/1

19/V 2025 [77-80]

77) Opportunities for New Zealand as geopolitics reshapes the space economy
by Peter Zámborský, Christian Dietrich, and Denis Odlin Monday, May 19, 2025


New Zealand’s space industry is most closely associated with Rocket Lab, but the country is looking for ways to grow its industry. (credit: Rocket Lab)

The space economy is being reshaped—not just by innovation, but by geopolitics. What was once dominated by state space agencies, and more recently by private ventures, is evolving into a hybrid model in which government priorities and commercial capabilities are intertwined.

The rise of protectionist policies, tariff wars, export controls and national security concerns is forcing space firms to adapt their strategies—and, in many cases, to rethink where and how they operate.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4988/1

78) Space mining: corporate autocracy or global solidarity?
by Nikola Schmidt and Martin Švec Monday, May 19, 2025


Developing international mechanisms governing space mining could prevent a single country or company from amassing too much power in space. (credit: ESA)

This text was originally written in the Czech language as a policy paper at the Institute of International Relations in Prague and has been slightly adapted for a broader global audience.

As a result of rapid advances in space technologies and improved understanding of the composition of celestial bodies, the mining of mineral resources in outer space has increasingly become a topic of discussion at international forums. In particular, the growing commercial opportunities in space related to the utilization of space resources have led to reflections on the urgent need to resolve the legal uncertainty surrounding the legality and conditions under which mineral resources in outer space may be exploited. The current debate on the future regulatory regime for space mining primarily revolves around two opposing principles: the “first-come-first-served” approach and the concept of the “common heritage of mankind,” which emphasizes the shared benefit of all states regardless of their level of economic development, or indeed the benefit of humanity as a whole.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4989/1

79) An asteroid’s threatened impact may still impact planetary defense
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 19, 2025


NASA’s NEO Surveyor mission is set to launch as soon as the fall of 2027 to search for near Earth asteroids. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

It says something about the state of the world that, for a brief time earlier this year, the prospect of death from the skies was a welcomed distraction. In January, observations of the near Earth asteroid 2024 YR4, discovered near the end of last year, showed a small chance that it would hit the Earth in December 2032. Such odds are not that uncommon for near Earth objects, or NEOs, that have just been discovered and with limited data that can be used to project an orbit. Usually, within a few days the odds fall to zero as the orbit is refined.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4990/1

80) Spinning in the black: The Satellite Data System and real-time reconnaissance
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, May 19, 2025


Launch of the first Satellite Data System satellite in 1976 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. These satellites served as relays for reconnaissance satellites flying over the Soviet Union, beaming their signals directly back to a ground station outside Washington, DC. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection)

Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of one of the most secretive communications satellites ever built, a satellite that received images from a reconnaissance satellite transmitted at a frequency that could not be detected from the ground, and then beamed them down to a ground station located outside of Washington, DC. Although many details of the satellite system remain secret to this day, enough is known about it to indicate that it was highly unusual, both in its design and the way it was developed.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4991/1

Note: Because of the Memorial Day holiday, next week’s issue will be published on Tuesday, May 27.

20/V 2025 [81-84]

81) Review: From the Laboratory to the Moon   
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, May 27, 2025



From the Laboratory to the Moon: The Quiet Genius of George R. Carruthers
by David H. DeVorkin
The MIT Press, 2025
paperback, 456 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-262-55139-7
US$75.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/026255139X/spaceviews

Some time this fall, a Falcon 9 will launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center carrying three heliophysics spacecraft for NASA and NOAA. Among the satellites on that shared launch is a spacecraft that will observe the Earth at ultraviolet wavelengths looking for emissions from the “geocorona,” a part of the upper atmosphere, to study how space weather interacts with it. The spacecraft was originally known as the Global Lyman-alpha Imager of the Dynamic Exosphere, or GLIDE, but in December 2022 NASA formally renamed it as the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4992/1

82) Raiders of the Lost Venus Probe: a post-mortem of an interesting reentry and the confusion it left
by Marco Langbroek and Dominic Dirkx Tuesday, May 27, 2025


A museum replica of the Venera 8 descent craft that reentered earlier this month. (credit: NASA)

It caused an unexpected media storm in the first week of May 2025: the uncontrolled reentry, on May 10, of the 53-year-old lander module of a failed Soviet Venera mission from 1972. Called the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft (COSPAR designation 1972-023E, SSC catalogue number 6073), it was the subject of an earlier article one of us wrote here (see “Kosmos 482: questions around a failed Venera lander from 1972 still orbiting Earth (but not for long)”, The Space Review , May 16, 2022). The lander, which was supposed to go to Venus but got stuck in Earth orbit, was designed to survive reentry through the Venus atmosphere. Thus, it is therefore very likely that it survived reentry through Earth’s atmosphere intact, before impacting at an estimated speed of 65 to 70 meter per second after atmospheric deceleration. Not your standard reentry!
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4993/1

83) The origins and evolution of the Defense Support Program (part 3): The hangar queens and DSP-1
by Dwayne A. Day Tuesday, May 27, 2025


The Defense Support Program infrared missile warning satellites were designed to detect the heat of ballistic missile launches. The first satellite was launched in 1971, and several remain in operation today. Over the decades they were modified and adapted to detect a wider range of thermal targets. Here a DSP satellite is carried in the Space Shuttle payload bay during the 1991 mission of STS-44. (credit: NASA)

The Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites had entered development in the mid-1960s with the primary goal of detecting Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) launched from fixed silos in the Soviet Union, and a secondary goal of detecting atmospheric nuclear explosions based on the flash they made in the atmosphere. The satellites were large cylinders with an off-axis infrared telescope pointed out of their top: as the satellite spun at six rotations per minute, the telescope would sweep the face of the Earth, detecting heat sources. As the heat source moved, the data could be processed to reveal launch site, trajectory, velocity, and other information. By the 1980s, DSP’s capabilities were expanding even more, both in space and on the ground.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4994/1

W rosyjskim programie kosmicznym bez zmian, czyli zmagania z uciekającą nowoczesnością, ale...

84) The more things change…
by Bill Barry Tuesday, May 27, 2025


Yuri Borisov, former head of Roscosmos (Source: Kremlin.ru)

With everything else going on recently, you may have missed what has been happening in the Russian space program since the start of 2025. There have been substantial changes beginning in February which will impact US-Russian space relations. The first public evidence of the internal upheaval was when Yuri Ivanovich Borisov, head of Roscosmos since 2022, was suddenly replaced by Dmitry Vladimirovich Bakanov on February 6. Reports in the Russian space press suggest that this change in leadership came as a complete surprise to those in the industry. The Kremlin simply announced on social media that morning that Borisov had been relieved of his duties. When pressed on the issue later that day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Sergeyevich Peskov said that there were no complaints about Borisov’s work. Peskov characterized the change as simply a regular staff “rotation.”[1] While Borisov was generally considered a steady and effective leader, especially after the antics of his mercurial predecessor Dmitry Rogozin, his tenure was plagued by continuing problems. (...)

The day before the launch of Soyuz MS-27, the new head of Roscosmos met with NASA Associate Administrator Ken Bowersox at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Bowersox was the senior NASA official at the launch. As has generally been the case since 2022, NASA press reports made no mention of the meeting with the head of Roscosmos. However, numerous Russian press sources covered the meeting. According to the Russian reports, Bowersox and Bakanov discussed cooperation on the ISS, launches from the Baiterek facility under construction at Baikonur, and “plans to commemorate the upcoming Soyuz-Apollo anniversary.”[27] In early May, Roscosmos Director General Bakanov announced that “…we’ll be speaking with [NASA Administrator nominee] Jared Isaacman soon.”[28]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4995/1

[Orionid]

21/VI 2025 [85-88]

85) A new model helps to figure out which distant planets may host life
by Daniel Apai Monday, June 2, 2025


Future telescopes, like the proposed Nautilus, could help search the skies for habitable planets. (credit: Katie Yung, Daniel Apai /University of Arizona and AllThingsSpace /SketchFab)

The search for life beyond Earth is a key driver of modern astronomy and planetary science. The US is building multiple major telescopes and planetary probes to advance this search.

However, the signs of life—called biosignatures—that scientists may find will likely be difficult to interpret. Figuring out where exactly to look also remains challenging.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4996/1

86) What future for SpaceX?
by Claude Lafleur Monday, June 2, 2025

Is Elon Musk’s company as promising as it seems?


A Falcon 9 lifts off May 30 from Cape Canaveral carrying a GPS 3 satellite. (credit: SpaceX)

The least we can say is that in less than ten years, SpaceX, founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, has transformed the space domain. It now dominates space activities worldwide.

By the numbers

Over the past ten years, SpaceX has sent into space nearly three-quarters of all spacecraft launched worldwide (Table 1), while nearly a third of all rockets launched have been its own (Table 2). Since 2020, SpaceX has carried out the majority of launches, now sending more than 80% of all spacecraft.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4997/1

87) The origins and evolution of the Defense Support Program (part 4): DSP forever?
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, June 2, 2025


The Defense Support Program missile warning satellites first started operating in 1971. They were equipped with an infrared telescope that scanned the Earth as the satellite spun in geosynchronous orbit. Several are still operational today, over two decades since the last launch. (credit: Northrop Grumman)

The first Defense Support Program satellite was launched in 1971, followed by 17 more during the next two and a half decades. They provided the United States with a key component of its missile warning system, and each of the satellites added capabilities and had increased lifetimes. The ground systems had also evolved to the point where the satellites could send data to mobile ground stations to provide localized warning of missile attack. The satellite mission had grown beyond simply providing warning of strategic missile attack to become part of various tactical missile defense systems. They also provided intelligence around the world, detecting explosions, fires, and other thermal events. But after two decades, the technology at the heart of DSP was no longer cutting edge.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4998/1

88) NASA’s future in the balance
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 2, 2025


Jared Isaacman was days away from being confirmed as NASA administrator, and taking on the largest budget cuts in the agency’s history, when the White House pulled his nomination May 31. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

At the end of last week, the space community was gearing up for more bad news. While there was no formal announcement, NASA was widely expected to release more details about its fiscal year 2026 budget proposal. The White House had released top-level details in a “skinny” budget released in early May (see “Budget cuts and the fraying of international partnerships”, The Space Review, May 12, 2025), but NASA would go into details about how the cuts in the skinny budget would be implemented: which missions and programs would be cancelled or scaled back, and which few lucky ones would be increased.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4999/1

22/VI 2025 [89-92]

89) Review: Out of This World and Into the Next
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 9, 2025



Out of This World and Into the Next: A Physicist’s Guide to Space Exploration
by Adriana Marais
Pegasus Books, 2025
hardcover, 368 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-63936-881-5
US$29.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1639368817/spaceviews

One of the few growth areas in NASA’s fiscal year 2026 detailed budget proposal, released May 30, was in Mars exploration. While NASA’s overall spending was cut by nearly 25%, and science and space technology were cut by about 50%, the budget includes new lines for a Commercial Moon to Mars (M2M) Infrastructure and Transportation Program and a promise of more than a $1 billion devoted to human Mars exploration, from work on Mars-specific spacesuits to robotic precursor missions (see “NASA’s future in the balance”, The Space Review, June 2, 2025).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5000/1

90) Space-based solar power: A new frontier in US energy security
by David Steitz and Sowmya Venkatesh Monday, June 9, 2025


As other countries study space-based solar power, advocates of the technology want the United States to step up its efforts. (credit: ESA)

Space-based solar power (SBSP) represents a crucial component for meeting tomorrow’s global energy needs. At a congressional staff briefing in Washington last fall hosted by the Space Frontier Foundation, experts warned that the United States risks falling behind China in this emerging technology while highlighting how SBSP could revolutionize energy production.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5001/1

91) Starship setbacks and strategies
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 9, 2025


SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy lifts off May 27 on its ninth test flight. (credit: SpaceX)

It takes a lot to overshadow a Starship launch, but Washington managed to accomplish that at the end of May. The release of the detailed fiscal year 2026 budget proposal for NASA, enumerating cancelled and curtailed missions, followed 24 hours later by the surprise withdrawal by the White House of Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA administrator, were all that people in the space industry were talking about a week ago (see “NASA’s future in the balance”, The Space Review, June 2, 2025).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5002/1

92) The long road to near-real-time satellite reconnaissance: a chronology
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, June 9, 2025


Russian strategic bombers destroyed by Ukrainian drones. This image was taken by a Maxar commercial imagery satellite and transmitted to the ground soon after. This capability was first developed by the United States National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in the 1970s. (credit: Maxar)

In late 1976, the United States Air Force launched a revolutionary top secret satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Known as the KH-11 KENNEN and managed by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), it was the first near-real-time reconnaissance satellite capable of transmitting imagery from around the globe nearly instantaneously. Up to this time, American reconnaissance satellites used film to take their photographs, meaning that it could be days to weeks from when an image was taken to when it was seen by intelligence analysts in Washington.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5003/1

23/VI 2025 [93-96]

93) Developing and testing China’s Guowang constellation
by Greg Gillinger Monday, June 16, 2025


A Long March 5B launches a set of Guowang satelites. (credit: Xinhua)

One of China’s top priorities is the fielding of its state sponsored Guowang Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (pLEO)

constellation. Since December 2024, China has conducted four launches carrying a combined 34 operational Guowang satellites. We know very little about the capabilities of these satellites, however China has released some information on the constellation’s architecture. According to Chinese news sources, Guowang plans to launch a total of 12,992 satellites. Of those, 6,080 will be in an extremely low orbit of 500 to 600 kilometers while the other 6,912 satellites will orbit at 1,145 kilometers.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5004/1

94) The NASA Foundation: A method for privately funding NASA science
by Thomas L. Matula Monday, June 16, 2025


A “NASA Foundation” modeled on the National Park Foundation could allow the public to fill gaps in the NASA budget, like for the Roman Space Telescope. (credit: NASA/Chris Gunn)

Recently Jared Isaacman posted on X that, if he had become NASA administrator, he would have made up the shortfall in funding for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope by personally funding its launch. It is a sentiment that is likely shared by many space advocates who wish there was an option to keep a program going by donating money to NASA to support it. This raises a question: why isn’t there a mechanism that would allow the public to contribute money to NASA? Although numerous organizations exist that are focused on lobbying Congress for a larger NASA budget while building public support for greater NASA funding, there are none that allow individuals to contribute money to fund NASA programs.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5005/1

95) How NASA’s proposed budget cuts are felt across the Atlantic
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 16, 2025


A proposal to end Orion after Artemis 3 is causing ESA and European industry to study alternative uses of the Orion service module it currently provides. (credit: NASA/ESA/ATG Medialab)

The focus of the discussion about the 2026 NASA budget proposal has primarily been the effect of the request on the agency itself. The proposal, if enacted, would cancel dozens of missions and programs and lay off thousands of employees, radically reshaping NASA.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5006/1

Teraz piłka jest po stronie Kongresu

96) NASA’s 2026 budget in brief: Unprecedented, unstrategic, and wasteful
by Casey Dreier and Jack Kiraly Monday, June 16, 2025


The Chandra X-Ray Observatory is one of dozens of missions threatened by the administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal for NASA. (credit: NASA)

The full details of the President’s fiscal year (FY) 2026 budget request for NASA were released in the late afternoon on Friday, May 30. To date, NASA has held no press conferences or public briefings regarding the dramatic changes included in the budget request. There have been a limited number of perfunctory briefings to congressional committees and industry stakeholders, apparently with little detail beyond what has already been released publicly.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5007/1

24/VI 2025 [97-100]

97) Commercializing India’s SSLV rocket
by Ajey Lele Monday, June 23, 2025


India’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicle lifts off on its inaugural, but unsuccessful, first launch in 2022. (credit: ISRO)

Since its inception in the early 1970s, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has recognized that, for any independent space agency aspiring to develop indigenous capabilities in rocket launching and satellite building, the most critical area of investment is the launch vehicle sector. India became a spacefaring nation on July 18, 1980, when its Satellite Launch Vehicle 3 (SLV-3) successfully placed the Rohini satellite into orbit. Since then, India has designed and developed various categories of launch vehicles to place satellites into different orbits. In recent years, India developed the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), and very recently, ISRO identified an agency for the technology transfer of this vehicle. This marks an important step toward India realizing its vision of space commercialization.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5008/1

98) Intellectual property challenges in the space economy
by Phil Merchant Monday, June 23, 2025


Space technologies have long been patented, but how can those patents be protected when the technologies in space? (credit: USPTO)

Across the upstream and the downstream in the space industry, patentable technologies are being developed, and companies of all sizes are seeking to secure patent protection for their inventions. Patents are being granted for novel thruster designs, software algorithms for space debris mitigation, spacecraft launch systems, AI technologies for satellite image processing, and many other innovations.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5009/1

99) Strategies for lunar development
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 23, 2025


How should lunar infrastructure be established, and what would it be used for? (credit: ESA/P. Carril)

For advocates of lunar development, these are uncertain times. NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration campaign, which had seemed like a foundation on which a sustained lunar presence for research and commercial activities, is at an inflection point as the White House proposes terminating many elements of the effort and turning them over to commercial capabilities in ways the agency has yet to define. The administration also now appears more focused on Mars (which may or may not survive Elon Musk’s departure from the administration’s good graces) with proposed major investments in Mars, potentially at the expense of a sustained presence at the Moon.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5010/1

100) Propelling and navigating South Korea’s space ambitions
by Jennifer Hong Whetsell and Seokjin Yun Monday, June 23, 2025


South Korea’s KSLV-II, or Nuri, rocket lifts off on its third flight in 2023. (credit: KARI)

As the global space economy enters a new era marked by both competition and collaboration, South Korea is emerging as a serious contender with ambitions to lead. Once constrained by Cold War-era missile restrictions and dependent on foreign partnerships, South Korea is now steadily building sovereign space capabilities as a core pillar of its national strategy. With the creation of the Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA) in 2024, Seoul is signaling a decisive shift toward integrating space into its broader goals for technological innovation, economic growth, and national security.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5011/1

25/VI 2025 [101-104]

101) Review: More Everything Forever
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 30, 2025



More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity
by Adam Becker
Basic Books, 2025
hardcover, 384 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-5416-1959-3
US$32.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1541619595/spaceviews

Earlier this month the National Space Society held its annual International Space Development Conference (ISDC), sharing a sprawling Orlando hotel with an AMVETS meeting, a religious group, and the “Ms. Corporate America” contest. As in past years, ISDC had tracks for topics of long-running interest for space enthusiasts, from space solar power and space elevators to Moon and Mars exploration.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5012/1

102) Assigning an identification to a satellite, revisited
by Charles Phillips Monday, June 30, 2025


Launches of multiple payloads, like this Falcon 9 rideshare mission last year, share a characteristic that links those payloads together. (credit: SpaceX)

This is another article about a useful technique to analyze satellites’ orbits, a technique that should be used to avoid mistakes in tracking these satellites. I have written several articles about this technique but wanted to keep them short (see “Assigning an identification to a satellite”, The Space Review, May 20, 2024), but want to go back and add more details here.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5013/1

103) Taiwan’s satellites: A lawfare vulnerability and an option to cure and enhance deterrence against the PRC (part 1)
by Michael J. Listner Monday, June 30, 2025


Taiwan is building up its space capabilities, including the upcoming FORMOSAT-8 imaging satellites. (credit: TASA)

Taiwan continues to be at the crux of a geopolitical dance over its autonomy and promises by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for reunification since the loss of its statehood.[1] The threat posed by the PRC to Taiwan takes place with the backdrop of diminishing support geopolitically as the PRC ratchets up a hybrid warfare campaign to pave the way for reunification. In the shadow of this looming threat, Taiwan seeks to bolster its autonomy politically and by augmenting its defense to deter an invasion while holding onto dwindling geopolitical support.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5014/1

104) Guardians on the West Coast: The Space and Missile Technology Center and Vandenberg museum
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, June 30, 2025


The Space and Missile Technology Center is located on the former Vandenberg base golf course, known as Marshallia Ranch. In addition to several museum buildings, there are plans for other uses of the site. (credit: D. Day)

On June 24, a new space and missiles museum opened in California. The Space and Missile Technology Center is located at Marshallia Ranch, on the former golf course of Vandenberg Air Force Base, now known as Vandenberg Space Force Base. The museum features exhibits, models, photographs, and artifacts about the history of Vandenberg, which was first established in the late 1950s as a missile test and rocket launch site, and in recent years has become much more active as SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets launch over the Pacific into high-inclination orbits.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5015/1

[Orionid]

26/VII 2025 [105-109]

105) Guardians on the West Coast: The Space and Missile Technology Center and Vandenberg museum (part 2)
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, July 7, 2025


The site of the new museum is the former Vandenberg Air Force Base golf course clubhouse. The building had been closed for many years, requiring the removal of dozens of dumpsters of overgrown scrub. (credit: D. Day)

On June 24, a new space and missiles museum opened in California. The Space and Missile Technology Center is located at Marshallia Ranch, on the former golf course of Vandenberg Air Force Base, now known as Vandenberg Space Force Base. The museum features exhibits, models, photographs, and artifacts about the history of Vandenberg. (See “Guardians on the West Coast – The Space and Missile Technology Center and Vandenberg museum,” The Space Review, June 30, 2025.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5016/1

106) The first Indian on the ISS
by Ajey Lele Monday, July 7, 2025


Shubhanshu Shukla photographing the Earth from the cupola on the ISS during the Ax-4 mission. (credit: Axiom Space)

On June 26, 2025, Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla entered the International Space Station (ISS), becoming the first Indian to do so. He is part of a mission known as Ax-4, organized by Axiom Space, an American private space infrastructure company founded in 2016. Axiom Space has partnered with SpaceX to launch commercial astronauts to the ISS using the Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5017/1

107) The long recovery from a launcher crisis
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 7, 2025


An Ariane 6 lifts off on its second, and to date most recent, launch in March. (credit: ESA-CNES-ARIANESPACE-ArianeGroup/Optique vidéo du CSG - P PIRON)

A year ago, Europe appeared to have solved its “launcher crisis.” The first Ariane 6 lifted off from the European spaceport in French Guiana on a mostly successful test flight. The only glitch came at the end of the mission, when the upper stage failed to perform a final burn to deorbit, stranding it in orbit. Had that glitch occurred on an operational mission, it would not have prevented payloads from being deployed into their planned orbits.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5018/1

108) Taiwan’s satellites: A lawfare vulnerability and an option to cure and enhance deterrence against the PRC (part 2)
by Michael J. Listner Monday, July 7, 2025

Part 1 of this three-part series was published last week.


Taiwan is building up its space capabilities, including the upcoming FORMOSAT-8 imaging satellites. (credit: TASA)

Taiwan’s legal standing in international space law

The Republic of China played a role in the development of outer space law, specifically the OST, when it was recognized as a sovereign state and a member of the UN. Taiwan (then the Republic of China) signed the OST on January 27, 1967, and ratified the treaty on July 24, 1970.[1] The ROC was abrogated from the OST 15 months after UN Resolution 2758 was voted on, but Taiwan stated it would continue to hold itself legally bound by the OST and the US continued to regard Taiwan as being legally bound as well.[2]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5019/1

109) It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine): The persistence of the alien invasion film
by Dwayne Day Monday, July 7, 2025


Alien invasion movies and TV shows have long been part of American culture. They represent one way in which we grapple with the great unknown of the universe. (credit: 20th Century Fox)

A few days before July 4, a telescope detected a massive object heading from deep space into the inner solar system. That’s the start of the 1996 alien invasion flick Independence Day. It also happened last week, when the University of Hawaii’s NASA-funded ATLAS telescope in Chile detected an object, later classified as 3I/ATLAS, the “I” standing for “interstellar.” This was only the third time an interstellar comet has been detected passing through our solar system, after the much more famous and lyrical ’Oumuamua was discovered in 2017, and then 2I/Borisov in 2019. Better telescopes will certainly detect many more.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5020/1

27/VII 2025 [110-113]

110) Taiwan’s satellites: A lawfare vulnerability and an option to cure and enhance deterrence against the PRC (part 3)
by Michael J. Listner Monday, July 14, 2025

Part 2 of this three-part series was published last week.


Taiwan is building up its space capabilities, including the upcoming FORMOSAT-8 imaging satellites. (credit: TASA)

A lawfare strategy to protect Taiwan’s satellites

Freeing Taiwan’s satellites from the lawfare snare created by its legal status is not a quick fix and requires an audacious political strategy and the willingness by the US to engage in lawfare. The lawfare conundrum that Taiwan’s satellites are caught in can be liberated though a lawfare stratagem that involves a page taken from the pages of Operation Earnest Will.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5021/1

111) War in space is not a future problem: it’s happening now
by Christopher Stone Monday, July 14, 2025


Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, head of US Space Command, said at the Space Symposium conference in April that space was a “warfighting domain” and that the US needed to prepare accordingly. (credit: Space Foundation)

Space is not a place where war will happen in the future, it’s a place where war is happening now! Major powers now vie for dominance in this vital warfighting domain, with China and Russia actively challenging the United States’ long-standing leadership. Evidence suggests these nations are not merely testing space weapons but are actively engaged in a low-intensity warfighting campaign to undermine US and allied interests in orbit, while preparing for further, more destructive and aggressive actions in space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5022/1

112) Superman and the Skylab rescue
by Dwayne Day Monday, July 14, 2025


In 1972, NASA began planning in case a crew became stranded at the Skylab space station. The plan was to use the next-in-line Saturn IB and Apollo Command and Service Module, equipped with extra seats, to launch two astronauts to rescue the three in orbit. A major aspect of the plan was to recover as much mission data as possible. (credit: NASA)

The 1969 movie Marooned is not one of Gene Hackman’s best roles. The story, adapted from a 1964 book by the prolific Martin Caidin, features an Apollo spacecraft that separates from its Skylab space station only to suffer an engine failure, stranding the astronauts in orbit, unable to return to Earth or their station. Hackman played an astronaut who took over after his commander committed suicide to save his crew. Although it was fictional, the concept was based in fact, and only three years later, in 1972, NASA studied what to do if astronauts became stranded in space at Skylab if their Command and Service Module (CSM) failed. NASA engineers assumed that the failure would happen while the spacecraft was still attached to Skylab, and the space station was equipped with a second docking port, allowing a rescue vehicle to arrive.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5023/1

113) A Japanese automaker’s small hop towards reusable rockets
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 14, 2025


A reusable launch vehicle demonstrator built by Honda on a June 17 test flight. (credit: Honda)

Last month, a small vehicle ignited a rocket engine and lifted off from a pad. Retracting its landing legs, it rose to an altitude of about 270 meters. It immediately started a controlled descent, extending four grid fins near the nose while deploying the landing legs again. Roughly a minute after liftoff, it landed back on the same pad. In one video, the vehicle disappears in a plume of vapor immediately upon landing, adding a bit of drama for several seconds until the plume disperses, showing the vehicle standing intact on the pad.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5024/1

28/VII 2025 [114-117]

114) Review: Cosmic Fragments
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 21, 2025



Cosmic Fragments: Dislocation and Discontent in the Global Space Age
by Asif A. Siddiqi (ed.)
‎University of Pittsburgh Press, 2025
hardcover, 416 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-8229-4843-8
US$65
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0822948435/spaceviews

The space community is often accused of talking amongst itself rather than reaching out to broader audiences, a criticism that is far from baseless. The industry has its own events and its own journals, conversing in a jargon that can be difficult for those outside the field to understand. There’s often discussion about public opinion and interest in such fora, but without the participation of the public.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5025/1

115) The National Cathedral Version of the Space Force Hymn: “Creator of the Universe”
by James F. Linzey Monday, July 21, 2025


The US Space Force has an official song, sene here performed in 2022, but also an unofficial hymn. (credit: US Air Force photo by Eric Dietrich)

In early 2020, I stepped into a dusty brick building in Coffeyville, Kansas—home to the Dalton Gang Museum, which I bought. Amid aging memorabilia stood an upright piano with cracked keys and faded varnish. Sitting before it, I searched for a melody that had been stirring in my spirit since I first heard the Trump administration propose the creation of a sixth armed service branch: the United States Space Force.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5026/1

116) Beams in the sky, part 1: the Grumman Beam Builder
by Dwayne Day Monday, July 21, 2025


Before the Space Shuttle began flying in 1981, there were numerous proposals for using it to construct large structures in space. NASA evaluated various technologies for manufacturing these structures, including proposed flight tests. Grumman Aerospace was one of the contractors that studied technology for building large, lightweight beams in space. (credit: Grumman Aerospace)

While NASA was racing to the Moon in the 1960s, some agency contractors were studying the assembly of large structures in space. Many concepts involved launching large, pre-built components on Saturn V or even bigger rockets like the Nova, and some envisioned connecting them in orbit to form multi-module space stations. But there were limits to these types of structures, and by the mid-1970s, as NASA and contractors undertook studies of solar power stations, communication platforms, and space manufacturing facilities, they began considering possible in-space manufacturing of structures.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5027/1

Projekt DRACO (Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations) został anulowany.
Miał on być demonstracją NTP (nuclear thermal propulsion).

117) Making a new case for space nuclear power
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 21, 2025


NASA and DARPA had selected Lockheed Martin and BWXT in 2023 to develop a nuclear thermal propulsion demonstration spacecraft for NASA/DARPA’s DRACO program, but DARPA recently pulled the plug on the effort. (credit: Lockheed Martin)

Like so many space projects, DRACO started with a bang but ended with a whimper. (....)

A DARPA official later said that several factors contributed to DRACO’s demise. Rob McHenry, deputy director of DARPA, said at a recent webinar by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies that the agency started DRACO before what he called a “precipitous decrease in launch costs” by SpaceX as well as a reevaluation of whether NTP was the best approach. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5028/1

29/VII 2025 [118-122]

118) Inspiring Star Trek and NASA
by Dwayne Day Monday, July 28, 2025



Inspired Enterprise: How NASA, the Smithsonian, and the Aerospace Community Helped Launch Star Trek
by Glen Swanson
Schiffer, 2025
hardcover, 288 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-7643-6936-0
US$35
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764369369/spaceviews

In spring 1967, only a short time after the devastating Apollo 1 fire, Leonard Nimoy, who played Mister Spock on Star Trek, visited NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland where he was greeted enthusiastically by NASA employees. Although demoralized over the tragic deaths of the astronauts, many at NASA were fans of Star Trek and thought of the Enterprise and its crew as the NASA of the future, a positive future of humans exploring the stars. This is one of the many connections that the show had to NASA at the time that is recounted in a new book by my friend Glen Swanson.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5029/1

119) Mission Gaganyaan: optimism and criticism
by Martand Jha Monday, July 28, 2025


Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla on the International Space Station during the recent Ax-4 mission. (credit: Axiom Space)

The Indian space program is over six decades old. It has seen many great chapters in its history. The one chapter it wants to add soon in that glorious history is India’s first human spaceflight mission. The chapter is currently being written with a lot of preparation and hope. Discussion about this mission started a decade ago, and gained strength by the year 2017–18. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced it to the world on India’s Independence Day on August 15, 2018, when he declared in his address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort that India would send its own human spaceflight mission exactly four years later. He told the audience present there and viewers across the globe that when India would celebrate its 75th Independence Day in 2022, that day would also mark the launch of Mission Gaganyaan.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5030/1

120) The value of space studies programs in higher education
by Nathan Tat and Vivian Tat Monday, July 28, 2025


While a few institutions , like the International Space University, focus on interdisciplinary education in space, there are opportunities for others to follow suit. (credit: ISU)

Countless individuals dream of majestic careers in space, striving for the stars and beyond. Humanity was awed when Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins made history with Apollo 11. Decades later, the space sector routinely propels rockets and their payloads past the Kármán line, launches astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), and explores the universe beyond with spacecraft. In this era of rapid advances, students and professionals often voice interest in joining this industry and yearn to explore pathways into this realm.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5031/1

121) Space traffic coordination’s threat of derailment
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 28, 2025


The Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS, is intended to ultimately take over civil space traffic coordination work from the Defense Department, if it retains its funding. (credit: Office of Space Commerce)

Debates about federal spending typically involve figures in the billions or even trillions of dollars. Take, as one recent example, the recent budget reconciliation bill that Congress passed early this month. Senators added nearly $10 billion for NASA human spaceflight programs, extending a lifeline to the Gateway and Space Launch System, among other efforts. That was such a small part of the overall bill—which the Congressional Budget Office projects to add $3.4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade—there was little public debate about its inclusion.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5032/1

122) Beams in the sky, part 2: General Dynamics, Grumman, and composite materials
by Dwayne Day Monday, July 28, 2025


In the late 1970s, General Dynamics conducted a detailed study of technology to manufacture beams made out of composite materials in space. Although the company did not build demonstration hardware, it did consider how the manufacturing would be tested using a Space Shuttle in low Earth orbit. (credit: General Dynamics)

Starting in the early 1970s, NASA and aerospace contractors undertook studies of space solar power satellites. The spacecraft would have to be huge, creating construction and logistical challenges unlike any ever faced during the early space age. The large structures would be composed of beams, and even though contractors like Boeing proposed very large rockets to carry construction materials into orbit, it seemed impractical to engineers at the time to carry prefabricated structures. They soon turned to in-space manufacturing, including machines that could create or assemble beam structures. This led to Grumman Aerospace proposing a beam builder using aluminum alloy beams. NASA funded Grumman’s initial work, including a ground test unit that would demonstrate automatic beam construction (see “Beams in the sky, part 1: the Grumman Beam Builder,” The Space Review, July 21, 2025.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5033/1

[Orionid]

30/VIII 2025 [123-127]

123) Commercial space at the National Air and Space Museum
by Jeff Foust Monday, August 4, 2025


The renovated Milestones of Flight Hall at the National Air and Space Museum features many of the same exhibits as before, but with a more spacious layout. (credit: J. Foust)

The National Air and Space Museum is in danger of losing its biggest space artifact. A provision of the budget reconciliation bill signed into law a month ago includes $85 million for NASA set aside for what it calls a “Space Vehicle Transfer.” The “space vehicle” in question, according to the bill, is one that that has flown in space with astronauts. The “transfer” is to a NASA center “involved with the administration of the Commercial Crew program” with the vehicle put on public display at an entity in the same metropolitan area as that center.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5034/1

124) Why science at NASA?
by Ajay Kothari Monday, August 4, 2025


Artist Impression of planet Proxima B orbiting the red dwarf Proxima Centauri. It is in its star’s “Goldilocks Zone”. (credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser; CC BY-SA 4.0)

One hopes that the Congressional restoration of a large chunk of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) budget will occur when all is said and done. But the attempt to cut NASA’s budget, especially that of SMD, has brought forth the importance of it, not just for the country or even humanity, but for life on Earth. This is not hyperbole: it is closer factually than would be apparent. This demands that we not stay just in the “rocket lane,” in NASA lane, but make a case to all humanity, at least to all Americans at this juncture, and make it as soon as possible so that SMD would not face the same fate again and again.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5035/1

125) A NASA-ISRO joint radar satellite finally launches
by Ajey Lele Monday, August 4, 2025


A GSLV Mark II rocket lifts off July 30 carrying the NISAR spacecraft. (credit: ISRO)

The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite was successfully launched by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on July 30. The launch was carried by a vehicle ISRO’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark II (GSLV Mk II). This is a three-stage vehicle (with four strap-on boosters) with a last stage as a cryogenic upper stage, or CUS. The CUS is an indigenously developed stage that uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as propellants to provide increased thrust and efficiency. This vehicle is capable of putting about 2,500 kilograms of payload into geostationary transfer orbit and around 5,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit. With this launch this vehicle has, for the first time, put a 2,392-kilogram satellite into a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 747 kilometers.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5036/1

126) Where is the dream?
by Dwayne Day Monday, August 4, 2025


The 2015 movie The Martian was praised by many for its allegedly realistic depiction of spaceflight. Despite its heroic story, the hero barely escapes death. Even highly regarded movies about space travel usually show it as dangerous and unpleasant. (credit: 20th Century Fox)

“Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement.” — “Californication”, Red Hot Chili Peppers

Why are people interested in space exploration and settlement even though movies and TV shows portray it so negatively? Can interest in spaceflight proliferate if the popular culture does not support it?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5038/1

127) “God is in control”: A field report from the Ark Encounter’s “Astronaut Encounter”
by Deana L. Weibel Monday, August 4, 2025


The Astronaut Encounter Q&A explored how science and scripture align, as framed by Answers in Genesis. (credit: D. Weibel)

Earlier this summer, three NASA astronauts addressed a crowd at the Ark Encounter, a theme park devoted to biblical literalism. This article analyzes the event and what it reveals about public distrust of science and scientific authority.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5037/1

Note: The Space Review will be on a reduced schedule in August, and will not publish an issue the week of August 11. The next issue will be Monday, August 18.

31/VIII 2025 [128-134]

128) A museum exhibition on Japanese spaceflight
by Jeff Foust Monday, August 18, 2025


Visitors explore the “Deep Space - To the Moon and Beyond” exhibition at Miraikan in Tokyo. (credit: J. Foust)

Museums offer a window into how societies recognize and assess spaceflight. For example, renovations at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum include new galleries where commercial space takes a more prominent role than before, with artifacts ranging from spacesuits to rocket engines (see “Commercial space at the National Air and Space Museum”, The Space Review, August 4, 2025). There is still plenty of NASA artifacts in the museum, but the update shows that the space agency is increasingly sharing the stage with other space players.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5039/1

129) Frank Strang and SaxaVord: Europe’s first fully licensed vertical launch site
by Steve Fawkes Monday, August 18, 2025


The site of SaxaVord Spaceport in the Shetland Islands. (credit: S. Fawkes)

Last week saw the sad news of the passing of a little-known but important space pioneer: Frank Strang, MBE. Frank was the founder and CEO of SaxaVord, the first fully licensed vertical spaceport in Europe. His energy, determination, and drive took the idea of a spaceport in the remote Shetland Islands from a crazy idea through to an operating facility which is scheduled to host its first orbital launch later this year. In the words of his friend and colleague Scott Hammond:

When we first identified the prospects for a spaceport at Lamba Ness in Unst, Frank would not take no for an answer and broke through barriers that would have deterred lesser people. He was a real force of nature, and his vision and his grit got us to where we are today, bringing the Unst and Shetland communities, investors, and government with us.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5040/1

130) In memoriam: R. Cargill Hall
by Dwayne Day Monday, August 18, 2025


R. Cargill Hall was a space historian and a key figure in writing the history of satellite reconnaissance. (credit: R. Cargill Hall)

Space historian R. Cargill Hall passed away on April 10, 2025, at the age of 88. Cargill was a space historian and a key figure in writing the history of satellite reconnaissance. In the 1960s, Cargill accepted a position with Lockheed Missile and Space Division in Sunnyvale, California. While working at Lockheed, Cargill attended California State University at San Jose, receiving an MA degree in 1966. He later went to work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5041/1

131) The new Italian law on the space economy: regulatory framework and incentives for businesses
by Italo de Feo, Annalisa Pistilli, and Pasquale Distefano Monday, August 18, 2025


The new Italian space law gives the Italian space agency ASI new responsibilities for overseeing national space activities. (credit: ASI)

For several years, the space economy has been one of the most promising strategic sectors for economic growth, technological innovation, and security. The drive towards the exploitation of Earth’s orbits and the commercial use of space technologies is part of a dynamic geopolitical and scientific context. In this context, Italy is positioning itself as a leading European player in the sector.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5042/1

132) The future of data storage? Look up
by Sebastien Jean Monday, August 18, 2025


The Lonestar Data Holdings data center (black box) mounted on the IM-2 lander before launch. (credit: Lonestar Data Holdings)

In March of this year, the world’s first hardware data center landed successfully on the Moon. The size of a shoebox, that one small bit of hardware represented a giant leap for the future of data storage and processing in space. And it was no publicity stunt. It was proof that off-world data storage is technically possible.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5043/1

133) The LEO toll road: How the constellation gold rush is paving over the path to the planets
by Vaibhav Chhimpa Monday, August 18, 2025


A Falcon 9 lifts off earlier this month carrying a set of Amazon Project Kuiper broadband satellites. (credit: SpaceX)

The dawn of the 21st-century space age is being widely celebrated as an era of unprecedented access and democratization. Driven by reusable rockets and the promise of global connectivity, a new generation of commercial titans is launching thousands of satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), building vast megaconstellations that promise to reshape the global economy.[1] This LEO boom, championed by its architects as a venture to connect the unconnected and accelerate human progress, is presented as a net positive for all space endeavors.[3]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5044/1

134) The commercial case for Mars
by Jeff Foust Monday, August 18, 2025


Blue Origin has proposed a Mars telecommunications orbiter based on its Blue Ring spacecraft, versions of which could also be used to transport payloads to Mars under commercial service agreements. (credit: Blue Origin)

On August 7, the Italian space agency ASI announced it had signed an agreement with SpaceX to send payloads to Mars on what it said would be the first Starship missions designed to transport commercial payloads to the planet. Those payloads would include a radiation sensor, plant growth experiment, and weather monitoring station.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5045/1

Note: The Space Review will be on a reduced schedule in August, and will not publish an issue the week of August 25. We will resume our normal weekly publication schedule on Tuesday, September 2.

[Orionid]

32/IX 2025 [135-139]

135) Review: The Space Launch System
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, September 2, 2025



The Space Launch System: NASA’s Heavy-Lift Rocket and the Artemis I Mission
by Anthony Young
Springer Praxis, 2025
paperback, 220 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-3-031-92654-9
US$32.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3031926544/spaceviews

For a brief time this spring, it looked like the end was coming for the Space Launch System. The administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal released in May called for ending both SLS and Orion after the Artemis 3 mission. The vehicles, the proposal stated, would be replaced with “more cost-effective commercial systems that would support more ambitious subsequent lunar missions.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5046/1

136) India unveils its space vision to 2040
by Ajey Lele Tuesday, September 2, 2025


India’s space plans include the Gaganyaan human spaceflight program. Here, a prototype capsule is prepared for a drop test. (credit: ISRO)

India became the fourth country to land on the Moon and the first to reach its south polar region on August 23, 2023, now celebrated as National Space Day. The second celebration was marked by the presence of Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, the second Indian in space and the first to visit the ISS during the Axiom-4 mission. This mission, launched on June 25, also enabled the Indian space agency ISRO to conduct microgravity experiments aboard the ISS.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5047/1

137) The intersection of cultural beliefs and mythos with non-governmental space activities and its potential impact to national interests and great power competition
by >Michael J. Listner Tuesday, September 2, 2025


Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander didn’t make it to the Moon, but it did trigger a debate on how cultural beliefs should be considered when reviewing lunar missions. (credit: Astrobotic)

The January 8, 2024, inaugural launch of the United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket marked not only the first flight of a new US launch vehicle but also the first attempt by the US in more than 50 years to soft-land a space vehicle on the lunar surface. This mission a milestone in terms of returning to the Moon as well as the first attempt by a US non-governmental to do so. Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine lander was to be the first in a series of missions under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Aside from its five payloads for NASA, the lander also carried cremated human remains for Celestis and Elysium Space, which are companies that provide memorial services by transporting human cremated remains into outer space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5048/1

138) Flashpoint Cyprus 1974: Cold War satellite reconnaissance and peripheral wars
by Dwayne A. Day and Harry Stranger Tuesday, September 2, 2025


Turkish armed forces invaded Cyprus on the morning of July 20, 1974, landing at Kyrenia on the northern coast. Here multiple landing craft are visible unloading troops. (credit: Via Harry Stranger)

The politics of the Eastern Mediterranean are, to put it mildly, complex, and one of the key areas of dispute over millennia has been the island of Cyprus. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, located in the eastern Mediterranean 65 kilometers south of Turkey, 100 kilometers west of Syria, and 800 kilometers southeast of mainland Greece. The capital is Nicosia. An important British signals intelligence base and accompanying British forces are located there.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5049/1

Po 3. nieudanych lotach oraz zniszczeniu górnego stopnia Starshipa podczas przygotowań do statycznego testu nastąpił dłużej oczekiwany sukces.
Zostały osiągnięte wszystkie najważniejsze cele podczas prawie bezbłędnego testu suborbitalnego.
10 testowych lotów zostało wykonanych w okresie 20.04.2023-26.08.2025.
Kolejne etapy jednak ulegają opóźnieniu.
Ważnym krokiem będzie przetestowania autonomicznego transferu paliwa kriogenicznego między Starshipami.
Elon Musk widzi potrzebę udoskonalenie systemu tankowania na orbicie.

"No one has ever demonstrated [cryogenic] propellant transfer in orbit," he said. "This will be propellant transfer at very large scale. But with full reusability and propellant transfer, those are the key technologies needed for building a city on Mars. And I'm confident the SpaceX team will achieve these goals."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-super-heavy-starship-test-flight-launch/

139) Back in the win column
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, September 2, 2025


SpaceX’s Starship performing a final burn before splashdown in the Indian Ocean on its August 26 flight. The discoloration is white insulation from deliberately removed tiles and oxidation from a metallic test tile. (credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX has had, in many respects, a remarkable year so far. The company has performed more than 100 launches of its Falcon 9 rocket, putting the company on a pace to end the year with at least 150 launches, well above a record set last year. The company has been the single biggest customer of those launches, putting more than 1,900 Starlink satellites into orbit that provide services to more than seven million customers worldwide. (...)

She didn’t indicate when NASA now expected that propellant transfer test to take place, but it is essential to later milestones, including an uncrewed test flight of the Starship lander, touching down on the Moon and then taking off again. Completing that mission will require multiple Starship “tanker” launches to fill the lander’s propellant tanks with liquid oxygen and methane: perhaps 15 to 20, some argue, although neither NASA nor SpaceX have provided an updated estimate. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5050/1

33/IX 2025 [140-145]

140) Review: Beyond Earth, The Soviet Drive Into Space
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, September 8, 2025



Beyond Earth, The Soviet Drive Into Space: Decoding their Satellite Launch Efforts, 1957-1975, A Very Personal View
by Saunders B. Kramer
Spacehistory101.com Press, 2025
paperback, 398 pp.
ISBN 978-1-887022-89-7
US$34.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1887022899/spaceviews

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union concealed much of its space program. Although the US government used various high-tech methods to collect information about Soviet missiles, rockets, and spacecraft, the general public was often in the dark. A small group of enterprising space sleuths, mostly located in the United Kingdom and the United States, sought to determine what the Soviets were up to. Jim Oberg was the most famous sleuth in the United States. In the UK, the self-described eccentrics of The Kettering Group achieved their own degree of fame, sometimes reporting on the launch of Soviet rockets before the Soviets did.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5051/1

141) The forms of space entrepreneurship
by Alexander William Salter Monday, September 8, 2025


Starship/Super Heavy takes off on its tenth test flight. (credit: SpaceX)

After several explosive setbacks, SpaceX’s next-generation rocket is back on track. The tenth test launch of Starship on August 26 accomplished all major objectives. Space exploration for fun and profit continues apace.

SpaceX is obviously important—the most important space business, in fact. It’s already lowered launch costs by a factor of ten from the Space Shuttle era, and Starship could do it again. But it’s hardly the only actor worth watching in the ongoing commercial space revolution. Although SpaceX’s executives (to say nothing of Elon Musk) have plenty of commercial savvy, its smaller, scrappier cousins often provide a clearer view of entrepreneurial forces at work.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5052/1

142) Go faster, somehow
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 8, 2025


Former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine discussing his concerns about the Starship lunar lander for Artemis at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing September 3. (credit: Senate Commerce Committee webcast)

It was a blast from the past. On Wednesday, Jim Bridenstine returned to the same Senate room where, nearly eight years earlier, he testified in the confirmation hearing for his nomination to be NASA administrator. He would return several times through 2020 as NASA administrator to discuss and defend agency programs and budgets. He was back last week as a private citizen, but it was easy to flash back to those earlier times, right down to the placement of his signature drink—a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew—on the witness table.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5053/1

143) More than machines: When AI explores the stars without us
by Alex Li Monday, September 8, 2025


What is the role of astronauts in a future where artificial intelligence plays a greater role in space exploration? (credit: NASA)

Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still.
— Carl Sagan

When Carl Sagan spoke these words, he was addressing one of humanity’s deepest desires: our drive to know, to discover, to push the limits of our knowledge. But implicit in his invitation was a crucial assumption: that we, humans, would be the ones doing the exploration; that human consciousness would be the primary vessel through which the incredible cosmic expanse would be perceived and understood.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5054/1

144) Golden Dome dilemma: Diplomatic and military risks of space-based missile defense
by Carlos Alatorre Monday, September 8, 2025


One concept for the Golden Dome missile defense system with space-based elements. (credit: Redwire)

On January 27, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order authorizing the implementation of the Iron Dome for America, essentially a request for the Department of Defense (DOD) to develop a “reference architecture…for the next-generation missile defense shield.” Inspired by the eponymous Israeli missile defense system, the renamed “Golden Dome” project would provide a protective nationwide shield against ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missile attacks of conventional or nuclear warheads.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5055/1

145) Gemini’s wing and a prayer (part 1): Rogallo Wings, the Paresev, and crashes in the desert
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, September 8, 2025


In the early 1960s, NASA undertook an extensive flight research program to develop a land recovery system first for the Mercury and then the Gemini spacecraft. It used a design known as the Rogallo Wing, or paraglider. NASA conducted hundreds of test flights of both unmanned and piloted vehicles over several years. (credit: NASA)

In the early 1960s, NASA had an extensive flight test program to develop a land touchdown capability for the Gemini spacecraft. NASA and its contractors conducted hundreds of test flights, crashing both unmanned and piloted test vehicles. Several NASA test pilots were injured.[1]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5056/1

34/IX 2025 [146-149]

146) Review: The Martians
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 15, 2025



The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America
by David Baron
W.W. Norton, 2025
hardcover, 336 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-324-09066-3
US$29.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1324090669/spaceviews

Last week, NASA once again announced the discovery of life on Mars. Or, rather, potential evidence of past, primitive life on Mars. This possible biosignature was in the form of dark “leopard spots” seen in a rock by the Perseverance rover whose elemental compositions led scientists to conclude they contained two minerals that, on Earth, are created by microbes consuming organic matter.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5057/1

147) The greatest story on planet Mars: the sequel
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, September 15, 2025


News that scientists claimed to find evidence of past Martian life in a meteorite leaked out before NASA’s planned formal announcement. (credit: NASA)

On Wednesday, September 10, NASA held a press conference to announce that scientists had found evidence consistent with past life on Mars. If you’re old enough, you might have experienced a bit of déjà vu. In August 1996, President Bill Clinton held a press conference at the White House to announce that scientists had found evidence in a Mars meteorite consistent with past life on Mars. That suspected discovery had a profound impact on American space science policy. But the story had leaked to the press even before the White House announcement. Later that year, I published an article in the journal Quest about how the Mars news had become public. Thanks to former Quest editor Glen Swanson, I am republishing that 1996 article here. The story involves an intrepid reporter, a sleazy White House advisor, and a high-paid prostitute.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5058/1

148) Gemini’s wing and a prayer (part 2): Parachutes, paragliders, and more crashes in the desert
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, September 15, 2025


A March 1962 tow test of a wing configuration. Note that the struts along the side are inflated. (credit: NASA)

In the early 1960s, NASA was undertaking an extensive series of tests in the Mojave Desert to develop the capability to bring its new Gemini spacecraft to a gentle landing on the ground rather than at sea. In 1961 and 1962, test pilots and at least one astronaut began flying a flimsy-looking craft called the Paresev to evaluate a new type of wing—called a Rogallo Wing, or paraglider—that could be folded up inside a compartment on Gemini. It would then be deployed at high altitude to unfold and provide lift and controllability to enable Gemini to land on a dry lake bed. After the Paresev I was destroyed in a crash, NASA developed the Paresev I-A, which also occasionally crashed. At this time, NASA fully intended to land Gemini using the paraglider technology—if it could be made to work (see “Gemini’s wing and a prayer (part 1): Rogallo Wings, the Paresev, and crashes in the desert,” The Space Review, September 8, 2025.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5059/1

149) I’m a former astronaut: NASA workers are afraid, and safety is at risk
by Garrett Reisman Monday, September 15, 2025


Former astornaut Garrett Reisman at the Johnson Space Center (credit: the author)

Every year, former astronauts like me are invited back to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, to get a flight physical. NASA is still collecting data from us to better understand the long-term effects of human spaceflight. I look forward to this trip every year as an opportunity to enjoy the comradery of my former NASA colleagues and our shared optimism about our future in space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5060/1

[Orionid]

35/IX 2025 [150-154]

150) Review: Rocket Dreams
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 22, 2025



Rocket Dreams: Musk, Bezos, and the Inside Story of the New, Trillion-Dollar Space Race
by Christian Davenport
Crowm Currency, 2025
hardcover, 384 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-593-59411-7
US$32.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0593594118/spaceviews
Last Friday, NASA announced a surprise: the VIPER lunar rover mission was being revived. More than a year ago, NASA said it had to cancel the mission because of cost and schedule overruns, even though the rover itself was nearly complete. That led to various efforts to explore commercial partnerships to take over the mission, but on Friday NASA was going back to its original approach to get VIPER to the Moon. This time, it awarded a task order through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program to Blue Origin to take VIPER to the south polar region of the Moon in late 2027 on the company’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5061/1

151) For too long, colonial language has dominated space exploration. There is a better way.
by Art Cotterell and William Grant Monday, September 22, 2025


Is a “race” to go to the Moon and beyond the best perspective for space exploration? (credit: ESA/P. Carril)

At an internal staff briefing earlier this month, acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy declared the United States has a “manifest destiny to the stars”, linking this to the need to win the “space race.”

This rhetoric is not new: it directly echoes US President Donald Trump’s inaugural address from earlier this year. The phrasing invokes US nationalism that’s historically been used to justify colonial expansion and empire-building.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5062/1

152) Astroelectricity: America’s national energy security imperative
by Mike Snead Monday, September 22, 2025


Space-based solar power, or “astroelectricity,” may be the only renewable power option to meet American energy needs in the coming decades. (credit: ESA/Andreas Treuer)

In July, President Donald J. Trump announced a trade deal with the European Union (EU) in which they will purchase $750 billion of US energy resources over the next three years. At a price of $60 per barrel of oil, this would buy about 12.5 billion barrels of American oil. In terms of energy content, this would roughly equal one year’s worth of consumption of oil and natural gas used in America. With the presumption that this purchase will predominantly be oil and natural gas, it would substantially increase the demand on US oil and natural gas production—and this is without adding any other exports such as to Japan, South Korea, and China.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5063/1

153) Shhhhhh!!! Pay no attention to the Big Bird…
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, September 22, 2025


Cover of Aviation Week & Space Technology for October 9, 1972 with a photo of a HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite launch, which the magazine referred to as the "Big Bird." Reporter Phillip Klass was apparently the first to use this term in print, although it probably originated with somebody working at Vandenberg Air Force Base in 1971. (credit: Aviation Week)

In the first half of 1971, it was becoming clear that something big was about to happen at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Workers had prepared a launch pad for a new, larger rocket, the Titan IIID. This was to be the biggest, most powerful rocket ever launched from the West Coast, equipped with two solid rocket motors on its side. Previously, the Air Force had planned to launch the Titan IIIM with the Manned Orbiting Laboratory from Vandenberg. It would have been more powerful than the IIID, but it was canceled in 1969. There was no way to keep the large rocket secret—when it rose up over the low mountains, people in nearby Lompoc would see it, people to the south in Santa Barbara would see it, and people in much more populated Los Angeles would also probably see it.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5064/1

Pozostają do rozwiązania kwestie techniczne związane z umieszczeniem reaktora jądrowego na powierzchni Księżyca.

154) From advice to action on space nuclear power
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 22, 2025


A Lockheed Martin concept for a nuclear reactor on the Moon, a concept that has gained new life with an agency directive issued weeks after a recent report recommending rapid development of such systems. (credit: Lockheed Martin)

NASA gets no shortage of advice. These range from formal recommendations from advisory committees chartered by the agency to outside assessments tossed over the transom with little expectation of an acknowledgement, let alone a response.

But there are exceptions. This summer, a report commissioned by the Idaho National Lab (INL) recommended NASA take a new approach to developing space nuclear power systems. The US had not flown a space nuclear reactor in 60 years despite billions invested in various projects. The report offered two scenarios for developing nuclear power systems with the goal of an in-space demonstration by 2030 (see “Making a new case for space nuclear power”, The Space Review, July 21, 2025).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5065/1

36/IX 2025 [155-159]

155) Last of the dinosaurs: Admiral Nakhimov sails again under satellite eyes
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, September 29, 2025


September 2025 Airbus satellite image of the nuclear-powered battlecruiser Admiral Nakhimov. Originally launched in the 1980s, the ship spent nearly 30 years in mothballs but has recently been upgraded. (credit: Airbus)

Recently, a commercial imagery satellite photographed the Russian nuclear-powered battlecruiser Admiral Nakhimov at pierside after undertaking new sea trials. The satellite imagery provides new details about the ship’s modernization after a very long and expensive refit period. It reveals the large number of missiles that the ship is now equipped to fire, making it, by some measures, the most powerful surface warship in the world. The ship first came to the attention of Western intelligence agencies in satellite photos taken more than 40 years ago, but then it posed a greater threat than it does today.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5066/1

156) NASA needs to qualify, not certify. commercial space stations
by Steve Hoeser Monday, September 29, 2025


Starlab is one of several commercial space stations in development for potential use by NASA. (credit: Starlab Space)

With the retirement and decommissioning of the International Space Station (ISS) just five years away, NASA—partnered with selected industrial partners—is entering the final stages of deploying fully commercial space stations. However, simply applying the programmatic approaches and practices from the previous Commercial Crew Program (CCP) overlooks both the dramatic advances in technology and the fact that the resulting products and services will be entirely owned and operated by private enterprises. Therefore, NASA must recalibrate its perspectives and business practices, recognizing that qualification, rather than certification, is the appropriate framework for determining the suitability of these commercial space stations for NASA’s use.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5067/1

157) The economic reality of lunar competition: beyond the space race rhetoric
by John P. Christie Monday, September 29, 2025


The Orion spacecraft being prepared for Artemis 2. (credit: NASA/Glenn Benson )

NASA acting administrator Sean Duffy’s recent declaration that “we are going to beat the Chinese to the Moon” captures the political zeitgeist perfectly. But buried within his own remarks lies a more troubling economic reality: “At $4 billion a launch, it becomes very challenging to have a moon program”. This tension between political imperative and fiscal mathematics reveals a fundamental disconnect in how America approaches lunar competition—one that may ultimately undermine the very goals it seeks to achieve.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5068/1

158) The present and future of NASA human spaceflight
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 29, 2025


NASA’s newest astronaut class was introduced September 22 at the Johnson Space Center. (credit: NASA/Helen Arase Vargas)

Last week at the Johnson Space Center, the future was the opening act for the present.

On Monday, NASA announced its newest class of astronauts: ten men and women selected from a pool of 8,000 applicants, who will soon begin two years of training. They were, in some respects, like many previous astronaut classes: a group of pilots, doctors, engineers, and scientists who excelled in their fields.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5069/1

159) Gemini’s wing and a prayer (part 3): boilerplates and El Kabong
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, September 29, 2025


One of the Tow Test Vehicles during a flight test. The TTVs were towed behind ground vehicles and later aircraft to test the controllability of the Rogallo Wing. The tow line is barely visible at the front of the vehicle. NASA conducted many tests of different size vehicles and wings. (credit: NASA)

NASA officials had planned to incorporate the paraglider into early Gemini flights, but problems during testing had led to its first operational test being moved back to later flights. By late March 1963, the paraglider was rescheduled for the tenth Gemini mission, but program leaders thought that they still might make the seventh Gemini flight, then planned for October 1965. However, North American’s contract would run out in April 1963. (See “Gemini’s wing and a prayer (part 1): Rogallo Wings, the Paresev, and crashes in the desert,” The Space Review, September 8, 2025, and “(part 2): parachutes, paragliders, and more crashes in the desert,” The Space Review, September 15, 2025.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5070/1

[Orionid]

37/X 2025 [160-164]

160) So you want to go to Mars: Where do you start?
by Jonathan Coopersmith Monday, October 6, 2025



The Planning and Execution of Human Missions to the Moon and Mars
by Michelle Poliskie (ed.)
AIAA, 2023
694 pp.
ISBN 978-1-62410-653-8
US$144.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1624106536/spaceviews

Before embarking on a long trip to a new destination, experienced travelers plan their itinerary and, if seasoned enough, think about what might go wrong also (and, if old enough, take their paper maps, just in case.). Similarly, before you—either as an astronaut, supporting worker, or ordinary taxpayer—dedicate spending years and tens of billions of dollars to send astronauts, cosmonauts, taikonauts and gaganyatri (aka vyomanauts) to Mars, consider acquainting yourself with The Planning and Execution of Human Missions to the Moon and Mars.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5071/1

161) Gemini’s wing and a prayer: Postscript
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, October 6, 2025


A C-119J “Flying Boxcar” at Ellington Air Force Base in the 1960s. The C-119J was originally used to catch returning spacecraft reentry vehicles over the Pacific Ocean. In late 1961, the aircraft were transferred to Texas, where some of them were used for dropping Mercury and later Gemini boilerplate vehicles for parachute tests. (credit: NASA)

NASA’s effort to develop a land recovery system for the Gemini spacecraft in the early 1960s was an extensive program eventually involving hundreds of test flights and different variants of piloted and unpiloted vehicles.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5072/1

162) How China Is preparing to dominate the world
by Claude Lafleur Monday, October 6, 2025



Are we already at war with China? Some say yes. That’s why US Space Force officials talk about preparing for battles in orbit. But perhaps China is playing a subtler game. Not dogfights among satellites, but something more insidious: a trade war fought with irresistible technology. Services so abundant and sophisticated they could make resistance futile.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5073/1

163) Opening lines of communications for space safety
by Jeff Foust Monday, October 6, 2025


NASA acting administrator Sean Duffy (right) discusses the agency’s plans with International Astronautical Federation presdient Claw Mowry at the IAC September 29. (credit: J. Foust)

The International Astronautical Congress is billed as one of the largest global space conferences and an opportunity for countries to come together to discuss key space issues. And, during this year’s event in Sydney, there were such discussions. Host country Australia used the event to announce new partnerships and agreements with both the United States and Europe in space, while 39 of the 56 nations who have signed the Artemis Accords met to talk about implementing aspects of the agreement.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5074/1

164) Carriers—and battleships—from space (part 3): The Mighty O and the Mighty Mo
by Dwayne A. Day and Harry Stranger Monday, October 6, 2025


HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite image of Naval Air Station Alameda in July 1973 showing the aircraft carriers USS Oriskany, USS Ranger, and USS Enterprise. The U.S. Navy rapidly diminished in size during the 1970s. Oriskany was retired in 1976, but in 1980/81 there were proposals to reactivate the ship. (credit: Harry Stranger)

In summer 1980, an American reconnaissance satellite flew over the Soviet Union’s Severodvinsk shipyard and for the first time photographed a new, large nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine, eventually designated the Oscar I, and a massive nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine designated the Typhoon.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5075/1

38/X 2025 [165-169]

165) Review: Reinventing SETI
by Jeff Foust Monday, October 13, 2025



Reinventing SETI: New Directions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
by John Gertz
‎Oxford University Press, 2025
hardcover, 240 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-19-780041-6
US$34.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0197800416/spaceviews

Earlier this month, the interstellar object designated 3I/ATLAS passed close enough to Mars—about 30 million kilometers—that spacecraft orbiting Mars turned their cameras towards the object. An initial analysis released by ESA last week confirmed that an instrument on its ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter imaged the object, detecting a coma expected as the icy object outgassed. (NASA has not released any information about observations by its spacecraft because of the ongoing government shutdown.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5076/1

166) The other space race: why the world is obsessed with sending objects into orbit
by Tony Milligan Monday, October 13, 2025


SpaceX launched a Tesla Roadster on the first Falcon Heavy launch, but it’s hrady the only unusual object sent into space in recent years. (credit: SpaceX)

Beyond the race for scientific, commercial and military purposes, there is another space race of a more curious sort. A race to be the first to send various objects up there. But why?

In December 2024, Buddhist monks from Japan attempted unsuccessfully to send a small temple on board a satellite into orbit. The Kairos rocket did make it more than 110 kilometers from Earth, making it the first time the Dainichi Nyorai (the Buddha of the Cosmos) and the mandala were transported into outer space. The monks hope to try again in the future.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5077/1

167) The Golden Dome framework for rethinking the triad
by Justin Fu Monday, October 13, 2025


The Golden Dome missile defense system could offer an opportunity to rethink how to maintain a nuclear deterrent. (credit: Lockheed Martin)

The dogma of the nuclear triad has given Americans a false and incredibly expensive sense of security since the end of the Cold War. Yet, the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review[1] recommended fully funding modernization and platform replacement programs for all three legs—sea, air, and land—involving intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), nuclear-capable strategic bombers, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5078/1

168) This spacecraft will self-destruct in 5, 4, 3, 2…
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, October 13, 2025


In 1972, pieces of a top secret GAMBIT reconnaissance satellite similar to the ones being assembled here at Eastman-Kodak in Rochester, fell in England. They were retrieved and taken back to the United States. (credit: NRO)

In July 1959, one of the key figures in the establishment of the CORONA reconnaissance satellite program, CIA Deputy Director for Plans Richard M. Bissell, Jr., wrote a memo to Roy Johnson, Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, about putting self-destruct devices on satellite reentry vehicles that returned top secret film from orbit. Bissell was replying to Johnson about the need for security in case the vehicle fell into the wrong hands. Bissell explained that CORONA contractor Lockheed had prepared estimates and designs for a destruct system. He wrote that they would soon have the results of Lockheed’s work, particularly how much it would weigh—a critical factor given how little mass margin was left on the vehicle.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5079/1

Start ze Starbase do lotu testowego IFT-11 RN Super Heavy/Starship (B15.2/S38) nastąpił 13.10.2025 o 23:23:45 UTC i był ostatnim z tej wyrzutni.
Był to również piąty i ostatni start wersji "Block 2".
Podczas startu 1 silnik Raptor w B15.2 nie zadziałał przy ponownym uruchomieniu.
Zadziałał on jednak przed fazą "wodowania".
Zostało uwolnionych 8 symulatorów Starlink V3 z ładowni Starshipa, które nie weszły na orbitę i spłonęły w atmosferze.
Został zademonstrowany ponowny zapłon silnika Raptor w przestrzeni kosmicznej.
Wykonano manewr nazwany dynamicznym manewrem przechylenia (belly flop maneuver), który ma naśladować trajektorię, po której będą wracać Starshipy do Starbase, by ustawić się w odpowiednio z wieżą w celu przechwycenia.
Będzie to jedno z priorytetowych zadań następnego etapu testowania Starshipa zaplanowanego na 2026 rok.
Około 66 minut po starcie doszło do zaplanowanej próby wodowania na Oceanie Indyjskim po pokonaniu ok. 3/4 trajektorii wokół Ziemi.
S38 osiągnął ha=192 km.
Następny rok może przynieść kolejne przełomowe osiągnięcia rozwojowe Starshipa.
Starship w wersji 3 zostanie wystrzelony z nowej wyrzutni w Starbase.
Data startu nie została ogłoszona.

169) Promising to be a good neighbor
by Jeff Foust Monday, October 13, 2025


Starship lifts off from Texas October 13 on its 11th test flight. (credit: SpaceX)

On Monday night, Starship lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on its 11th test flight. Like the previous flight—and, notably, unlike the three before that—all appeared to go well. Both the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage completed all their planned tests, many similar to those conducted on Flight 10 in late August. The flight ended with a “soft splashdown”, followed by a deliberate explosion, of Starship in the Indian Ocean about 66 minutes after liftoff.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5080/1

[Orionid]

39/X 2025 [170-174]

170) India’s challenge: building a ready-to-launch space security system
by Payal Hora Monday, October 20, 2025


India’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicle lifts off on its inaugural, but unsuccessful, first launch in 2022. (credit: ISRO)

“He who is vigilant and swift does not perish.” — Mahabharata (Vidura Neeti)

India has delivered high‑profile space missions and low-cost launch capabilities that draw global attention. Yet a vital operational gap persists: India cannot presently prepare and launch replacement or mission-specific satellites at short notice. That gap limits India’s ability to respond to sudden security or humanitarian requirements.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5081/1

171) Unleashing hell: the R-16 ICBM
by Dwayne A. Day and Harry Stranger Monday, October 20, 2025


In early 1966, a GAMBIT reconnaissance satellite took excellent quality photos of Soviet SS-7/R-16 ICBMs outside their horizontal hangar. The missiles did not have warheads attached, but the photos enabled accurate measurements of the missiles. The R-16 was the first practical Soviet ICBM, and approximately 200 were in service by this time. (credit: Harry Stranger)

In early 1966, an American reconnaissance satellite overflew the Soviet Union and hit the jackpot: during several passes over the Yurya ICBM complex, it captured Soviet SS-7 ICBMs sitting outside, apparently being transported to or from their launch pads. In a summary report, a photo-interpreter described the imagery as “excellent quality.” The photographs enabled experts to accurately measure the ICBMs.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5082/1

172) New Zealand looks for its place in the global space industry
by Jeff Foust Monday, October 20, 2025


Dawn Aerospace brought its Aurora spaceplane to the exhibit hall at the conference. (credit: J. Foust)

The protestors were no match for breakdancing stormtroopers.

In the days leading up to the New Zealand Aerospace Summit earlier this month, signs appeared on walls in downtown Christchurch. “No War Profiteers in Aotearoa!” they declared, using the Māori name for New Zealand. “Blockade the National Aerospace Summit”.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5083/1

173) EUROSPACE and the European spaceplane (part 1)
by Hans Dolfing Monday, October 20, 2025


Figure 1. Brochure from “Le Bourget”, Paris, France, 1965, with the French-German “Le Mistral” concept.

In 1964, when Frank Sinatra sang “Fly Me to the Moon,” he was not entirely sure whether he wanted to ride a rocket or a spaceplane but it was clear was that he counted on a first-class ticket. The dream to fly into space on an airplane is old. In the last 100 years, the most well-known concepts include Eugen Sänger’s 1933 “Amerika-Bomber” and later “Silbervogel” followed by many similar concepts from the 1950s and later. [17, 34]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5084/1

Przegląd historycznych opracowań załogowych misji na Marsa.
Dla "Deep Space Habitat" potrzebna była rakieta zdolna do wyniesienia na LEO ładunku o masie co najmniej 75 ton.
Do rozpoczęcia pierwszej ekspedycji potrzebne byłyby 24 starty RN i 20 startów wahadłowców (miały być wykorzystywane do niektórych zadań związanych z montażem na orbicie).
Interesującą propozycją był pomysł „Mars Direct” Roberta Zubrina.
Dzisiaj w obliczu problemów z pracami nad mniej złożonymi projektami (MSR), kolejne podobne koncepcje mogą pozostać na dłużej przedmiotem jedynie dyskusji.

174) Spinning, spinning, spinning to Mars
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, October 20, 2025


In 1984, a workshop at The Case for Mars II conference produced a proposal for a human mission to Mars that would use Mars resources and lead to a permanent presence on the red planet. Artist Carter Emmart illustrated the various phases of the mission and his illustrations appeared in numerous publications over the years. (credit: Carter Emmart)

In 1984, a group of scientists, engineers, and graduate students meeting in Colorado for a conference and led by a core group of enthusiasts who a journalist nicknamed the “Mars Underground,” developed a concept for a human mission to Mars. Because the group included an artist named Carter Emmart who sketched and later illustrated the phases of the Mars mission, for at least a decade or longer that Mars concept appeared in books and even novels as the way that humans would explore the Red Planet. It influenced both the culture and thinking about human missions to Mars.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5085/1

40/X 2025 [175-179]

175) Review: Facing Infinity
by Jeff Foust Monday, October 27, 2025



Facing Infinity: Black Holes and Our Place on Earth
by Jonas Enander
The Experiment, 2025
hardcover, 368 pp., illus.
ISBN 979-8-89303-085-3
US$30
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0DT396H24/spaceviews

Black holes have an attraction for science writers that rivals their gravitational influence on spacetime. Hundreds of books have been written over the decades about these objects, covering the theory behind them and efforts to study them with various telescopes. However, while black holes are a staple of science fiction and even of broader culture, they have remained largely abstract: as distant astrophysical phenomena, they have little direct influence on our lives.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5086/1

176) The P-Camera Experiment
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, October 27, 2025


In 1963, the Itek Corporation quickly created a small but powerful camera to fit into an existing reconnaissance satellite to take photographs of a suspected anti-ballistic missile facility in Leningrad. This rocket was prepared for launch in early June 1963 equipped with a mockup to test if the satellite could carry the camera. This flight was successful. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection)

The early years of the American satellite reconnaissance program, particularly the photo-reconnaissance satellites, have been declassified for some time now. We know the history up through the mid-1970s and the CORONA, GAMBIT, and HEXAGON programs, as well as more obscure projects like ARGON and LANYARD and Samos. However, there are still some minor mysteries from this early era, and one of them concerns something known as the “P-Camera Experiment.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5087/1

177) EUROSPACE and the European spaceplane (part 2)
by Hans Dolfing Monday, October 27, 2025

Figure 1. The British 3+1 cluster variant of “MUSTARD”, roughly 1964. [7,13] Concept art with permission from and © by Daniel Uhr https://duhraviationart.com/


[Part 1 was published last week.]

While the North American X-15 spaceplane program was in full swing, and Apollo picking up speed, the USAF Dyna-Soar X-20 space glider was cancelled in December 1963. [20,31] This part two about Eurospace and European spaceplanes studies follows the technical aspects of the European studies between roughly 1962 and 1966. The European engineers were well aware of the contemporary efforts in the United States and there are several detailed comparisons. [26,27]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5088/1

178) Is Starfleet military or scientific? Yes.
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, October 27, 2025


From the very beginning, Star Trek had military influences, but the ship and crew were on a mission of exploration. This conflict between the military and science has persisted throughout sixty years of the franchise, and is similar to aspects of the American space program, where military and civilian goals sometimes conflict. (credit: Paramount Pictures)

Glen Swanson, in his recent book Inspired Enterprise: How NASA, the Smithsonian, and the Aerospace Community Helped Launch Star Trek, explored the connections between Star Trek in the 1960s and various institutions such as NASA, the Smithsonian, and the aerospace industry. Swanson noted that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry modeled much of the show on the Navy. Although Roddenberry had been a pilot in the Army Air Corps during World War II, “I was always rather envious of the Navy and rather wished I had joined that service instead,” Roddenberry once wrote. The show used military ranks and hierarchy, and was heavily modeled upon the US Navy, such as the names of the starships that appeared or were mentioned throughout its three seasons. But the Starfleet in Star Trek had a scientific mission that at least rivaled its military one. The Enterprise’s mission wasn’t power projection or border enforcement, it was to “seek out new worlds and new civilizations.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5089/1

179) Space sustainability comes down to Earth
by Jeff Foust Monday, October 27, 2025


The growing number of launches, and eventual reentries of the satellites on board, have prompted concerns about how they may affect the upper atmosphere. (credit: SpaceX)

The growth of spaceflight activity has resulted in several recent major milestones. Earlier this month, SpaceX launched its 10,000th Starlink satellite, of which more than 8,700 are currently in orbit. Over the weekend, SpaceX also performed a Falcon 9 launch doubleheader, bringing its total orbital launches so far this year to 136. In less than ten months, Falcon 9 conducted more launches than the Space Shuttle did in its 30-year flight history.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5090/1

[Orionid]

41/XI 2025 [180-184]

180) Why Mars is America’s next strategic imperative
by Alexander William Salter Monday, November 3, 2025


Mars exploration provides a focus for an American strategy to remain competitive with geopolitical rivals. (credit: SpaceX)

Space is the defining strategic frontier of the 21st century. America’s space leadership depends on harnessing the private sector to create wealth and focusing the public sector on limited yet critical security and scientific objectives. While achieving supremacy in cislunar space (the region between the Earth and Moon, including the Moon’s surface) must be our immediate aim, it lacks the strategic coherence to sustain American leadership across decades. We need long-term goals to define success and clarify tradeoffs. A human mission to Mars can do both.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5091/1

181) Above us, always: Chronicling humanity’s home in space, in real time
by Emily Carney Monday, November 3, 2025


SS in Real Time chronicles historic events aboard the space station as they unfolded, including the world's first all-woman spacewalk, performed by astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir in 2019. Image credit: ISS in Real Time.

The International Space Station (ISS) program seems to run so silently and efficiently that not many people, save for space fans, remember that it has been functioning in orbit since 2000 (or really 1998, the year the first US and Russian segments were joined). By the numbers, the ISS program is staggering: as of July 2025, 290 people from 27 nations have visited or lived aboard the space station, conducting thousands of experiments. During its time in orbit, the ISS has witnessed the end of the 30-year Space Shuttle program and the dawn of the Commercial Crew Program. In short, the ISS has encompassed a massive block of space history.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5092/1

182) Live, it’s the Big Bird! The HEXAGON satellite and near-real-time reconnaissance
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, November 3, 2025


The HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite entered service in summer 1971. HEXAGON had two powerful cameras and used film that was recovered in reentry vehicles. In 1970, the camera manufacturer Perkin-Elmer proposed adding a capability to provide near-real-time imagery from orbit for the satellite after it had completed its primary mission. This proposal was not pursued, but by the 1980s, the last several satellites had a star tracker system that could be used to provide infrared imagery of targets on the ground. This is the engineering model, currently on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. (credit: Dwayne Day)

In late 1970, the Perkin-Elmer Corporation made a rather bold proposal to modify the HEXAGON film reconnaissance satellite to enable it to conduct near-real-time reconnaissance. It was unusual because HEXAGON had not yet launched and was behind schedule after suffering a series of delays and cost overruns in the previous several years. But the company was responding to an ongoing discussion within the intelligence community about the need for more timely satellite imagery. Perkin-Elmer’s proposal was not accepted at the time, but a decade later, the company included such a capability in its satellites.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5093/1

183) The (possibly) great lunar lander race
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 3, 2025


SpaceX is developing a version of Starship to land astronauts on the Moon, but there are concerns the company is well behind schedule. (credit: SpaceX)

This was the year—one of the years, anyway—that humans were supposed to return to the surface of the Moon.

After the dust settled from NASA’s selection in April 2021 of SpaceX’s Starship for the Human Landing System (HLS) program and subsequent GAO protest and lawsuit from losing bidders, NASA said it expected to use Starship on the Artemis 3 mission in 2025. That was already a delay from 2024 that the agency blamed on that extended litigation (see “Resetting Artemis”, The Space Review, November 15, 2021.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5094/1

184) Stilsat-1: A Russian-owned and Chinese-built satellite watching Ukraine (part 1)
by Bart Hendrickx Monday, November 3, 2025


Taijing-3-02, a Chinese-built satellite that is possibly being operated by Russia under the name Stilsat-1. Source

A satellite owned and operated by Russia has been snapping high-resolution images of Earth since last year, mainly to support the country’s war effort in Ukraine. The Russians call it Stilsat-1, but no satellite by that name has been officially announced as such after launch or registered with the United Nations. The reason is that it was built and launched by China and turned over to Russia on a turnkey basis. Although Russian officials have quietly acknowledged this, they have provided conflicting information on the satellite’s design and not revealed its exact launch date or its official Chinese name.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5095/1

42/XI 2025 [185-189]

185) The case for a kinetic anti-satellite test ban between the US and China
by Jimin Park Monday, November 10, 2025


Launch of an SM-3 missile from the cruiser USS Lake Erie in February 2008 on an intercept course with a disabled American reconnaissance satellite. (credit: US Navy)

The United States should pursue a new space-related arms control treaty: a ban on high-altitude direct-ascent anti-satellite (DA-ASAT) missile tests with China. First, kinetic ASAT capabilities heighten risks from space debris and endanger space assets. Second, a bilateral test ban could curb debris creation by restricting kinetic ASAT tests. Finally, while critics may argue that this proposal is too narrow in scope and limits US military advantages, a test ban represents a targeted, pragmatic, and interim solution that enhances security for all parties without undermining the military.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5096/1

186) From missions to activities: the defining space policy shift
by Namrata Goswami Monday, November 10, 2025


A Long March 2F rocket lifts off October 30 carrying the Shenzhou-21 crewed spacecraft, part of China’s expanding space efforts. (credit: Xinhua)

The global space policy landscape is undergoing a profound conceptual transformation: a shift from missions to activities. For much of the space age, policy frameworks were driven by specific, mission-focused goals: launch a satellite, land a rover, achieve human spaceflight, conduct Mars missions, and demonstrate prestige. These missions, often animated by Cold War competition and national symbolism, defined space as a domain of episodic achievement. Yet, in the 21st century, the structure of global space governance, strategy, and policy is evolving toward consistency: ongoing activities in, from, and to space that combine civil, commercial, and military aspects into a unified, coherent system.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5097/1

187) Isaacman’s second chance
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 10, 2025


An undated image posted by Jared Isaacman after his renomination was announced Nov. 4 of a meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office. (credit: X @rookisaacman)

The timing of the announcement was a surprise, even if its content was not unexpected.

Last Tuesday at 5:42 pm Eastern, President Trump posted on social media. “This evening, I am pleased to nominate Jared Isaacman, an accomplished business leader, philanthropist, pilot, and astronaut, as Administrator of NASA,” he wrote. “Jared’s passion for Space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the new Space economy, make him ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new Era.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5098/1

188) Stilsat-1: A Russian-owned and Chinese-built satellite watching Ukraine (part 2)
by Bart Hendrickx Monday, November 10, 2025


The Russian version of Stilsat. Source

As outlined in part 1, Stilsat-1 is a Chinese-built remote sensing satellite which was turned over to Russia on a turnkey basis after having been placed into orbit by a Chinese launch vehicle. It is presumably the satellite that was orbited by China on January 23, 2024, under the name Taijing-3-02. Manufactured by Beijing-based MinoSpace, it has an optical system with a resolution of 0.5 meters in panchromatic mode and 2 meters in multispectral mode.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5099/1

Przegląd koncepcji wahadłowców kosmicznych.

189) Blue wings into space: the Air Launched Sortie Vehicle
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, November 10, 2025


In the early 1980s, several aerospace contractors studied concepts for a small space shuttle vehicle. This vehicle would have been carried atop a 747 and then launched into space. (credit: Boeing)

Recently, NASA and Sierra Space announced that the Dream Chaser spacecraft would not be used to resupply the International Space Station but would instead fly on a standalone mission, blurring its path to commercial viability. Small winged spacecraft do not have a storied record—the European Space Agency’s Hermes spaceplane and the US Air Force’s Dyna-Soar were both canceled during development. Some small experimental spaceplanes such as the Soviet Bor and the Air Force’s PRIME had limited test flights.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5100/1

43/XI 2025 [190-193]

190) Review: The Launch of Rocket Lab
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 17, 2025



The Launch of Rocket Lab
by Peter Griffin
Blackwell & Ruth
hardcover, 300 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-473-74122-8
US$60
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0473741229/spaceviews

Rocket Lab has a certain aesthetic, and emphasis on aesthetics. That is evident in Launch Complex 3, the launch pad the company built for its Neutron rocket under development. The company eschewed the traditional concrete pad and metal tower in favor of a black pedestal with red accents, the company’s color scheme. All the connections between ground equipment and the rocket are made through the base of the vehicle, tucked away out of sight and eliminating the traditional gantry or strongback.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5101/1

191) America needs a National Astroelectricity Energy Security Transition Policy
by Mike Snead Monday, November 17, 2025


Space-based solar power, or “astroelectricity,” may be the only renewable power option to meet American energy needs in the coming decades. (credit: ESA/Andreas Treuer)

This article builds on my previous article here, “Astroelectricity: America’s national energy security imperative”. In this article, I explain why the Trump Administration—specifically, the National Space(faring) Council under the leadership of Vice President JD Vance—should formulate a National Astroelectricity Energy Security Transition Policy to guide America in undertaking an orderly transition to space solar power-supplied astroelectricity. I also propose a presidential executive order that would task the National Space(faring) Council to prepare such a policy for presidential approval.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5102/1

192) DARPA’s real lunar opportunity: Build the operating system, not the outpost
by Michael B. Stennicke Monday, November 17, 2025


For the Moon, DARPA’s strengths are not in developing infrastructure but instead architectures for interoperability. (credit: ESA/P. Carril)

When DARPA announced new programs on lunar logistics and autonomy, most headlines focused on spacecraft and hardware. Yet the real frontier the agency can shape is architectural, not mechanical.

The organization that once seeded the Internet can now do something comparable for the Moon by defining the protocols that will allow autonomous systems to coordinate, account, and trade without continuous human supervision.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5103/1

Historia satelitów rozpoznawczych.
Amrom Katz był jednym z ojców amerykańskiego programu satelitów rozpoznawczych.
W 07.1946 stacjonował na atolu Bikini, gdzie przygotowywał się do fotografowania testu bomby atomowej.

193) Mapping the dark side of the world (part 1): The KH-5 ARGON geodetic satellite
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, November 17, 2025


Launch of the first ARGON mapping satellite in February 1961. (credit: Peter Hunter)

Maps are in many ways the most basic of intelligence documents. They are powerful tools necessary for commanding an army. At the very least they tell a commander where the military objective is located and the best means of reaching it. Detailed maps can enhance an army's power many times, by allowing it to use the terrain itself as a weapon or a defense.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5104/1

44/XI 2025 [194-197]

194) How AI is making spacecraft propulsion more efficient
by Marcos Fernandez Tous, Preeti Nair, Sai Susmitha Guddanti, and Sreejith Vidhyadharan Nair
Monday, November 24, 2025


NASA studied nuclear propulsion in the 1960s in the NERVA program. New efforts to advance that technology could leverage artificial intelligence to improve designs. (credit: NASA)

Every year, companies and space agencies launch hundreds of rockets into space, and that number is set to grow dramatically with ambitious missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. But these dreams hinge on one critical challenge: propulsion.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5105/1

195) Space is the front line and not the final frontier
The United States should prioritize developing proactive norms of space warfare
by Magdalena T. Bogacz Monday, November 24, 2025


Developing norms of space warfare may require voluntary actions by some leading countries rather than binding treaties. (credit: UN)

A popular view of space as a sanctuary officially expired at least half a decade ago when countries such as the United States and China designated space as a distinct and unique warfighting domain. Unofficially, the vision of space as having potential to be free from all conflicts was always destined to fail before it could realize. A brief and shallow survey of the history of humanity reveals that war is not something we wage, but rather, war is something we are. Our proneness to competition and conflict mixed with our ambitions to discover, conquer, and overcome, both ourselves and our friends and foes, paints a clear picture: human nature is violent. Or, as Thomas Hobbes put it Leviathan, the condition of man is a condition of “war of everyone against everyone.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5106/1

196) Mapping the dark side of the world (part 2): supplementing, and supplanting, the ARGON geodetic satellite program
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, November 24, 2025


An ARGON mapping satellite image of the Gulf of Oman returned in 1964. (credit: Via Harry Stranger)

In February and April 1961, the first two KH-5 ARGON mapping satellite missions were unsuccessful due to reentry malfunctions. The next two missions, in June and July, suffered launch failures. Despite this poor record for ARGON, by December 1961, the United States had conducted ten successful CORONA reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union. In addition to detecting numerous new military facilities within previously “denied territory,” analysts had also begun using CORONA’s photographs to measure the size and relative location of these intelligence targets. This measurement was known as “mensuration” and involved the development of numerous new techniques and equipment for accurate measuring. Even if ARGON was not yet producing mapping data, CORONA could cover some of the requirement (see “Mapping the dark side of the world (part 1): the KH-5 ARGON geodetic satellite,” The Space Review, November 17, 2025).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5107/1

197) Revisiting the Wolf Amendment after 15 years
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 24, 2025


A Long March 2F lifts off late November 24 (US time) carrying an uncrewed Shenzhou-22 spacecraft to the Tiangong space station. (credit: Xinhua)

China has been going through what is arguably the biggest crisis in the history of its human spaceflight program in the last few weeks. In early November, the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) called off the planned return of three astronauts on the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft after reporting that inspections showed evidence of micrometeoroid or orbital debris strike on the spacecraft, which had been at the Tiangong space station since late April. The crew returned November 14—but on the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft that had just delivered a new three-person crew to the station at the end of October. Those astronauts remained on Tiangong with the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, which CMSEO said suffered damage to a window.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5108/1

[Orionid]

45/XII 2025 [197-201]

197) Chandrayaan-3 successfully undertakes lunar flybys
by Ajey Lele Monday, December 1, 2025


The Chandrayaan-3 propulsion module, seen here below the lander in pre-launch preparations, is providing insights long after the end of the lander mission. (credit: ISRO)

Indian space agency ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 mission, which was launched in July 2023, is in news again, this time for a successful lunar flyby on November 6 and another five days later. Two years ago, this mission performed a successful lunar touchdown on August 23, 2023. This mission had perfectly soft-landed the lander and rover unit on the lunar surface, thus making India only the fourth country in the world to achieve this distinction. This landing was done close to the lunar South Pole. a region where no other country had landed in the past.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5109/1

198) Our best energy and efforts
by Robert G. Oler Monday, December 1, 2025


Commercial vehicles like Blue Origin’s proposed upgrade to its New Glenn rocket, the New Glenn 9x4, should play a role in any revised lunar exploration strategy. (credit: Blue Origin)

Decades ago, when we are told the US was great, President Kennedy gave his rationale under the hot Texas sun for the lunar goal. The goal will “organize the best of our energies and skills,” he said. It did.

The success of Apollo confirmed the organization chosen. If Congress decides the goal is to return Americans to the Moon before others arrive first, we need to find the equivalent of that organization again.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5110/1

199) Mapping the dark side of the world (part 3): Replacing ARGON, the SAMOS E-4, and mapping the Moon
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, December 1, 2025


A HEXAGON Mapping Camera image of Thailand, taken in 1976. (credit: Via Harry Stranger)

Throughout the early 1960s, there was a constant bureaucratic turf battle over which service would control satellite mapping. While ARGON was in development and beginning launches, the Air Force was trying to produce a follow-on system, in the hopes that it would succeed ARGON and eventually push out the Army, which had a lead role in ARGON in cooperation with the CIA, and place the Air Force in overall charge of mapping and geodesy from space. The CIA’s position was primarily that mapping requirements should not interfere with gathering reconnaissance photos. By the second half of the decade, these arguments would result in compromises that ultimately led to the DISIC camera system, which also eventually made it to the Moon (see “Mapping the dark side of the world (part 1): the KH-5 ARGON geodetic satellite,” The Space Review, November 17, 2025).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5111/1

200) Burning Falcon: the death of a Russian laser ASAT plane
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, December 1, 2025


On the night of November 24, Ukraine launched an attack on a Russian airfield, damaging aircraft maintenance facilities and destroying two aircraft, including the A-60 aircraft equipped with an experimental laser ASAT system. The plane is identifiable by the structure atop the fuselage aft of the wing. (credit: Russian internet)

In the darkness of the early morning of November 25, Ukrainian drones and missiles hit the Russian Taganrog airbase. Russian social media soon lit up with videos of the attack, including an intriguing one showing a missile exploding above a large, oddly-shaped airplane. By early in the day on November 25, commercial satellite photos of the airbase became available, showing what many observers already suspected—that one of the airplanes destroyed at the base was a retired laser testbed, apparently for developing systems for attacking American satellites. Named “Falcon Echelon,” it is now a pile of rubble. But its mysteries remain.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5112/1

201) A big win for European space
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 1, 2025


Ministers from ESA’s member states gather in Bremen, Germany, November 26 to debate agency funding levels for the next three years. (credit: ESA/Ph. Servent)

It turns out there can be a little too much European unity in space.

During last week’s European Space Agency ministerial conference in Bremen, Germany, ESA officials passed out a book titled Elevation highlighting the agency’s long-term strategy and various programs intended to implement that strategy—programs that ESA was seeking funding for at the ministerial. Rather than just distribute a PDF or other electronic document, Elevation was a hardcover book lavishly illustrated with images of those programs.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5113/1

46/XII 2025 [202-206]

202) Review: The Pale Blue Data Point
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 8, 2025



The Pale Blue Data Point: An Earth-Based Perspective on the Search for Alien Life
by Jon Willis
Univ. of Chicago Press, 2025
hardcover, 256 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-226-82240-2
US$26.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226822400/spaceviews

Astronomers study stars, galaxies, and other astronomical phenomena. Planetary scientists study planets and their moons as well as asteroids and comets. Heliophysicists study the Sun and its interaction with the Earth’s magnetic field. Astrobiologists study life beyond Earth.
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226822400/spaceviews

203) In defense of Mark Kelly
by Steve Lindsey and Garrett Reisman Monday, December 8, 2025


Mark Kelly speaks at his 2023 induction ceremony into the Astronaut Hall of Fame. (credit: NASA/Chris Chamberland)

We’re astronauts. Both of us have flown with Senator Mark Kelly aboard the Space Shuttle and entrusted him with our lives. He is beyond reproach as an American patriot, and we never expected to hear him called a traitor or investigated and threatened with a court martial.

While at NASA, we did not bring politics into the cockpit. Service to the country always comes before politics. Comparing notes now, we realize that we have voted on opposite ends of the political spectrum. But this moment transcends politics and goes directly at the heart of our shared American values.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5115/1

204) Beyond launch: How in-space propulsion markets will determine winners in the $1 trillion space economy
by Malik Farkhadov Monday, December 8, 2025


While the space industry has focused on addressing the cost and frequency of launch, in-space propulsion remains a major obstacle to growth. (credit: SpaceX)

When SpaceX achieved a cost breakthrough of $2,700 per kilogram to low Earth orbit while competitors remained above $10,000 per kilogram, it didn’t merely create a pricing advantage. It fundamentally restructured the orbital infrastructure value chain. This dramatic cost reduction exposed a deeper economic paradox: while launch costs plummeted by 95% over three decades, the propulsion systems that determine satellite utility and longevity in space remained locked in suboptimal economic equilibria. The global space economy, valued at $613 billion in 2024 with 78% commercial participation, now faces a strategic inflection point where in-space propulsion economics, not launch capability, will determine which players capture value in the projected $1.8 trillion market by 2035.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5116/1

205) The long arm of a European space law
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 8, 2025


Andrius Kubilius, the EU commissioner for defense and space, unveiled the draft EU Space Act in June. (credit: EC Audiovisual Service)

Relations between the United States and the European Union aren’t exactly at a high point right now. Last week, the White House released its National Security Strategy that criticized unspecified activities of the EU “and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty,” and warned of the “stark prospect of civilizational erasure.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5117/1

206) NASA Goddard and the dawn of international cooperation in space
by Trevor Williams Monday, December 8, 2025


Replica of First British/US satellite Ariel 1. (credit: NASM)

The International Geophysical Year (IGY) that ran from July 1957 to December 1958 was the largest international scientific effort ever conducted to that date [1, p. 34]. Both the United States and the Soviet Union developed plans to launch satellites in conjunction with the IGY: indeed, Sputniks 1–3; Explorers 1, 3, and 4; Vanguard 1; and Pioneers 1 and 3 were launched during it. British scientists contributed to the IGY by tracking Sputnik and using the data to deduce atmospheric density and gravity harmonics of the Earth [1, p. 40], as well as by making ionospheric studies using the new Skylark series of sounding rockets [1, p. 46].
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5118/1

47/XII 2025 [207-210]

207) Space books! Get your space books! New space books you can get for Christmas
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, December 15, 2025



If you’re like me—and I know I am—then you’re always looking for new space books to add to your Big Pile of Unread Books That You Intend to Read Some Day Soon. So here are a few suggestions of books published in 2025. Caveat: I only own a few of these, and have read even fewer, so this is not a review of these books. Rather, this list has been compiled based upon recommendations I have received and read for these books.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5119/1

208) “Sovereign capacity” of private and public space programs
by Alexander Wallace Watson Monday, December 15, 2025


Launch is an area where Europe had to rebuild its sovereign capacity in recent years. (credit: ESA/P. Carril )

Space is a strategic industry due to widespread civilian and military dependency on its operations. Besides developing technological capacity, states must maintain commercial and political control of their space programs. The sovereign capacity of space operations is the sum of economic, legal, and political leverage a space program has over its supply chain.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5120/1

209) Huntsville and the Final Frontier
by Dwayne A. Day, photographs by James Kruggel Monday, December 15, 2025



The US Space and Rocket Center first opened its doors in 1970, soon after Apollo 12 had landed on the Moon. For years, the center—really a museum—had impressive displays about the history of US rocketry, focusing primarily on the subject of rockets rather than spaceflight. It also became the home of the first US Space Camp in the early 1980s. But by the 2000s, the museum had become a bit tired and dated, and its hagiographic depiction of Wernher von Braun was very out of date.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5121/1

210) SpaceX, orbital data centers, and the journey to Mars
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 15, 2025


SpaceX may leverage its Starlink constellation to branch out into orbital data centers, something that may require billions of dollars of capital but could tap in even larger markets. (credit: spaceX)

In May 2018, CNBC interviewed SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell when the network placed the company atop its “Disruptor 50” list of private companies, ahead of Uber, Airbnb, and Lyft. At the time the company was valued at $28 billion and was just starting to demonstrate the potential of booster reuse to lower its costs, paving the way for the Starlink constellation.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5122/1

48/XII 2025 [211-214]

211) Huntsville and the Final Frontier (part 2)
by Dwayne A. Day, photographs by James Kruggel Monday, December 22, 2025



In 2008, the US Space and Rocket Center opened a major new addition, The Davidson Center. It is filled with a Saturn V rocket and various artifacts and displays associated with its development and missions. These include rocket engines, instruments, wind tunnel models, a flown Apollo Command Module, and many others, such as the gravesites of squirrel monkey Miss Baker and her husband, Big George. A recent visit to the museum revealed all that it has to offer (see “Huntsville and the Final Frontier,” The Space Review, December 15, 2025.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5123/1

212) State-owned enterprises and commercial space in China
by Owen Chbani Monday, December 22, 2025


A Long March 4B lifts off earlier this month. It is built by one of several Chinese state-owned enterprises in the space industry. (credit: Xinhua)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Government.

Although it is convenient to adapt American conceptions of “new space” commercial entities pitted against “traditional” aerospace primes to the Chinese aerospace landscape,[1] Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) play a much different role in their commercial ecosystem. China has had a long history of state-owned commercial space activities, beginning in 1990 with the launch of AsiaSat-1 by the China Great Wall Industries Corporation
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5124/1

213) The Artemis Accords at five
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 22, 2025


Representatives of 39 nations who have signed the Artemis Accords met at the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney in September. (credit: NASA/Max van Otterdyk)

At an event in Washington earlier this month, government and industry officials celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Artemis Accords, now endorsed by 59 nations. Or is 60?

The uncertainty is linked to Latvia, which is in something of a liminal state when it comes to the Accords. The Latvian government announced in October that it would sign the Accords, seeing it as a step towards being a bigger player in the global space community.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5125/1

Długa historia obserwacji satelitarnych bombowców Backfire.

214) The Backfire bomber controversy
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, December 22, 2025


The Backfire can carry internal and external bombs, as well as cruise missiles, including anti-ship missiles. (credit: Dmitry Terekhov Wikimedia Commons)

On June 1, 2025, Ukrainian drones launched as part of Operation Spider’s Web destroyed at least four Tu-22M Backfire bombers and damaged at least one more during an attack at Belaya Air Base near Irkutsk. Drone video footage released later showed the swing-wing aircraft out in the open, burning, and within a day, satellite imagery revealed the wreckage of the medium-range bombers.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5126/1

Note: The Space Review will not publish the week of December 29. Happy Holidays!

[Orionid]

1/I 2026 [1-6]

1) Review: Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon
by Jeff Foust Monday, January 5, 2026



Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon, the Untold Story
by Jeffrey Kluger
St. Martin’s Press, 2025
hardcover, 304 pp.
ISBN 978-1-250-32300-2
US$32
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1250323002/spaceviews

It is almost an article of faith in the space community that the Gemini program has been overlooked and undercovered. It was the middle child of NASA’s early human spaceflight programs, sandwiched between the Mercury missions that put the first Americans in space and the Apollo missions that landed the first humans on the Moon. Gemini, space enthusiasts argue, didn’t get its due.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5127/1

2) See you on the other side: What Jim Lovell’s Apollo 8 mission taught a divided world
by Kathleen Bangs Monday, January 5, 2026



This will be the first New Year of the Space Age without Jim Lovell. The legendary astronaut, who died in August at the age of 97, is most remembered for his steady command of Apollo 13’s crippled spacecraft. But as we enter 2026, it’s his December 1968 Apollo 8 mission that offers a perspective to reconsider.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5128/1

3) Buck Rogers in the 20th century
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, January 5, 2026


Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth Century premiered as a movie in spring 1979 and then on the NBC network in September 1979. It last two seasons. It was not very good. (credit: Universal Studios)

Actor Gil Gerard passed away on December 16, 2025, due to what his wife described as a “rare and viciously aggressive form of cancer.” He was 82. He was most well-known for playing Buck Rogers in the 1979–1981 TV show “Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth Century.” If some television shows, particularly Star Trek, inspired people to go into scientific and engineering fields, or at least to become interested in spaceflight, Buck Rogers did not really inspire anybody, and was at best a lost opportunity, at worst, the non-Star Trek. The show did not last, and indeed, the character of Buck Rogers has not made it out of the 20th century. This wasn’t Gil Gerard’s fault. He was a better actor than the show deserved.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5129/1

4) Houston deserves a Space Shuttle, but not like this
by Maxwell Zhu Monday, January 5, 2026


The shuttle orbiter Discovery at its current home, the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center. (credit: J. Foust)

For nearly 15 years, the Discovery space shuttle has rested at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Millions of schoolchildren have wandered underneath, imagining the roar of its three RS-25 engines as it escapes Earth’s gravity, gazing up at the weathered silica tiles that once protected against the heat of atmospheric re-entry, marveling at its airframe that ferried 184 pilots, scientists, engineers—astronauts all—to and from Earth.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5130/1

5) Innovative, affordable, and expedited
by Robert Oler Monday, January 5, 2026


An alternative approach to returning humans to the Moon could involve Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander. (credit: Blue Origin)

It’s January 20, 2029, and Jared Issacman’s term as NASA administrator is over. Was it a success or failure? Answer: who is first to land on the Moon this century? If it’s China, then it’s a failure. If it’s US and our allies, he is a miracle worker. In the US, the game so far has been badly played but a few cards are still in hand; they need to be played aggressively.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5131/1

6) The Isaacman era begins at NASA
by Jeff Foust Monday, January 5, 2026


Jared Isaacman speaks at a NASA town hall December 19, a day after he was sworn in as NASA administrator. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

After a year-long roller coaster of a nomination and confirmation process, the finale was decidedly anticlimactic. On December 17, the full Senate took up Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA administrator, about six weeks after he was renominated (see “Isaacman’s second chance”, The Space Review, November 10, 2025). After senators voted 67–30 on a cloture motion, two hours of debate were reserved for senators to discuss the nomination.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5132/1

2/I 2026 [7-10]

7) Safe passage in the stars: The next Bretton Woods
by Alex Li Monday, January 12, 2026


Commerce involving lunar bases and other space facilities will require protection by some nation or group of nations. (credit: ESA/P. Carril)

“Whoever Commands The Sea Commands The Trade; Whoever Commands The Trade Of The World Commands The Riches Of The World, And Consequently The World Itself.” — Sir Walter Raleigh

Dedicated to the loving memory of my maternal grandmother, who taught me that strength comes from perseverance.

Even during the Age of Exploration, Sir Walter Raleigh understood one of the major factors of global influence: control of vital maritime trade routes. More than four hundred years later, this fact still rings true. With the Houthis Red Sea shipping attacks in 2023 and 2024 leading to supply chain disruptions, shipping delays, and insurance rate spikes, they reminded the world just how vital these trade routes remain for the global economy.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5133/1

8 ) Building empires in the sky: Effectuating off-Earth territorial expansion using existing legal frameworks
by Camisha L. Simmons Monday, January 12, 2026


Companies that want to mine the Moon or asteroids could follow legal approaches used in oil and gas exploration on Earth. (credit: ESA)

Throughout human history on Earth, various world powers have sought territorial expansion. We currently see territorial expansion efforts by Russia with respect to Ukraine and China’s desire to wrest ownership of Tawain. Though these attempts at territorial expansion on Earth are significant, the next seismic territorial expansion will occur off-Earth in outer space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5134/1

9) Japanese commercial firms as drivers of Japanese space policy
by Owen Chbani Monday, January 12, 2026


Satellite servicing startup Astroscale is part of a growing Japanese commercial space industry that benefits from policy changes. (credit: Astroscale)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Government.

The rise of America’s commercial space industry has become a key enabler of ambitious programs across the U.S. government and private sector. NASA’s Artemis Program, Golden Dome, and megaconstellations like Starlink and Kuiper all depend on the capabilities of America’s commercial space industry. Since the passage of Japan’s Basic Space Law in 2008, key Japanese firms have acted as key drivers of commercial-enabling policy, leading to a push within Japan for market-enabling regulations, legislation, funding schemes, and a quasi-commercial civil space program. This has also led to the recentering of aspects of the US-Japan space alliance to commercial-led ventures.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5135/1

3/I 2026 [11-15]

11) Apollos anew   
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, January 19, 2026



Many aspects of American space history have been extensively covered by historians. There are dozens of books about the Mercury and Gemini programs, and dozens more about the Apollo program. There are books about the missions themselves, astronaut biographies and autobiographies, official histories and technical histories. There are numerous documentaries and podcasts. Thus, it is almost impossible to produce something that is unique and new and adds substantively to what has already come before. In 2019, for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, the BBC World Service produced the amazing podcast “13 Minutes to the Moon…” which told the story of the final minutes before the landing so well, with so much detail, that it reshaped the listener’s understanding of what happened. That podcast proved that we could still be surprised.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5137/1

12) The successful development of Russia’s counterspace activities in LEO and GEO
by Matthew Mowthorpe and Markos Trichas Monday, January 19, 2026


The launch of Cosmos 2589, a spacecraft with a likely counterpsace mission. (credit: Russian MoD)

Russia has continued to develop its arsenal of counterspace capabilities. This has been undertaken often under the guise of developing experimental space systems. This research and development once in orbit and successfully proven has become operational. This includes co-orbital ASAT (Nivelir) systems described as space domain awareness and space-based situational systems.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5138/1

13) A hell of a character: the late, great, Martin Caidin
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, January 19, 2026


Martin Caidin, who died in 1997, was a prolific aviation and space author. (credit: Wikipedia)

There was a time when novelists—not all of them, but some of them—were larger than life versions of the characters they wrote: hard-drinking, cigar-chomping manly men who tried to out macho their literary rivals. They treated their typewriters as weapons and had reputations that were legendary. Hemmingway and Norman Mailer were the epitome of that stereotype.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5139/1

14) The PSLV-C62 failure marks a setback for India’s space ambitions
by Ajey Lele Monday, January 19, 2026


The PSLV rocket before the launch of the ill-fated PSLV-C62/EOS-N1 mission. (credit: ISRO)

On January 12, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) experienced a setback when its PSLV-C62/EOS-N1 mission failed to reach the designated orbit. While the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) performed nominally during its first two stages, an anomaly occurred during the third stage of the launch. Notably, on the previous PSLV mission, C61, launched in May 2025, also failed to reach orbit because of a problem with the third stage. Since September 1993, there have been 64 PSLV launches and, among them, five missions have failed. Because the PSLV has built an excellent track record over the years, the recent failures represent a serious concern.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5140/1

15) Liftoff for European launch startups
by Jeff Foust Monday, January 19, 2026


The second Spectrum rocket built by Isar Aerospace is scheduled to launch as soon as January 21. (credit: Isar Aerospace)

It was a little after six o’clock on a Friday evening and the factory was quiet. A little too quiet, perhaps.

“Where is everyone?” asked Stefan Brieschenk as he took a visitor on a tour. It was clear that, despite it being late on a Friday, he expected more people to be at work on the company’s rocket. There were, in fact, some people still working: installing cabling in the rocket’s first stage, assembling subsystems, putting equipment into test cells.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5141/1

4/I 2026 [16-20]

16) Review: The Islands and the Stars
by Jeff Foust Monday, January 26, 2026



The Islands and the Stars: A History of Japan’s Space Programs
by Subodhana Wijeyeratne
Stanford University Press, 2026
paperback, 352 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-5036-4478-6
US$35
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1503644782/spaceviews

Japan’s space industry suffered a setback last month with an unusual—maybe unique—launch failure. An H3 rocket lifted off carrying the Michibiki 5 navigation satellite, but the upper stage malfunctioned and reentered within hours, presumably with the satellite still attached. A report last week said that pressure in the upper stage’s liquid hydrogen tank dropped, causing reduced thrust of the stage’s engine on the first burn and a failure to ignite on the second. That loss of pressure started when the payload fairing separated. Investigators believes a shock from the fairing separation damaged the satellite and its payload adaptor, which fell into the upper stage and damaged propellant lines, creating a leak. The satellite itself, it appears, never made it to space: images show it falling off the upper stage when it separated from the first stage.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5142/1

17) Kazakhstan’s space strategy: can its high-tech assets propel it to Eurasia’s new broker?
by Zhaslan Madiyev, Olaf J. Groth, and A.B. Sinchev Monday, January 26, 2026


A new opportunity may be dawning for Kazakhstan in space beyond its role as a launch site. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Kazakhstan’s skies have long been a launchpad for the country’s dreams of advancement, and today, they may serve as a testing ground for a new model of regional cooperation. For decades, the country has balanced legacy connections with future-oriented ambitions. As space technology, advanced materials, robotics, and AI remake the global economy, Kazakhstan faces a rare opportunity: it can leverage its world-class infrastructure and growing innovation ecosystem to position itself as Eurasia’s “New Broker” of technological collaboration.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5143/1

18) How superheavy-lift rockets could transform astronomy by making space telescopes cheaper
by Martin Elvis Monday, January 26, 2026


Starship lifts off from Texas October 13 on its 11th test flight. (credit: SpaceX)

After a string of dramatic failures, the huge Starship rocket from SpaceX had a fully successful test on October 13, 2025. After a couple more test flights, SpaceX plans to launch it into orbit.

19) When satellites are hacked: the legal gray zone of non-kinetic space attack
by Aakansh Vijay and Udit Jain Monday, January 26, 2026


International space law has struggled with how to deal with non-kinetic antisatellite weapons. (credit: UN)

Satellites are the foundation of modern civilization. Global navigation systems, aviation safety, financial transactions, disaster management, and defense operations all depend on space-based services. As dependency on space infrastructure has increased, attacks on it show the emergence of a new silent modern conflict. During the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russia jammed GPS signals that were used by civilian aircraft and iinterfered with the Starlink satellite internet service in Ukraine. The commercial satellite network has been experiencing jamming, spoofing, and cyber-attacks, thus indicating a new mode of warfare that is glaringly unregulated.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5145/1

20) Inching towards launch
by Jeff Foust Monday, January 26, 2026


The SLS/Orion stack for Artemis 2 emerges from the Vehicle Assembly Building January 17. (credit: J. Foust)

The faithful turned out by the hundreds to see the rocket, and given the timing and conditions, they had to be really faithful.

Before sunrise on Saturday, January 17, employees and the families drove onto the grounds of the Kennedy Space Center, picking out prime viewing spots near the Vehicle Assembly Building. Besides being early on a Saturday morning, it was also unseasonably cold—for Florida—with temperatures in the low 40s Fahrenheit. Bundled up in winter coats, knit hats, gloves, and blankets, they looked like they were heading to an NFL playoff game in Chicago or Denver.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5146/1

[Orionid]

5/II 2026 [21-25]

21) From pacifism to pragmatism: Japan’s evolving space security policy
by Safia Mansoor Monday, February 2, 2026


Japan is developing national security space capabilities thorugh programs like the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System. (credit: Cabinet Office, Government of Japan)

The transformation of Japan from a hardcore pacifist state to a security-conscious space actor signifies the co-existence of national security imperatives and normative restraint. The shift from unique position on international space law and constitutionalism pacifism is driven by regional geopolitics and strategic contestation in outer space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5147/1

22) Dragonship: China builds a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier while satellites watch
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, February 2, 2026


China's newest aircraft carrier under construction. Two large square compartments visible in satellite photos are most likely reactor compartments. (credit: ChinaPLA via X)

In the fall of 2025, China commissioned its first indigenously-designed and built aircraft carrier, Fujian, named after a Chinese province. The commissioning ceremony was photographed from overhead by Western commercial reconnaissance satellites, but of course China proudly released their own photographs of the ceremony. The conventionally powered aircraft carrier is large and impressive. Although not quite as big as the US Navy’s Nimitz-class or Ford-class carriers, Fujian sports modern equipment, such as electromagnetic catapults and arresting gear.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5148/1

23) Suborbital’s descending trajectory
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 2, 2026


Blue Origin’s New Shepard lifts off January 22 on the NS-38 mission, the last for New Shepard for at least two years. (credit: Blue Origin)

January 22, 2026, may turn out to be a pivotal day in the history of Blue Origin, but not for reasons that were obvious that day.

“Wow! Wow! Wow!” Stiles said after landing. “Oh my gosh!”
In West Texas, the company conducted the latest launch of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle. The NS-38 mission was a typical flight for the company, the tenth in less than 12 months for the program. The one thing that stood out at the time is that one of the six customers who was named to the flight fell ill.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5149/1

24) Normalization of deviance
by Robert Oler Monday, February 2, 2026


The Orion heat shield from the Artemis 1 mission, whose erosion led to a lengthy investigation that has significantly delayed Artemis 2. (credit: NASA)

With all forms of motion, there exist the risk of errors committed in the execution process that are not trapped, coupled with flawed decision-making processes where threats are underestimated, played down, or inaccurately mitigated. Usually, errors in the decision-making process become more of a threat than the threats that are known to exist.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5150/1

25) High Jump: the JUMPSEAT signals intelligence satellite
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, February 2, 2026


The JUMPSEAT satellites began operations in 1971 and the program was finally shut down in 2006. The satellites provided signals intelligence information from orbits high over the northern hemisphere. (credit: NRO)

On March 21, 1971, a new and unusual rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast. It was a night launch and nobody viewing the rocket climb into the cold Pacific sky could tell that it was different than other Titan rockets that had launched from there many times before. But anybody at the base who saw it knew that it was new. Previous Titan rockets had narrow, pointy noses half the diameter of the Titan core stage. But this rocket had a thicker fairing, the same diameter as the core, indicating a new and bigger payload. The fairing was also tall, meaning that something long was packed inside. Once it reached orbit, anybody who had access to the orbital data could tell that rather than a low Earth orbit, it had instead headed into a highly elliptical orbit highly inclined to the Equator, one that took it low and fast over the southern hemisphere and then high and slower over the northern hemisphere, perfect for staring down on the Soviet Union for longer periods of time.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5151/1

6/II 2026 [26-30]

26) Review: To See Far
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 9, 2026



To See Far: Conflict and Cooperation on the Space Frontier
by James Van Laak
Ballast Books, 2005
hardcover, 392 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-966786-71-9
US$31.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1966786719/spaceviews

The history of the International Space Station is a surprisingly long one. As much time has elapsed from the 1993 decision to work with the Russians on what would be the ISS to the present day as has elapsed from that decision back to Alan Shepard’s 1961 suborbital spaceflight. With the ISS a constant presence for a generation of human spaceflight, its early history can seem as distant to some as the era of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5152/1

27) Much needed cargo for the Moon
by Ajay Kothari Monday, February 9, 2026


Upper stages from heavy-lift rockets like Falcon Heavy could be aggregated in orbit to provide a low-cost way of transporting cargo to the Moon. (credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

As noted at a House space subcommittee hearing last year, the Space Launch System (SLS) does not offer a sustainable or cost-effective option for lunar settlements. SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System (HLS) has the problem of needing 8 to 15 refueling (and getting it human rated for Artemis III) and also having too high a fineness ratio (FR) of about 5.5 to 6 for safe landing on possibly uneven and slanted surfaces at the lunar south pole. New Glenn may be available for Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) missions with the Blue Moon Mark I launcher soon and for human return with Mark II, which has a much lower FR of around 2.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5153/1

28) The Solar System Internet: Envisioning a networked future beyond Earth
by Scott Pace and Yosuke Kaneko Monday, February 9, 2026


The future of interplanetary communications means moving from traditional systems like the Deep Space Network (above) to more networked concepts. (credit: NASA)

As humanity’s ambitions extend beyond Earth—evidenced by NASA’s Artemis program and burgeoning commercial lunar and Martian ventures—the limitations of current space communications are increasingly apparent. Traditional point-to-point links, reliant on scheduled radiofrequency (RF) contacts and specialized protocols, struggle with the challenges of interplanetary distances such as propagation delays exceeding 20 minutes one-way to Mars, frequent line-of-sight disruptions, and asymmetric data rates where uplink capacities can be orders of magnitude lower than downlink. In response, researchers have been working to enable a Solar System Internet (SSI), a visionary architecture leveraging Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) using the Bundle Protocol (BP) to create a standardized, overlay network akin to (but distinct from) the terrestrial Internet.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5154/1

29) Breaking dishes: the space facility at Yevpatoriya
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, February 9, 2026


The 70-meter dish at Yevpatoriya photographed by an American reconnaissance satellite during the Cold War. In 2025 this dish was attacked by Ukrainian drones. (credit: Harry Stranger)

In August 2025, the Ukrainian military released a short video showing a drone attack on some domes at a satellite tracking station in Russian-occupied Crimea. In late September, they did it again, releasing a video showing a drone approaching a very large communications dish before the video went blank. In both cases, the targets were at a sprawling satellite tracking and communications facility known as Yevpatoriya. After illegally occupying Crimea in 2014, the Russian military reactivated at least part of the Yevpatoriya facility, which had been built during the Cold War as a major space communications facility and earned a bit of fame for the Soviet space program.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5155/1

30) The dominance of Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 9, 2026


Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and neighboring Kennedy Space Center hosted 109 launches in 2025, a record. (credit: Airman 1st Class Samuel Becker)

Around 2018, the Air Force’s 45th Space Wing announced an initiative dubbed “Drive for 48” intended to support an increased launch rate at the Eastern Range, which includes the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The goal, as the name suggested, was to support 48 launches a year: one per week, with two two-week maintenance periods. It was an audacious goal at a time when the range was hosting only a couple launches a month. The initiative took on an auto racing theme, including an illustration of a stock car emblazoned with the number 48.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5156/1

7/II 2026 [31-35]

31) Review: Webb’s Cosmos
by Christopher Cokinos Monday, February 16, 2026



Webb’s Cosmos: Images and Discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope
by Marcin Sawicki
Firefly Books, 2025
hardcover, 304 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-2281-0573-2
US$49.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0228105730/spaceviews

Spectacular images of galaxies, nebulae, stars, and more from the James Webb Space Telescope are readily available online. But having hundreds of them available in a single book is deeply satisfying. One can linger with them, with no distractions. Marcin Sawicki and a team of editors and designers at Firefly Books have produced a gorgeous, well-designed and informative book that gives us a record of JWST’s first years.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5157/1

32) Tame the wolf, release the panda: The case for US-China space cooperation
by Jimin Park Monday, February 16, 2026


A Long March 10A booster performs a soft splashdown near a recovery ship after a launch last week, the latest sign of China’s growing space capabilities. (credit: Xinhua)

The United States should repeal the Wolf Amendment and pursue a cooperative space relationship with China. First, China’s space program is motivated by prestige, rather than global domination. Space cooperation could satisfy China’s pursuit of status recognition, thereby improving US-China relations. Second, the Wolf Amendment prevents genuine engagement between the two countries, limiting opportunities for trust-building. Finally, while critics argue that space collaboration poses national security risks, engagement could promote more responsible behavior by fostering mutual understanding and restraint in space activities.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5158/1

33) Seattle’s lessons for rocket reusability
by Robert Oler Monday, February 16, 2026


New Glenn on its second launch last November. Blue Origin is again considering ways to reuse the rocket’s upper stage. (credit: Blue Origin)

Modern Seattle is known for the victorious Super Bowl LX Seahawks, a vibrant lifestyle, and manufacturing of infrastructure that sustains the nation’s and the world’s economies. Today’s reality is a long journey from 1853 when what would become Seattle was a bunch of settlements on what would become known as Puget Sound.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5159/1

34) Musk’s Moon mania
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 16, 2026


In a presentation to xAI employees, Elon Musk described establishing a “Moonbase Alpha” that would build AI data center satellites and launch them using a mass driver. (credit: xAI)

What has been the most surprising development in space in the last year? Perhaps it was the saga of Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA administrator. That was an unprecedented ordeal, with Isaacman’s nomination suddenly withdrawn only for him to be renominated months later. But in the end, the result was what most expected a year ago: Isaacman leading the space agency.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5160/1

35) When second best is good enough: The Initial Defense Satellite Communications System
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, February 16, 2026


The US military’s first operational communications satellite system was designed to be relatively simple and fast, after a much more complicated program failed. Here Initial Defense Satellite Communications System (IDSCS) satellites are integrated into their payload dispenser in 1966. (credit: USAF)

The US Air Force pioneered military satellite communications in the early space age. But its path to getting there was not direct or smooth. In the late 1950s, the Army Signal Corps was placed in charge of developing a military satellite communications capability, with the Air Force supplying the launch vehicle. The Army program was named Advent, and it was a highly ambitious plan to put a large satellite in geosynchronous orbit at a time when the United States was having difficulty launching even small satellites into low Earth orbits.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5161/1

8/II 2026 [36-40]

36) AI and Army astronauts: A judge advocate’s solution to protecting the soldier-astronaut
by Mitch Y. Topaloglu Monday, February 23, 2026


When a member of Crew-11 suffered a medical issue in January, the crew could easily return to Earth, an option that won’t exist for futre missions to the Moon and Mars. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

The United States Army is the most formidable and versatile fighting force in human history. Some of the greatest pioneers of our Republic have come from the Army. In the spirit of CPT Lewis and 2LT Clark, the Army continues a legacy of trailblazers, found in the ranks of the soldier-astronauts. These astronauts are among the best and brightest our republic has to offer. As they forge a path to the future, the Army owes a responsibility to protect these pioneering soldiers and prioritize their well-being.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5162/1

37) When Iran took the Internet hostage, Elon Musk held the keys
by Bharath Gopalaswamy Monday, February 23, 2026


Starlink has enabled Iranian protestors to keep in contact with the outside world, but raises policy issues. (credit: SpaceX)

As protests spread across Iran in early 2026, the government reached for one of its most reliable tools of control. Internet access was sharply restricted, mobile data was slowed or cut, and international connections were disrupted. For years, such shutdowns allowed authoritarian states to fragment protest movements and choke off the flow of information beyond their borders. This time, the blackout did not fully hold.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5163/1

38) We can build cities on the Moon—but who will govern them?

Amid a global lunar rush, will we land peaceful norms alongside our spacecraft?
by Rachel Williams and Jatan Mehta Monday, February 23, 2026


Illustration of a SpaceX Lunar Starship taking off from a Moonbase. (credit: SpaceX)

Earlier this month, SpaceX and its founder Elon Musk flipped their stance on the Moon from treating it as a distraction to positioning it as central to their idea of preserving our civilization—after more than two decades of emphasizing Mars as the primary destination . The stated rationale for change and the catalyst involves building a Moonbase and a self-growing city within ten years that can power lunar factories and launch orbital AI data centers, the latter part being the backdrop to SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5164/1

39) Prometheus bound: The legacy of the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, February 23, 2026


The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) program was started in 2002 and canceled in 2005. It would have sent a large spacecraft to orbit Jupiter. It would have been insanely expensive. (credit: NASA)

In 2002, NASA began one of the most ambitious robotic projects the agency ever considered, a large, nuclear-powered spacecraft to explore the icy moons of Jupiter. Known as the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, or JIMO, it would have used a nuclear reactor and a powerful electric propulsion system to reach and orbit Jupiter, visiting and studying Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. But two and a half years later, JIMO was canceled after spending $463 million, with no hardware built.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5165/1

40) “We failed them”: NASA grapples with Starliner
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 23, 2026


Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner docked to the International Space Station during the CFT mission in 2024. (credit: NASA)

In briefings before the launch earlier this month of the Crew-12 mission to the International Space Station using a SpaceX Crew Dragon, reporters asked NASA officials about the status of the other commercial crew vehicle, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner. That vehicle has been grounded since its flawed crewed test flight in mid-2024 that led NASA to bring the spacecraft back without the two astronauts who launched on it. Those astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, returned last March on a Crew Dragon, an eight-day test flight that turned into an eight-month expedition.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5166/1

[Orionid]

9/III 2026 [41-45]

41) Review: Becoming Martian
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 2, 2026



Becoming Martian: How Living in Space Will Change Our Bodies and Minds
by Scott Solomon
MIT Press, 2026
hardcover, 280 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-262-05151-4
US$29.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262051516/spaceviews

Books can benefit, or suffer, from good or bad timing outside of the control of the author or publisher. Take, for example, Robert Zubrin’s The Case for Mars, which had the benefit of being published three decades ago around the time NASA announced evidence of past primitive life on Mars found in a Martian meteorite. Zubrin’s ideas for human Mars exploration, while not new to the space community, found a receptive audience in a broader public energized by the life discovery. That boosted book sales and helped lead to the formation of The Mars Society, which has far outlived the Martian meteorite discovery that the scientific community has since largely debunked.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5167/1

42) Gala time! The Chinese New Year narratives of the space program
by Krzysztof Karwowski Monday, March 2, 2026


A fragment of the 2026 show showing Chang’e with her companion, the jade rabbit Yutu, greeting the Taikonaut on the surface of Swan Lake in Hefei, the capital of Anhui. (credit: CCTV-1, screened by K. Karwowski on February 16, 2026)

On February 16, 2026, China marked the end of the Year of the Snake, celebrating its own New Year’s Eve. In the hundreds of millions of homes, alongside red decorations, festive dishes, and family celebration, one element usually dominates the evening: Chunwan (春晚). It is a special New Year Gala directed by the China Media Group (CMG), a state conglomerate supervising television, radio, and press operators across the country, and broadcast globally by China Central Television (CCTV). The Gala typically runs for four hours and, in 2018, was recognized by Guinness World Records as the most-watched television program worldwide, attracting over one billion simultaneous viewers, with cumulative streaming figures reaching into the tens of billions in subsequent years.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5168/1

43) All’s well that’s Roswell
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, March 2, 2026


A crashed flying saucer? No, an aeroshell for NASA’s Voyager-Mars program tested in the desert. (credit: NASA)

On February 19, the president stated that he had directed the government to “begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).” In the mid-1990s, political pressure resulted in the release of information and the production of two reports on the so-called “Roswell Incident” of 1947. These reports added substantively to the historical record of Cold War aerospace programs. Hopefully, the new efforts will also be productive in opening up the history.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5169/1

44) The ghost in the orbit: how hybrid surveillance reshapes risks
by Zohaib Altaf Monday, March 2, 2026


GHOST-R is a successor to the GSSAP program of GEO surveillance satellites, this time with a greater commercial role. (credit: US Space Force)

On February 5, 2026, the formal expiration of the New START Treaty removed the final terrestrial guardrail of nuclear transparency between the United States and the Russian Federation, leaving global security in a state of strategic blindness. This treaty, which for 14 years limited deployed strategic nuclear warheads and allowed for rigorous on-site inspections, lapsed without a follow-on agreement. While diplomatic proposals for extensions surfaced in late 2025, they lacked the critical verification measures that historically defined the treaty’s success.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5170/1

45) Accelerating Artemis
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 2, 2026


NASA administrator Jared Isaacman (left) visits the Artemis 2 stack at Launch Complex 39B after the latest problems with the rocket led the agency to roll it back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs. (credit: NASA/John Kraus)

When NASA rolled out the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to Launch Complex 39B in mid-January, officials were optimistic the rocket could launch in a window in early February (see “Inching towards launch”, The Space Review, January 26, 2026.) Those hopes were dashed when a wet dress rehearsal was cut short because of hydrogen leaks similar to those seen during preparations for Artemis 1 in 2022.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5171/1

10/III 2026 [46-50]

46) Review: Why Space?
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 9, 2026



Why Space?: The Purpose of People
by Rick Tumlinson
Manuscripts LLC, 2025
paperback, 288pp.
ISBN 979-8-88926-421-7
$19.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0FXD6NY8G/spaceviews

If you’ve been at any space advocacy event of some kind in the last 30 years or so, you have probably seen a talk by Rick Tumlinson. One of the co-founders of the Space Frontier Foundation, Tumlinson has long been one of the most passionate advocates for what became known as NewSpace, the more commercial, entrepreneurial approach to space that contrasted with, and often clashed with, traditional aerospace contractors and government programs. He would often start his talks with a simple declaration: “Welcome to the revolution.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5172/1

47) Robert Goddard and the dawn of the rocket age
by Bruce McCandless III and Emily Carney Monday, March 9, 2026


Robert Goddard poses with liquid-fueled rocket before its historic launch on March 16, 1926. (credit: Esther Goddard, Courtesy of Clark University)

His full name was Robert Hutchings Goddard. Born on October 5, 1882, in Worcester, Massachusetts, the father of American rocketry was a frail child, often ill, fussed over by an adoring grandmother. He showed an early fondness for building gadgets, and he seems to have been interested in just about everything. He set off firecrackers and Roman candles, performed rudimentary experiments with electricity, and organized a team of neighborhood youths to dig a tunnel to China, which was apparently never completed.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5173/1

48) Big wing bird: NASA’s WB-57 gets grounded
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, March 9, 2026


One of NASA’s three WB-57 high-altitude research aircraft made a gears-up landing in late January. The aircraft were developed during the Cold War to perform intelligence missions. (credit: KHOU)

On January 27, 2026, NASA 927, a big-winged WB-57F with an elegant white and blue paint scheme, performed a gear-up landing at Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base, trailing sparks and smoke as it slid down the runway, making a horrible sound until it slid to a stop. The WB-57F is not the easiest aircraft to land, because its wings generate so much lift that it wants to be in the air, not on the ground, but fortunately both crew members onboard survived with no injuries. The aircraft, N927NA, sustained significant damage and remains grounded. NASA operates three WB-57Fs, high-altitude scientific research aircraft that have long had many connections to the agency’s space programs. The planes are the legacy of a mysterious Cold War era program that in some ways owed its existence to the U-2 spyplane.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5174/1

49) Reforging Vulcan
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 9, 2026


A ULA Vulcan Centaur lifts off February 12 on the USSF-87 mission. The launch was a success but one of the rocket’s four solid boosters suffered a “significant performance anomaly” in flight. (credit: United Launch Alliance)

The Ariane 6 and Vulcan Centaur have remarkably intertwined launch records. On August 12, an Ariane 6 lifted off from French Guiana less than 20 minutes before a Vulcan lifted off from Cape Canaveral. The launches were the third for each vehicle, each of which had suffered years of development delays before making their first launches in 2024.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5175/1

50) McDonnell’s Military Test Space Station (MTSS)
by Hans Dolfing Monday, March 9, 2026


Figure 1: MTSS report by McDonnell Aircraft “Configuration selection”.[1]

Between 1959 and 1962, the United States Air Force studied a space station named the Military Test Space Station (MTSS). This was part of the System Requirement (SR) study SR 17527, Task Nr 7969, and discussed in depth in an earlier article.[1]

Five contractors were selected in April 1960 to study the MTSS and contracts were awarded in August of the same year. The contractors were McDonnell Aircraft Corporation (MAC), General Electric (GE), Lockheed, Martin, and General Dynamics/Astronautics (GD/A).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5176/1

11/III 2026 [51-55]

51) Golden domes, fragile firms: the business risks of AI-enabled space infrastructure
by Bharath Gopalaswamy and Daniel Dant Monday, March 16, 2026


Satellite constellations increasingly use AI to allocate capacity and resources, creating business risks. (credit: OneWeb)

Imagine a sudden escalation involving Iran that disrupts regional communications, energy flows, and military signaling across the Middle East. Commercial satellite operators providing broadband connectivity, imagery, and radiofrequency sensing are quietly pulled into the crisis. Traffic spikes as governments, humanitarian organizations, and energy firms compete for bandwidth. At the same time, jamming, cyber interference, and regulatory pressure constrain capacity. No minister or general is manually allocating satellites. Instead, artificial intelligence-driven routing systems decide within milliseconds whose data moves, whose images are refreshed, and whose connections degrade. To affected states, these constellations look like strategic infrastructure. To their owners, they remain revenue generating platforms with finite capacity, investor expectations, and fragile balance sheets.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5177/1

52) Artemis via the ISS? A breakout opportunity for kickstarting a sustainable cislunar economy
by Madhu Thangavelu Monday, March 16, 2026
Execution is the chariot of genius – William Blake


The International Space Station could help anchor the development of a more sustainable lunar exploration effort, tapping into commerce as well as exploration. (credit: Maxar)

NASA has a new administrator, the youngest to hold that office, who won a lopsided approval from the US Senate. Under the watch of the interim administrator, NASA had a 20% reduction in its workforce, something not seen in many decades. Along with recommendations from the inspector general’s office, from prior administrations as well, Isaacman noted that the Space Launch System (SLS) costs are unsustainable. Congress has approved a 2026 budget that reinstates much of the budget, overriding cuts requested by the current administration with a caveat that SLS be preserved as core of the Artemis program, with Artemis 2 being prepared for launch as soon as early April.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5178/1

53) The next phase of space ambitions in Texas
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 16, 2026


An illustration of a lunar testing facility that will be located in the Texas A&M Space Institute, set to open this fall. (credit: United Launch Alliance)

In 2023, the Texas state government made a big bet on growing the state’s space industry. It appropriated $350 million for state space projects, including the creation of the Texas Space Commission. The commission was charged with disbursing $150 million of that funding for companies and organizations in the state (see “A whole other spacefaring country”, The Space Review, March 10, 2025.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5179/1

54) If China returns to the Moon first, will Americans care?
by Dante Sanaei Monday, March 16, 2026


China has plans to land people on the Moon by 2030. (credit: CCTV)

It is 2030.

Chinese astronauts step onto the lunar surface under the flag of the People’s Republic—the first humans to return since Apollo. The United States had pledged to be there first. Its lander is still not ready.

The race is over. China has won.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5180/1

55) Jupiter on the Space Shuttle and the Titan II: the FARRAH signals intelligence satellites
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, March 16, 2026


The first publicly released photo of the FARRAH V signals intelligence satellite, launched in 1992 to detect electronic signals—mostly radars—on the ground. (credit: NRO)

In 1980, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) determined which of its satellite programs would transition to use the Space Shuttle and which would continue to use existing expendable launch vehicles.[1] With the KENNEN near-real-time photo-reconnaissance satellite now operational, the GAMBIT and HEXAGON photo-reconnaissance satellite programs were both scheduled to retire during the 1980s and thus would not be modified to fly on the shuttle. Because smaller Program 989 electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellites like URSALA, RAQUEL, and FARRAH had launched off the side of HEXAGON satellites, they would need a new way to reach orbit after the end of the HEXAGON program. Two FARRAH satellites, FARRAH I and II, were already planned for HEXAGON launches, but any further FARRAHs would need a new trip to orbit.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5181/1

[Orionid]

12/III 2026 [56-60]

56) Review: Stuck in Space
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 23, 2026



Stuck in Space: An Astronaut’s Hope Through the Unexpected
by Butch Wilmore
The Heirloom Press, 2026
hardcover, 240 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-967496-04-4
US$32.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1967496048/spaceviews

Throughout the saga that started in the middle of 2024 with the crewed test flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, NASA bristled at any suggestion that the two astronauts on that flight, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, were “stuck” or “stranded” in space. They could leave the station at any time in an emergency, either on Starliner itself or a Crew Dragon spacecraft, the agency reiterated, even as officials ultimately decided it was not safe enough for the two to perform a normal return to Earth on Starliner.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5182/1

57) The legal aspects of outer space settlers and settlements
by Dennis O’Brien Monday, March 23, 2026


Any future settlements on Mars or elsewhere beyond Earth face legal challenges. (credit: SpaceX)

We have reached the point in human history when advances in technology, finance, and law have made the utilization of outer space resources feasible. In response, the UN’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) created the Working Group on Legal Aspects of Space Resource Activity. For similar reasons, it is time to focus on the legal aspects of outer space settlers and settlements.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5183/1

58) Zarya: the Super-Soyuz that only lived twice
by Maks Skiendzielewski Monday, March 23, 2026


Left: “Reusable manned spacecraft Zarya: 1. Descent module 2. Cargo 3. Landing engine 4. Work compartment 5. Pressure vessel 6. Porthole 7. Star sensor 8. Ejection seat 9. Control panel 10. Antenna of the rendezvous equipment 11. Engine compartment 12. On-board equipment 13. Docking and orientation engines 14. Heat shield shock absorber 15. Doppler velocimeter 16. Refueling and propulsion system 17. Expendable compartment 18. SEP and EKhG 19. Wall-mounted radiator”. Right: landing of the Zarya spacecraft. Semyonov (ed.), 1996, scanned and processed by the author.

In the late 1980s, with the development of the first modules of Mir nearing its end and their launches on the horizon, NPO Energia started work on the station’s successor. It was to be another generational step after Salyut-6 introduced multiple docking ports allowing continuous crewed operation and resupply missions and Mir became the first truly modular station, drastically expanding the available volume and bringing specialized modules to the mix.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5184/1

59) NavIC: India’s “jinxed” navigational program, or a cornerstone of India’s misplaced space priorities?
by Ajey Lele Monday, March 23, 2026


The NVS-02 navigation satellite before its ill-fated launch last year. (credit: ISRO)

India’s NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) is a regional satellite navigation system developed to provide accurate positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services across India and up to 1,500 kilometers beyond its borders, with plans for a further extension out to 3,000 kilometers. Originally known as the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), it has been designed, developed, and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5185/1

60) The science of Artemis 2
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 23, 2026


Artemis 2 returns to the pad early March 20, ahead of a launch as soon as April 1. (credit: NASA/Brandon Hancock)

The next humans to leave Earth orbit may launch as soon as next week. Just after midnight Friday, the Space Launch System rocket, with its Orion spacecraft on top, reemerged from the Vehicle Assembly Building, making an 11-hour trek back to Launch Complex 39B. The vehicle had spent the last three weeks in the VAB to fix a blockage of helium in the upper stage that caused NASA to call off a launch in an early March window, along with other maintenance.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5186/1

13/III 2026 [61-65]

61) Artemis 2, Project Hail Mary, and the risks and benefits of human spaceflight
by Scott Solomon Monday, March 30, 2026


Project Hail Mary is showing one aspect of human spaceflight at the same time Artemis 2 prepared to go around the Moon. (credit: Amazon/MGM Studios)

The central premise of the blockbuster film Project Hail Mary is a long-shot mission with a familiar goal: Save humanity from extinction. While the details of the threat facing humanity are new to this story, moviegoers are used to bingeing on popcorn while watching a heroic quest to save the Earth from certain doom. And like so many popular movies of this genre, from Armageddon to Interstellar, the hero’s journey involves a seemingly impossible mission into space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5187/1

62) From advantage to arena: space power 1991–2026
by Bharath Gopalaswamy Monday, March 30, 2026


Space operations have gone from the edges to the core of modern American military efforts. (credit: US Air Force)

On February 28, 2026, Operation Epic Fury opened not with bombers over Tehran but with space and cyber forces blinding Iranian sensors and severing its military communications network before a single aircraft crossed the border. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine described it plainly: the first movers were US Space Command and US Cyber Command. Space did not support the opening of the campaign. Space was the opening of the campaign. That is a threshold that has no precedent in the history of space enabled warfare, and understanding what produced it requires going back 35 years to a different desert, a different adversary, and a very different relationship between space and conflict.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5188/1

63) Convair’s Manned Astronomical Research Station (MARS)
by Hans Dolfing Monday, March 30, 2026


Figure 1: Astronaut with MARS, March 20, 1961. [1]

In 1960, Convair in San Diego was an independent division of General Dynamics/Astronautics (GD/A) and employed experienced engineers such Krafft A. Ehricke and Karel J. Bossart under the directorship of James R. Dempsey.[10] Work from 1959 to 1961 resulted in a mockup space station to evaluate many aspects of confined life in space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5189/1

64) A little more light in the shadows: the NRO and the Space Shuttle in 1976
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, March 30, 2026


Significant money and effort was spent by the Air Force in the early 1980s to develop a shuttle launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Many National Reconnaissance Office satellites required this launch site. (credit: USAF)

There are few gaping holes in American space history, subjects that have not received the coverage they deserve. But an important and still neglected history subject is the National Reconnaissance Office’s role in the Space Shuttle program. Much of that history remains classified, but bit by bit, the NRO, which manages and operates the United States’ fleet of intelligence satellites, is releasing more information about the office’s two-decade involvement in the Space Shuttle program. It was an often-rocky relationship.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5190/1

65) Igniting a new vision for NASA
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 30, 2026


An illustration of a proposed lunar base, the centerpiece of the NASA Ignition event. (credit: NASA)

On January 14, 2004, President George W. Bush spoke in the auditorium at NASA Headquarters to discuss what became known as the Vision for Space Exploration. It was one of the biggest space policy announcements of the post-Apollo era: retiring the Space Shuttle in 2010 after completing the International Space Station, with a human return to the Moon no later than 2020 (see “Looking beyond vision”, The Space Review, January 19, 2004.)

Last week, in the same auditorium, was one of the biggest announcements since then. Rather than a brief presidential speech, NASA leadership spent a full day going through a major revamp of its exploration, science, and space technology plans. Some of the announcements at the “Ignition” event were surprising, while others were widely anticipated. The combination, though, represented the effort by NASA’s administrator, Jared Isaacman, to quickly put his stamp on the agency just months after being sworn in, with the backing of the White House.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5191/1