Ends and Odds

Since there's no particular order to what to write about, there's no particular reason to say odds and ends rather than ends and odds.   

About Liberty's Torch blog 

The first one is a bit  of administrative trivia.  Recently, and I'm thinking two weeks ago, I went to Liberty's Torch, the domain of Francis W. Porretto, and my browser couldn't connect.  I tried a couple of times during the day, then a couple of days, and it couldn't connect.  Then it acted normally.  For a day or maybe two.  I was going to post a comment over there asking what's up but figured there wasn't much of a chance there'd be something going on that they didn't know about ("they" = Francis and whoever else helps run the place).  Then it disappeared again. 

This Wednesday, I did a search (Duck Duck Go is the search engine I use most) to see if there was any news in the last week about Liberty's Torch.  That was when I found that Francis and all seem to have moved to an old Blogger (Google) site, Bastion of Liberty.  I've changed the link to the blog in the right sidebar.  It looks rather low key or low interest; there are posts on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (as in yesterday: 8/8).  

Yes, Francis is a writer and advertises his various books, none of which I've ever bought, but he's a good guy, and a good writer.  He's also a fellow technogeek, although I'm all but positive he's in completely different fields than mine.  I don't recall a single time he wrote on the tech topics I regularly do, but I read him regularly.  Unless it's just not an interesting subject to me.

More About "Nukes on the Moon!"

The day after my post talking about the news on building a nuclear reactor power source on the moon, in which my main point was that nuclear power for planetary exploration has been in the "to do list" for a long, long time, the daily email from Payload added to the story with something I didn't have a link to in my own blog but fit the idea perfectly.  In "NASA Wants To Hit the Accelerator On Lunar Atomics" they talk about a current program that's under half the size of what NASA is asking for now. 

NASA was pursuing a plan to put nuclear power on the Moon long before Trump took office. In 2022, NASA hired contractors Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse, and IX—a joint venture of Intuitive Machines and X-energy—to design 40kw reactors for the Moon. A plan to solicit final designs was expected this year, but now energy will turn toward the new reactor concept. 

“We’re really glad to see that this directive came out,” Lockheed VP Kevin Au, who leads the company’s lunar business, told Payload. “The United States has been investing in and working on nuclear space capabilities since the 50s, [but] we haven’t flown anything since 1965.”

Note that this 2022 contract was for a 40kW reactor while the one being talked about now is 100 kW.  That means more than twice as much heat being created in the reactor and heat is the big engineering problem.  Most of the nuclear power here on the surface is water cooled - built on rivers, or with access to the oceans or other large water sources.  How do we cool computers?  Fans, moving air, but sometimes circulating refrigerants (like Freon).  The temperature exchange with the air, coolant or whatever is critical.  I wonder if compressed air could create a good cooling medium on the moon?  

Lockheed VP Kevin Au, who leads the company’s lunar business, has a good observation:

“We’re really glad to see that this directive came out,” ... Au told Payload. “The United States has been investing in and working on nuclear space capabilities since the 50s, [but] we haven’t flown anything since 1965.” 

Remember the Firefly Aerospace IPO?

It went well for them.  Shares in Firefly (FLY) began trading at $70 on the NASDAQ stock exchange midday Thursday, jumping from their offering price of $45, The Wall Street Journal reports. The company sold more than 19 million shares in the listing, raising $868 million. 

Edit 8/10/25 at 8:00 PM:  Earlier in the day an anonymous commenter posted a link to Francis Porretto's blog on Cold Fury.  After checking it, I decided to correct the new link in the right side bar to the Cold Fury site. 

 

Jim Lovell, Gemini and Apollo Astronaut Passes at 97

Jim Lovell, veteran of four space flights including the famous Apollo 13 passed away yesterday, August 7 in Lake Forest, Illinois.  That short summary only hints at his contributions to the Gemini and Apollo programs, and space history.  The following biography is primarily lifted from a 2020 post on Space.com. 

Jim Lovell is an ex-NASA astronaut who flew with the Gemini and Apollo missions. He's most famous for his role as commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission that so nearly ended in tragedy. At the time of the mission, Lovell had spent more time in space than anyone in the world, and in total, logged over 700 hours in space. 

In 1994, Lovell worked with journalist Jeffrey Kluger to write a book about Lovell's career and the Apollo 13 mission. The book, "Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13" (Houghton Mifflin, 1994), spurred the 1995 movie "Apollo 13," starring actor Tom Hanks. 

Lovell was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1928. He developed an interest in rocket science as a high school student, and went on to study engineering at the University of Wisconsin, according to The National Aviation Hall of Fame (which he was inducted into in 1998). Lovell then attended the U.S. Naval Academy where he graduated with a bachelor of science degree in 1952. 

In 1958, Lovell graduated from the Navy's test pilot school and spent the next several years testing fighter aircraft and other jets before they were authorized for use by less experienced pilots.  Also in 1958, he married Marilyn Gerlach; they would have four children together. (Marilyn passed away in September 2023.)  The Navy's test pilots were among the best aviators in the country, and as such, were prime candidates for NASA's astronaut program in the early 1960s. 

Lovell was selected as a potential astronaut candidate for Project Mercury but was turned down because of a temporary excess of a protein called bilirubin in his blood, which could have been indicative of a liver problem. When he protested NASA the response he received was, "I have five men out there who don't have a bilirubin problem, and 26 more on the way who probably don't," Lovell recounted in "Lost Moon." 

But he got a second chance when NASA began recruiting astronauts for the Gemini and Apollo programs, and Lovell was selected for the program in 1962. 

Lovell served as a backup for Gemini 4, before being assigned as one of two crew members on Gemini 7, which launched on Dec. 4, 1965. 

The Gemini 7 flight was an endurance mission in every sense of the word. Lovell and Frank Borman spent more than 330 hours (nearly two weeks) in a spacecraft about the size of a coat closet. The men carried out nearly 20 experiments and operated without their spacesuits on for the first time, according to NASA. They also successfully rendezvoused with Gemini 6A on Dec. 15, 1965 and the two spacecraft moved around in close proximity for a little over 5 hours. After 209 orbits around Earth, Gemini 7 returned home on Dec. 18, 1965. 

Lovell's next trip to space was as commander of Gemini 12, the last flight of Project Gemini. Lovell was accompanied by astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who completed three extravehicular activity operations during the mission. The two-man crew also successfully docked with the Agena target vehicle and performed several experiments, according to NASA.

The next step for Lovell was the moon. Apollo 8 launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Dec. 21, 1968, with Borman as the commander, William Anders as the lunar module pilot and Lovell as the command module pilot. The mission completed its goal of going around the moon and back, according to NASA. It was the first time any human had journeyed so far, and the men were the first to see the far side of the moon.

"On Apollo 8, we were on the dark side of the moon, which was 60 miles [97 kilometers] below us," Lovell told Chicago Magazine in a 2019 interview. "As we kept on going around, we suddenly saw the Earth coming into view 240,000 miles [386,000 km] away. I could put my thumb up to the window and everything I ever knew was behind it. Billions of people. Oceans. Mountains. Deserts." 

Lovell's crewmates each wrote farewell letters to their wives before the mission, just in case something happened and they didn't make it back home. But Lovell didn't write a letter, he told Chicago Magazine. "Instead, I went to Neiman Marcus and bought my wife a mink jacket. I had it delivered on Christmas Day with a note that said, 'To Marilyn: Merry Christmas from the man on the moon.'"

The crew made six telecast appearances during their trip around the moon. Millions of people watched the astronauts deliver a Christmas address from space, in which they read passages from the Bible and described the view of space and Earth, unfurling beneath them. Apollo 8 returned to Earth on Dec. 27, 1968. 

NASA's portrait of Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell. (Image credit: NASA)

Lovell's last mission was as commander of Apollo 13 in April 1970. He was joined by lunar module pilot Fred Haise, and command module pilot John "Jack" Swigert. Swigert was initially Apollo 13's backup command module pilot, but was asked to join the crew 48 hours before launch time after the original command module pilot, Ken Mattingly, was exposed to German measles. 

Apollo 13 was the third targeted moon landing. All appeared normal until the evening of April 13, when the astronauts were just a day away from landing on the moon. A stray spark ignited an oxygen tank within the command module, heavily damaging the spacecraft. 

The three men huddled in the undamaged lunar module — a spacecraft designed for two men to land on the moon — for most of the next four days. To save energy, only the most essential systems were kept powered up. The men were cold, uncomfortable and dealing with a constant barrage of minor issues. But with the help of Mission Control, they arrived safely back on Earth on April 17, 1970. 

Lovell retired from NASA and the Navy in 1973. He went to work for Bay-Houston Towing Company and became the President and CEO in 1975. He later held executive and board member positions for various other companies before retiring in 1991. 

Lovell has received many awards and honors including the Collier, Harmon (three times) and Goddard trophies, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, NASA Distinguished Service Medal and most recently, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, according to The National Aviation Hall of Fame.

In 1999, the Lovell family opened a restaurant in Lake Forest, Illinois called "Lovells of Lake Forest," which featured memorabilia from Lovell's time as an astronaut and the Apollo 13 movie. The restaurant saw success for many years but closed permanently in 2015. 

Lovell had been the oldest surviving Apollo astronaut. That distinction now goes to Aldrin, who is 95. Only five of the 24 astronauts who flew to the moon during the Apollo era are still alive: Aldrin, Charles Duke, Harrison Schmitt, David Scott and Lovell's Apollo 13 crewmate Fred Haise.

ULA Lays out plans for getting to their 25 launches/year cadence

The last time I checked, Monday the 4th in the evening, the scheduled launch time for United Launch Alliance's first National Security launch on NextSpaceflight.com was shown as this coming Sunday at 8:07 PM.  At the moment, if you click on that link, you'll see that it has slid out to Tuesday, Aug 12, 2025 7:59 PM EDT.  Yeah, here we are three days later and the launch has slipped two days, but this is a very significant launch for ULA because it's carrying not just one National Security payloads, but two.

“This is a pretty important event for the company and for the capability, but also for all of us personally. This is the inaugural launch of Vulcan into national security space. It is what we designed this rocket to do,” said ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno during an audio roundtable with reports on Aug. 7.

“This particular mission is interesting to us because while, if you were picking, you might choose to start with a more plain vanilla mission, this is, in fact, the anchor case that drove the design and the architecture of the whole rocket,” Bruno added. “This is the tough mission, directly injected to GSO, geosynchronous orbit. It makes it one of our longest duration missions ever.” 

This mission, named USSF-106, is the first of nine planned missions that ULA aims to achieve before the end of the year. These will be a mix of commercial and government customers with some of the former flying on Atlas 5 rockets.  Those nine launches in a bit over four months is unprecedented for ULA. 

“We have a stockpile of both Atlases and Vulcans fully built, ready to fly. So that is another thing that sort of kicks up that confidence higher than it would’ve been, say, if you’d asked me a question like that last year,” Bruno said in response to a reporter question about his confidence in flying nine more times in 2025. “There are 13 Atlases to go. All but the last two are fully finished and literally in storage, some at the Cape, some still back at Decatur, and those last two will be finished shortly.”

The remaining Atlas 5 rockets are allocated as follows (not in order of planned launch): 

7 – Amazon’s Project Kuiper (up to 27 satellites per rocket)

6 – Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft (for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program)

1 – Viasat’s ViaSat-3 F2 satellite (expected to arrive in Florida by end of September 2025)

The leading numbers: 7, 6, and 1, are the number of Atlas 5s committed to those launches.  In addition to those 14 Atlas 5s, “We’ve got almost half a dozen Vulcans fabricated in storage, waiting to go as well and lots and lots of SRMs, up into the 40s,” Bruno adds, “So that helps us with that.”

A trio of United Launch Alliance Vulcan boosters in storage at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Image: Tory Bruno/ULA

This week's USSF-106 is the first of a slate of 26 missions awarded to ULA as part of the NSSL Phase 2 contract worth $4.5 billion.

Bruno previously said that its 2025 manifest, following a pair of Atlas 5 launches for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband internet constellation, would see the flights of USSF-106 and then USSF-87. On Thursday though, he suggested that there may be some other flights in-between.

“[USSF-87] is the very next Space Force mission and, depending on when it happens, there may or may not be Atlases in between, flying for commercial customers,” Bruno said. Those would either be Amazon or Viasat, since NASA leaders previously said the next launch of Starliner won’t come until at least early 2026.

ULA is working on additions to their facilities at both Cape Canaveral SFS and Vandenberg SFB.  It seems inevitable that they'd complain about SpaceX cramping their attempts to increase their launch cadence, and that's made worse by SpaceX's efforts to add Starship facilities to their Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center properties.  SpaceX is hoping to get approvals to conduct up to 88 landings of the first and second stages of Starship, in addition to the static fire tests of both that would be needed ahead of integration and flight.  A problem that rarely gets mentioned is the need for each company to stop working to accommodate the other's launches and tests. 

The orange area is SpaceX's area that could be affected by Starship activity.  SLC-41 is where ULA launches Vulcans, which could affect work on LC-39A.  SLC-40 is currently Falcon 9 only but probably will add Falcon Heavy launches.  The stay clear areas work both ways: SpaceX won't be able to work at SLC-40 if ULA is launching from SLC-41.

Every time Starship lights its engines, it will require a massive clearance across the Florida spaceport, which as presented, would include LC-39B and SLC-41. Separately, the Department of the Air Force is considering SpaceX’s proposal to conduct up to 76 launches and 152 landings at SLC-37, which would feature two launch towers, if approved. [Note: SLC-37 is just below SLC-40 in this graphic and not visible in it.  - SiG]

“Starship is an interesting vehicle, in that it’s not just another rocket on the range. It is of an unprecedented size and the request that has been put in for the license is at a very, very high launch rate,” Bruno said. “We’re counting on the Space Force and the FAA to do a very thorough analysis of that and how it will affect not just the ecological environment, but also the launch environment.”
...
“There are certain operations you can’t do on your pad when another vehicle is fueled, due to the energetics that are associated with that and that’s part of what the range has to do in directing traffic with the multiple users that are there now,” Bruno said. “This new user will be, as I said, unprecedented. It’s much larger than a Saturn 5. It is something that’s not been on the range before, so they need to do a very thorough and careful analysis of that.

Everyone is counting on Space Force to do a thorough and careful analysis.  Not too restrictive, not too lax.

The Sean Duffy Headline

The Space News of the day is seemingly that Interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy has said that we need to build a nuclear power station on the moon by 2030 if we're really serious about getting to the moon and establishing a presence there.  

"We're in a race to the moon, in a race with China to the moon. And to have a base on the moon, we need energy," Duffy told reporters in response to a question about reports that surfaced earlier in the week about his ambitious directive to launch a 100-kilowatt nuclear reactor to the moon by 2030. Such a reactor would produce roughly the same amount of energy as an average U.S. household uses every 3.5 days.  

Statements like that last one pretty much make me throw up, and this one is no exception.  He mixes units between 100 kilowatts and the energy a household uses in 3.5 days, which would turn that into Watt-Hours, making the 100 kiloWatt number meaningless.  Does he really mean kWH?  That leads us to multiply 100 kilowatts * 3.5 days * 24 hours/day or 8400 kWH.  If he means in 3.5 days, a house uses 100 kWH then we divide 100 by 24*3.5, which says the nuclear power generator is producing 1.19 Watts, but 1.2W is nothing.  I have some 18650 cheap Lithium Ion batteries that deliver almost 10 times that - 9.25 Watts - although I'll readily admit a chunk of nuclear fuel will last far longer than a charge on one of those batteries.   

I think that disqualifies that second approach and this nuclear power plant must be 100 kW and 8,400 kWH.  And that statement "... roughly the same amount of energy as an average U.S. household uses every 3.5 days" is still nonsense. 

100 kW isn't much - it's more than small house backup generator, which might be in the range of 20 to 25 kW, but it's not an outrageous number.   I would guesstimate that a small group of buildings on the moon getting baked by the sun for two weeks and frozen by not having that sun for two weeks could need 100 kW, if not more.  Depends on how big the colony is, how it's laid out, what they need to run instruments and important details like that.

Still, the most remarkable aspect of this story is that it's not really news.  NASA has been talking about nuclear power for the moon and other places for years.  One approach, first mentioned here in March of '18 has been called  KRUSTY - Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology.  KRUSTY went through testing from November '17 through March '18.  

That's just the first one that comes to mind (KRUSTY kinda sticks in my mind), but it's not the only one.  Rolls Royce, yes - the luxury car maker, has been working with the UK Space Agency to produce a small nuclear power source for use on the moon or Mars. 

Various government agencies have been working on reactors for power in space since the early days of the space program.  The only thing about this week's talk that seems new to me is just the guy giving the talk.   

Rendering of one of the Kilopower Stirling Engines from KRUSTY.  These were rated as 10kW for 10 years.  Image credit: NASA

Firefly Aerospace in the news lately.

Firefly Aerospace is making news again, although this shouldn't be surprising.  They're the first private company to successfully put a lander on the moon: Firefly successfully landed their Blue Ghost lander on the moon at 3:34 AM EST Sunday morning March 2nd, making Firefly Aerospace the first private company in world history to achieve a successful landing.  

The first private lander on the moon was Intuitive Machine's IM-1, but although all the paying customers were happy with what they got from their landing on the moon, Odysseus - quickly nicknamed Odie, wasn't considered a successful landing.  During final approach, a leg on the lander broke and after the engine cutoff Odie quickly face-planted on the moon.  

Because of this successful landing, Firefly is planning to go public on the NASDAQ stock market. 

The launch of Firefly's Initial Public Offering (IPO) comes as the company works to build on a historic success in March, when Firefly's Blue Ghost lander touched down on the surface of the Moon. Firefly plans to sell 16.2 million shares of common stock, at a price of between $35 and $39 per share. Under those terms, Firefly could raise up to $631.8 million on the public market.

Firefly has applied to list its common stock on the NASDAQ Global Market under the ticker symbol "FLY."

A camera on Firefly's Blue Ghost lander captured a view of its shadow after touching down on the Moon just after sunrise. Earth looms over the horizon. Credit: Firefly Aerospace

Firefly has said it will use the funds to pay off debt, support dividend payments and "for general corporate purposes."  Firefly's general corporate purposes include a spectrum of activities, and some are going better than others.  Firefly's small Alpha launch vehicle, a rocket capable of placing more than a metric ton of payload into low-Earth orbit is one example of the "not doing as well as others" part of their lineup. 

In six launches since 2021, the Alpha rocket has logged two successful flights, two partial failures that ended up in the wrong orbit, and two missions that failed to reach orbit at all.

Most recently, the sixth flight of the Alpha rocket in April suffered a failure a few minutes after liftoff, when a mishap during stage separation damaged the rocket's second stage.

In addition to the small payload class Alpha rocket, they're also deep into the development of a new medium-class rocket named Eclipse in partnership with Northrop Grumman, which made a $50 million strategic investment into Firefly in May.  And Firefly is developing a spacecraft line called Elytra, a platform that can host military sensors and other payloads and maneuver them into different orbits.

But that's a little extra beyond the headline story about their IPO.  That story was released a week ago, but an important update came along for it late this afternoon.  NASA has awarded Firefly a contract to land a $177 million contract for the first multiple rover mission to the moon's south pole.  

Targeted for landing in 2029, the mission will be the first under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to carry multiple rovers and instruments in a single flight. They will explore some of the moon's harshest environments for the presence of usable resources to support future lunar excursions, including crewed efforts.
...
Firefly's selection for this new CLPS task order contracts the company to provide complete service to the lunar surface "with a period of performance from [July 29, 2025] to March 29, 2030," the statement says.

This contract marks Firefly's fifth CLPS task order and its fourth planned lunar mission. The payloads are products of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the University of Bern in Switzerland. The mission's science package combines mobile exploration, advanced imaging and regolith analysis to study the south pole's geology and environmental resources. The planned experiments include: 

• MoonRanger — An autonomous microrover from NASA’s Ames Research Center, Carnegie Mellon University and the Pittsburgh company Astrobotic, equipped with a Neutron Spectrometer System for mapping hydrogen-bearing volatiles and characterizing regolith .
• Stereo Plume Cameras — An advanced imaging system to observe how rocket exhaust interacts with the lunar surface during descent; developed by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia.
• Laser Retroreflector Array — Passive optically reflective markers to enable precision laser range measurements from orbit, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
• CSA rover – Capable of exploring permanently shadowed craters, measuring radiation, and searching for water ice; equipped with multiple imagers and spectrometers.
• Laser Ionization Mass Spectrometer – Analyzes regolith chemistry using a Firefly-built robotic arm and excavation system robotic arm excavation system (University of Bern).

The lunar south pole is the area of highest interest in the current "space race" because several observations have indicated or implied that there might be large reserves of water, probably as ice, in the permanent shadows of craters near the pole - and water can be used drinking or rocket fuel, depending on its prevalence.  The mission will also study environmental hazards like radiation and surface erosion. 

Firefly Aerospace started as a propulsion company. This image released by Firefly earlier this year shows the company's family of engines. From left to right: Miranda for the Eclipse rocket; Lightning and Reaver for the Alpha rocket; and Spectre for the Blue Ghost and Elytra spacecraft.  (note, look carefully at the model on the right - she's holding the engine in front of herself and it's small)

Is the Dream Chaser space plane ever going to make it into orbit?

We talk about Dream Chaser fairly often around here and it was the subject of some comments recently.  So how do we resist a story with a headline like, "Is the Dream Chaser space plane ever going to launch into orbit?" Especially when it's by one of the most experienced space writers out there, Eric Berger at Ars Technica.  We don't resist.  We dive in.  

The first, question, and the obvious one is, "when is Dream Chaser going to fly?"  Unfortunately, there's not a clear, easy answer to that.  Except that considering we're pretty much 2/3 of the way through 2025, it's looking like it won't be this year.  It's not quite as little as 1/3 of the year left more like 40%, but we're closing in on it. 

Something I wasn't aware of is that Dream Chaser has been in development for over 20 years; I thought it was more like 10.  I think we all see that it's a popular and well-regarded vehicle among the public although that's probably because it's winged shape is reminiscent of the Space Shuttles - especially with Dream Chaser covered in white and black heat-resistant tiles that resemble the shuttles' tiles. 

Dana Weigel, program manager for the International Space Station, was asked about Dream Chaser at a news briefing on Friday, following the successful launch of the Crew-11 mission. 

"They're in final assembly," she said of Sierra Space. "They're doing a lot of tests, and they're doing what I call final certification work. Some of the big key areas that they're focused on is the software certification. You've got to test end-to-end all the different software functions. So that's a big focus area for them. And then they're still working on certification in the prop system." 

Prop system?  She means the propulsion system - like the system on Starliner which managed to pretty much destroy the first crewed mission a year ago (launched in June).  

There were some notable tidbits of news in this comment. First of all, it appears that NASA has learned its lesson from the first troubled flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, which had significant software problems during its debut flight in December 2019. After this experience, it appears the space agency is requiring an end-to-end test of a spacecraft's flight software prior to visiting the space station.

Additionally, there is the fact that Sierra is still working to certify Dream Chaser's propulsion system. 

The propulsion system is not something I've read much about before.  Dream Chaser is powered by over two dozen small rocket engines, each capable of operating at three discrete levels of thrust for fine control or more significant orbit adjustments.  "Over 24 engines with three thrust levels each" seems novel, but not as novel as the fact that the engines run on a mix of kerosene and hydrogen peroxide propellants rather than the more common, toxic, hypergolic propellants that ignite (pretty much "explode") on contact with one another. 

"We wanted to have a fuel system that was green instead of using hypergolics, so we could land it on a runway and we could walk up to the vehicle without being in hazmat suits," Tom Vice, then Sierra's chief executive, told Ars in late 2023. "That was hard, I have to say."

Apparently it still is because, according to Weigel, the process to finish testing of the propulsion system and certify it for an uncrewed spaceflight remains ongoing.

Berger reports that according to one of his sources, Sierra Space is considering a change to the first mission that could conceivably shorten the certification period.  They wouldn't dock with the ISS, instead just doing a flyby.  

The company had planned to fly the vehicle close enough to the space station such that it could be captured and berthed to the orbiting laboratory. One option now under consideration is a mission that would bring Dream Chaser close enough to the station to test key elements of the vehicle in flight but not have it berth.

This would increase confidence in the spacecraft's propulsion system and provide the data NASA and partner space agencies need to clear the vehicle to approach and berth with the station on its second flight. However, this would require a modification of the company's contract with NASA, and a final decision has not yet been reached on whether to perform a flyby mission before an actual berthing.

Sierra Space's Dream Chaser space plane inside a NASA test chamber in Ohio. Credit: Sierra Space

It seems like I said at the top, given that we're starting into the 8th month of the year, leaving a bit over a third of the year for this to be completed and a launch to happen, it seems like a safe bet that it's not going to happen this year.  Another challenge is that it can currently only fly on ULA's Vulcan.  The first Vulcan national security launch is listed on NextSpaceflight as this coming Sunday at 8:07 PM (from our neighbors' place 30-ish miles up the coast).  Assuming this launch is successful, Vulcan has a busy manifest in the coming months for the US Space Force and we don't have much of an idea how flexible ULA can and will be in getting Dream Chaser flying. 

At one point, Sierra had said they wanted Dream Chaser to be agnostic about what rocket gets it into orbit, hinting that it could fly on a Falcon Heavy.  Ars Technica's article makes no mention of that. 

I Guess I'll Add more Me Me Me

Since it's really all I've been doing over the last week or so - around the routine house and yard maintenance - let me do an update to the mid-July post and my puzzles with Afib.  

The thing that struck me as most interesting was commenter millerized's talk about Benfotiamine, fat soluble B1.  Like him, I started a once a day dose, but instead of 250mg/day, I went with a 300 mg/day thinking it didn't matter and the bottle size of 1x/day for 90 days sounded like a good start.  That comment was dated July 14, and I started taking them on the 19th (Saturday) - which means last night was two weeks worth.  Has it made a difference?  

Possibly but nothing dramatic.  My issue has been having afib whenever they tested me for it but I never really knew it.  More reading told me a couple of non-dramatic signs that are common include shortness of breath in irregular amounts and timing.  I started paying more attention and seemed to notice something like that - several deeper breaths correlated to nothing else that I could tell.  Another non-dramatic symptom mentioned was some balance issues.  I had noticed (and mentioned to Mrs. SiG) that I was developing a tendency to drift side-to-side a bit while walking.  Both of those seem to have improved, but since I haven't been able to get something that could tell me I'm having an Afib episode I don't know if that has gotten less frequent - or changed at all.  

ADDED: Another difference that could well explain an improvement besides the Benfotiamine is that my doc increased my dosage of the beta blocker metoprolol.  Since 2013, I had been taking 50mg/day and he increased that 75 mg/day. 

I was supposed to call the cardiologist's office to tell them if I was more interested in finding more details on the ablation or cardioversion and I told them I was leaning toward ablation.  They told me they would call the office of the electrophysiologist they refer to and that office would contact me.  That hasn't happened.   

A sign of "something's wrong" in my mind is that my pulse has been irregular, with things I can feel taking my pulse the old fashioned way of "put a finger on an artery and count it with your watch."  Some years ago, for general entertainment (shits and grins) I bought one of those little pulse oximeters - you stick a finger in it and it counts your pulse.  Both the old school and the new tech show some irregularity and my pulse being faster in general than it used to be.  I used to have a morning pulse around 55-60, now if it's more regular, it's 80-ish, and if it's less regular, the extra beats put that up to reading 90-100.  

I spent some time looking at Smart Watches and was ready to pull the trigger until I realized that there's nothing that can do an EKG while I'm riding the bike.  They all require using two hands.  We normal people can't take our hands off the handlebars for 30 seconds.  If I felt weird, I could pull over at a corner or a 7-11 and take one with a Smart Watch or something like the Kardia Mobile that connects to the phone, but all of the ways to do an EKG-like test effectively eliminate use when you're not sitting quietly (or standing quietly, I suppose).  That talked me out of it but that only lasted a week or so.  I'm still likely to get one soon.   

Since I need something cute to wrap up with and this is at least tangentially related...

Somewhere, when I was talking about the times I spent waiting around in hospitals the people I was talking with asked if I noticed that the hospital staff was looking chunkier than they used to. Thanks to the dieticians following the "My Plate" from the Fed.gov, we assume. 

EDIT 8/4/25 at 0825 to add:  Commenter Igor at 0739 reminded me of something I forgot to add.  It goes in the third paragraph, so I added it there, as a new, short, paragraph.  

A Little Me Me Update

Back in March, on the first Sunday, March 2, I told the story of losing my best little fur buddy, Mojo, the night before.  I woke up March 1st to him passed away in my arms.  It's a long story, and to be honest, still painful to read.  

There's an update to that story to pass along.  After my hernia surgery back on June 12, and another two weeks getting cleared to get back to life, we took the giant step of going to look to adopt another cat.  We specifically wanted an older cat because we know that families tend to generally prefer younger cats, say kittens under 1 year old, and the fully grown cats are likely to be euthanized first.  There's a charitable group here in town that's dedicated to taking in cats like that and getting them placed in homes.  They work through a "full service" pet store called Petsmart that includes everything from veterinarians to groomers and people who will help train you how to train your dog.  

When we went to the store to see if they had any like we were looking for we found one right away;  they called her a six year old neutered female but gave us medical records showing her birthday was in April of 2020, making her five.  

We took her home on Sunday, July 6.  Her name is Tyla, and like every other cat we've ever adopted from some shelter, she doesn't react to that name.  Tyla reacts to toys, chases everything, plays with everything and only has one annoying habit that I've yet to break her of - when  you're petting her she bites at your hand or grabs at it with her claws out.  She's slowly adapting to me stopping petting her if she starts biting too much.  If she wants to be petted, she needs to enjoy it without biting. 

I had a hard time memorizing that name - she was Kyla, Kayleigh, and a few other permutations of those sounds until I finally thought of Steve Tyler the lead vocalist for Aerosmith.  Just pronounce Tyler with a heavy Boston accent: Tie - Lah.  (Steve also is the subject of thousands of pictures online talking about how he looks like "the world's coolest grandma").  Then there's Steve's beautiful daughter Liv Tyla.  Um... Liv Tyler.  Liv makes it easier to associate the name with a woman.

Tyla playing with a toy she came to her new home with. Image credit: me, SiG.

Tyla isn't a replacement for Mojo any more than any loved one can be replaced.  She's an individual with a very different personality.  We're learning to live with her just as she's learning to live with us.  One of the other reasons we looked for an older cat is the uncomfortable fact that we're both over 70 and have no nearby family we can count on to help if something were to happen to one of us and the cat were suddenly on their own.  

Crew-11 set to dock to the ISS early Saturday morning

This morning's weather on the Cape was much like yesterday's but having the launch set for a half hour earlier helped and Crew-11 in their Dragon capsule named Endeavour on top of their Falcon 9 lifted off exactly on time and went on a mission that looked flawless to us observers.  They're set to dock with the ISS at 3:00 AM EDT (0700 UTC) Saturday, August 2nd.  

There's a long tradition that after the critical minutes of making it to a parking orbit, the SpaceX team on the ground wishes the crew the best of luck, success with the mission and ends with a hearty, "thanks for flying SpaceX!"  This goes around for a minute or two, and I thought the mission commander had a good response.  This is her first trip into space, and will be a trip full of firsts for the next six months. 

“I have no emotions, but joy right now. That was absolutely transcendent, the ride of a lifetime,” said NASA astronaut and Crew-11 commander Zena Cardman, shortly after entering the microgravity environment for the first time in her career. “Thank you, this has been an incredible honor.”  

Each of the three remaining crew members had a small statement.  NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, who's the Crew-11 pilot, welcomed Zena Cardman to orbit and reveled in how good it felt to be in space again.  Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) spoke in both Japanese and English and Oleg Platonov of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, spoke in Russian and English. The latter two are both mission specialists.

The Falcon 9 carrying Crew Dragon Endeavour, dodged storm clouds to launch a new crew to the International Space Station on Aug. 1, 2025. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now.

This is the 6th mission for Endeavour and is expected to be its last flight.  The Booster is designated B1094.3 with the three indicating this is the third flight for this one.  The fleet leader has flown 28 missions so three missions is almost "factory new."  Probably better than brand new since so much has been verified in flight.  B1094 returned to Landing Zone 1 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and NASA Spaceflight's coverage said the two landing zones, hundreds of yards from each other were seeing their last booster landing.  There has been talk lately that they're going to put some poured concrete landing pads next to their other launch pads on CCSFS, and there has been talk about using something similar to the "Mechazilla arms" that are on the Starship towers.  The reporting has been inconsistent on which is likely to happen and what order things might happen, but they still have the two offshore landing drone ships they usually land on, if needed.

The weather brought an unexpected gift for us on the ground.  During the first minute or so of ascent, it's not unusual to see the exhaust turn into a cylindrical, pipe-shaped cloud that may end up a thousand feet long behind the ship.  Today's weather was just different enough to break that pipe off and give us two rings. 

Image credit: John Pisani/Spaceflight Now. Some additional contrast enhancement done here.

Crew-11 scrubbed by weather, ready to try Friday morning

At just about T minus one minute in this morning's countdown to the launch of the Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station, SpaceX called a scrub due to weather, as a dense cumulus cloud going almost exactly overhead violated launch criteria.  Despite the launch being "just up the road" we were watching online because it was cloudier and looked worse around here.  

"Unfortunately, the weather is just not playing alongside with today's excitement on the launch for NASA SpaceX's Crew-11," NASA commentator Derrol Nail said during today's launch coverage. 

"We could literally see the clouds kind of going over top of our heads, getting close to the pad, and the standoff area is a 10-mile radius around the pad for these dark clouds, cumulous clouds, and that is a safety factor," Nail added. "That is because you don't want to send a rocket through a tall cloud like that — that could generate some energy from the rocket passing through it."

Screen capture from the video posted at Space.com Image credit: SpaceX

As of this evening, they've completed the weather review for Friday's launch window and have been cleared to try again on Friday.  

NASA and SpaceX continue to target 11:43 a.m. EDT Friday, Aug. 1, for launch of the Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

After the launch attempt was scrubbed Thursday for weather, mission teams completed a weather review for the next opportunity, and conditions around the launch pad are forecast at 75% favorable for liftoff. However, conditions along the flight path of Dragon remain a watch item. Acceptable weather conditions at both the launch site and along the Dragon flight path are required for a “go” for liftoff.

India launches top end radar satellite for NASA

After more than a decade of development, NASA's science leadership traveled to India this week for the launch of the world's most expensive Earth-observation satellite.

The mission, a $1.5 billion synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite, a joint project between NASA and the Indian space agency ISRO, successfully launched into orbit on Wednesday aboard India's GSLV or Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, a medium-lift rocket. 

The mission, named NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), was subsequently deployed into its intended orbit 464 miles (747 km) above the Earth's surface. From this Sun-synchronous orbit, it will collect data about the planet's land and ice surfaces two times every 12 days, including the infrequently visited polar regions in the Southern Hemisphere.

The description of the SAR is that it's dual band, S-band and L-band.  Those frequency bands are adjacent to each other and not at all completely dedicated to SAR use.  L-band is broadly defined as 1 to 2 GHz (1000 to 2000 MHz) while S-band is equally broadly defined as 2 to 4 GHz (2000 to 4000 MHz).  For example, L-band contains satellite downlinks, aviation services such as TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System), transponder, ADS-B and GPS, while S-band includes the 2.4 GHz WiFi we're so dependent on, Bluetooth, microwave ovens, and many consumer radio controlled devices. 

Broadly, telling us the radar is dual band, using S-band and L-band, is telling us only the tiniest amount of information. 

The satellite combines two main instruments that, unlike optical telescopes, can gather data through clouds and at night. NASA provided the L-band synthetic aperture radar, which is efficient at measuring soil moisture, forests, and the movement of land and ice on the surface of the planet. India contributed an S-band radar that is useful for measuring agricultural changes, as well as grasslands and human-built structures.

NASA and other spaceflight organizations have been developing and flying synthetic aperture radar for decades, but the NISAR spacecraft is one of the first missions to combine two different bands onto a single vehicle. This should provide a more comprehensive view of how the planet's surface is changing on a real-time basis.

The NISAR spacecraft - in the middle - is integrated with its Indian GSLV launch vehicle. Image Credit: ISRO

As is usually the case, the satellite will spend a while getting calibrated and more thoroughly tested, once it's in the preferred orbit.  That process of getting readied for its mission is expected to take three months.  

During this time NISAR will deploy a very large antenna reflector that is 39 feet (12 meters) in diameter. This reflector will send and receive microwaves from the two radars and use differences to measure the surface below. 

The mission is notable for both its complexity and its cost (those usually come together, after all).  

The US and Indian space agencies signed the partnership agreement on September 30, 2014, to design and build the spacecraft.  At the time, launch was targeted for 2024, so missing that deadline by less than a year is quite respectable. 

Small Space News Story Roundup 63

Because something big doesn't happen EVERY day

Australia's first orbital launch fails, rocket destroyed 

Back in March, as the first quarter of the year was coming to a close, I did an article on launches that were possibly coming before the start of April and the second quarter of the year.  I had seen mention of a rocket called Eris from an Australian company called Gilmour Space.  I found it interesting because I know nothing about the company or Australia's efforts to join the space age.  So I started keeping an eye out for it. 

As March turned into April, and April into May, there was precious little information.  And then came word of a launch attempt on Thursday, May 15. Then I learned that the nose cone fell off the rocket hours before it was supposed to launch.  The preparations for launch were aborted.

Back to keeping an eye out for info again.  Until NextSpaceflight started reporting they were going to try to launch again "real soon now," and that eventually morphed into trying again today (local time, which I think was October 37th in Australia).

This time was worse.  The vehicle lifted off the launch pad, drifted a little, while gaining virtually zero altitude, then fell to the ground.  Video here.  That video is over an hour long, but set to start playing 1hr: 29: 10.  Launch happens quickly, but not instantly.  Overall, the flight failure is reminiscent of the Astra launch in Alaska that I've considered the strangest mission abort I've ever seen. 

SpaceX moves Flight Test 10 Starship to test area 

Tuesday morning (today as I write) SpaceX rolled the Starship for Flight Test 10 to the launch pad for static fire testing.  There isn't an announced date for this test flight, but things are falling into place for it possibly being "soon."

SpaceX has not announced a target date for Flight 10, but it could happen soon: On July 14, company founder and CEO Elon Musk said the liftoff will occur in "about three weeks." On Monday, he provided an updated, yet more vague, prediction: "next month." 

As a perfunctory reminder, "next month" starts Friday.  I just tend to think later in the month rather than that soon. 

Flight 10's Starship rolls to the launch pad in preparation for static testing.  Image Credit: SpaceX via X

As is often the case, there has been a lot of buzz going around about modifications to Starship and the SuperHeavy booster.  The problem is it's hard to be sure what's really going to be flying for IFT 10.  There has been talk of an entirely different heat shield covering Starship, and massive internal modifications to SuperHeavy along with the Raptor engines.  Then there are aspects like a static firing of the booster for IFT 10 having been carried out at the start of June - and any static testing done before major changes to the booster is irrelevant. 

I'll try to get more details.  

The secretive X-37B space plane to launch NET August 21

Ordinarily launches of the X-37B space plane and its various missions stay wrapped in the secrecy veil of the mission and don't get much press coverage.  Next month's launch of one of the Space Force's two X-37B space planes is looking to be an exception.  

On Monday, the Space Force announced that it will fly the small, Space Shuttle-shaped vehicle on the program's eighth mission next month. The launch of the vehicle, on a Falcon 9 rocket, is scheduled to occur no earlier than August 21 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

There are two active X-37Bs in the Space Force fleet, both built by Boeing. The first made its debut flight in April 2010. Since then, the two uncrewed spacecraft have made a succession of longer flights.
...
It's likely that the first of these two vehicles, both of which are about 29 feet (9 meters) long and roughly one-quarter the length of one of NASA's Space Shuttle orbiters, will launch next month.

While, as most people who follow space flight will vouch, Space Force and Air Force research labs are being more open than usual about this mission, called OTV-8.  The mission's goals include tests of "high-bandwidth inter-satellite laser communications technologies." 

Communications by lasers over rather long ranges is hardly new, and it has become well established in the private space programs, too.  The Psyche mission, still en route to the asteroid bearing that name, tested laser communications at 10 million miles, 40 times the average Earth-moon distance of 250,000 miles.  But even that isn't what the OTV-8 mission is all about. 

The Space Force news says the test will be of a new navigation technology based on electromagnetic wave interference.  The news release characterizes this as the "highest-performing quantum inertial sensor ever tested in space." 

Boeing has previously tested a quantum inertial measurement unit, which detects rotation and acceleration using atom interferometry, on conventional aircraft. Now, an advanced version of the technology is being taken to space to demonstrate its viability. The goal of the in-space test is to demonstrate precise positioning, navigation, and timing in an environment where GPS services are not available.

"Bottom line: testing this tech will be helpful for navigation in contested environments where GPS may be degraded or denied," [US Space Force General Chance] Saltzman said in a social media post Monday, describing the flight.

Quantum inertial sensors could also be used near the Moon, where there is no comparable GPS capability, or for exploration further into the Solar System.

The X-37B at Kennedy Space Center, November 12, 2022. USSF Photo

Like virtually all earlier missions, the X-37B is hitching a ride to orbit on a plain, medium lift, Falcon 9. During its most recent flight that ended in March, the space plane launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time. This allowed the X-37B to fly beyond low-Earth orbit and reach an elliptical high-Earth orbit.

As we approach the busy part of hurricane season

The Atlantic hurricane season has its typical peak of the season in early September - the 10th.  While "first of the season" storms in May are not unheard of, which is before the season has actually started, those tend to be weaker storms, close to the US - things that develop around cold fronts coming offshore the continental US (CONUS).  We've had a couple of those this year, and one of them (Barry) came ashore out of the Pacific environment, crossed over Mexico and ended up being implicated in feeding the moisture that ended up in the horrific Texas floods earlier in July.  

But the peak of the season is approaching, and numbers of storms tend to start going up in August, as the development area moves from close to the US over to the tropical, low-latitude Atlantic.  "Low latitude" isn't a precise description and different graphics you'll find of it will show different latitudes.  Forecasters refer to this as the Main Development Region or MDR.  

Storms that start developing close to land in the US, including much of the Gulf, get good radar as well as good satellite observation.  There has been some hoopla about some satellites becoming unavailable to weather forecasters among the people that spend their lives looking for more "everyone is going to die" stories.  One of those is on Space.com today, "Hurricane forecasters are losing 3 key satellites ahead of peak storm season - a meteorologist explains why it matters."

The story is focused on the east end of the MDR, so close Africa.  It's too far for Hurricane Hunter planes to fly, so storms in the eastern MDR have been largely examined with satellite-based radars. 

On June 25, 2025, the Trump administration issued a service change notice announcing that the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, DMSP, and the Navy’s Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center would terminate data collection, processing and distribution of all DMSP data no later than June 30. The data termination was postponed until July 31 following a request from the head of NASA’s Earth Science Division. 

These DMSP satellites are the best platform for examining storms out there.  

The three satellites orbit Earth 14 times per day with special sensor microwave imager/sounder instruments, or SSMIS. These let meteorologists look inside the clouds, similar to how an MRI in a hospital looks inside a human body. With these instruments, meteorologists can pinpoint the storm’s low-pressure center and identify signs of intensification.

Precisely locating the center of a hurricane improves forecasts of the storm’s future track. This lets meteorologists produce more accurate hurricane watches, warnings and evacuations.

It turns out that the best tool for locating the center of the storm is apparently the SSMIS sensor they talk about.  They report that hurricane track predictions have improved "by up to 75%" since 1990 and while they talk about improvement in predictions of intensification, they don't give a number like that.  

The problem, though, is that this is being blamed on budget cuts, not on the fact that planned replacements haven't been built or put up in orbit, yet.  

The DMSP satellites were launched between 1999 and 2009 and were designed to last for five years. They have now been operating for more than 15 years. The United States Space Force recently concluded that the DMSP satellites would reach the end of their lives between 2023 and 2026, so the data would likely have gone dark soon. 

There are other Satellites in orbit that can conceivably get useful data over the MDR: NOAA-20, NOAA-21 and Suomi NPP all have a microwave instrument known as the advanced technology microwave sounder.  More satellites are planned to use this ATMS, which can provide data similar to the currently used SSMIS, but at a lower resolution.  We've probably all seen low and high resolution images enough to imagine a blocky-chunky looking image of a hurricane from both kinds of resolution - we just don't know "how low is low" and just how degraded it is.  That last link ("at a lower resolution") is a substack article that provides a useful image which I changed from two images stacked vertically to being two side-by-side.

I puzzle over why the guys specifying the instruments (apparently) voluntarily went from the high resolution image on the left to the one on the right. 

The major question is still why are the current satellites in the 15th year of a five year mission?  It has been known since before the first one flew that they'd need to be replaced by now, so why didn't they build replacements immediately, so they could have launched in five years if need be?  Or wait a little and launch after 10 years. Based on the image quality between the old DMSP satellites and the newer one, they either think they don't need the better resolution or they simply can't decide what they need.