A Couple of Strange News Reports

There have been a couple of stories going around that are on that line between sorta-makes sense and WTF are they talking about?  

The one that sorta makes sense is the story that Thursday (yesterday) Elon Musk said NASA should start working on taking the International Space Station out of service.  It sorta makes sense because NASA is already working on deorbiting the ISS.  After all, they gave SpaceX an $843 million contract to develop the deorbit vehicle last June. Musk's quote seems pretty reasonable; I mean, it might be wrong or it might be right but what he said makes sense.   

“It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the @Space_Station.
It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility.
Let’s go to Mars.”

When pressed for an answer to "when" Musk replied that it's the president's call but he recommends two years, or 2027.  Instead of the five years to 2030?  How much does that save?  Or what does it buy you?

The question of whether it's wrong or right applies to the middle line in that tweet (Xeet? What do we call these things, anyway?)  There are several sides to this: from the purely political; that is, can it be done in congress as it now sits to whether or not there are worthwhile things that need to be done with the ISS.  

In reality, NASA has only been fully utilizing the space station since late 2020, when it began to fly a full complement of astronauts thanks to SpaceX's Crew Dragon coming online. The agency says it has a lot of worthwhile scientific and human performance research to conduct over the next five years.

Don't forget that NASA has had problems with Russian modules on the ISS leaking precious air out of the station. This isn't the first case.  While Boeing has a contract to keep the ISS working through the 2030 deorbit date, structural elements of the station have been in space for more than a quarter of a century and there are valid concerns about parts possibly failing.  Neither of these is a pleasant thought.

NASA has already voiced support for not just one, but a population of privately developed and run space stations.  None of those is in orbit and ready now, so we can't know that one or more private space stations could be working in Musk's "two years."  

The other story is referring to Starliner-then-Crew-9 astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams as being stranded in space.  Stranded might have been an acceptable adjective last summer, before their long term solution to getting back down was arrived at, but now they're just ISS astronauts at the end of their mission; a mission that happened to last longer than originally planned - as they sometimes do.  Maybe it's just my perception, but I think that people in the astronaut corps have the mindset that doing their job might entail serious disruptions to everyday life - and might even end their life.  While I'm sure they miss their families, I'm equally sure they consider being in space for eight or nine months to be a privilege. 

This photo of the International Space Station was captured by a crew member on a Soyuz spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Roscosmos

Next Starship Flight Test to be next week?

It was just over a month ago that Starship Flight Test 7 took off from Starbase Boca Chica in a short-lived mission that ended over Caribbean islands when the Starship itself exploded.  

According to a notice published today by the Federal Aviation Administration, the next test flight of a Starship could take place as early as Wednesday Feb. 26, in a launch window they list as lasting until March 6.  

Company sources confirmed that this launch date is plausible, but it's also possible that the launch could slip a day or two to Thursday or Friday of next week.

Screen capture of the FAA site.

The launch window is shown as opening at 2330 - in UTC.  That's 5:30 PM local (CST): 6:30 Eastern and, well, you know. 

An important potential "gotcha" here is that FAA hasn't completed the investigation of the FT-7 incident, but in issuing this announcement, they show they're expecting to complete it before the start of the week long window.  

SpaceX has been testing both booster and ship for this flight, and they might well have tested all of the modifications done to the ship (34) because they did the longest static fire I've ever seen, a full minute instead of the usual (roughly) 10 second firing (details in a 22 minute NASASpaceflight video here).  It seems likely that everything will be ready for this Flight Test by the start of the FAA approved window. 

SpaceX hasn't presented a flight plan, but it seems like a pretty sure thing that they'll use the same basic plan as IFT-7, since the tests of the "taller, heavier, smarter, Block 2 Starship" were the essence of the mission.  After IFT-6, Elon had posted to X that they would do one more ocean landing of a ship and then switch to attempting to catch the Starship the same way they catch the SuperHeavy booster.  It makes me assume that this mission will do an ocean landing.

And by the way: I rechecked that link to X and Elon has changed his name back to Elon Musk from Harry Bolz.  Now I'm kicking myself for not looking it up and doing a screen capture with the alternate name.

Small Space News Story Roundup 53

Because it's all I can find.  Big one first: 

NASA Layoffs Cancelled 

Unlike workers at many other federal agencies this week, probationary employees at NASA were not terminated on Tuesday. 

Nobody really knows why, but when has that stopped speculation?  The speculation is that most of the 1,000 probationary employees that would have been the target were not typical, probationary government employees and some were specifically recruited into the organization.  

A NASA spokesperson in Washington, DC, offered no comment on the updated guidance. Two sources indicated that it was plausible that private astronaut Jared Isaacman, whom President Trump has nominated to lead the space agency, asked for the cuts to be put on hold.

This could all be a temporary reprieve until the confirmation hearings for Isaacman are held and he (or whomever) is in the job and can review the lists.  The administration could reverse the decision and there have been reports that directors at the agency's 10 field centers have been told to prepare contingency plans for a "significant" reduction in force in the coming months.  

Firefly's Blue Ghost sends back a beautiful little video

It's only a minute long, take a look.

Last Friday, Feb. 14, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander entered into lunar orbit after a four-day transit from Earth and started to gear up for a lunar touchdown. To slide into lunar orbit, Blue Ghost did a three-minute, 18-second engine burn to lower its orbit around the moon to 75 miles.  The scheduled date for the lunar landing is Sunday, March 2, 10 days from now as I type.  The landing will be in Mare Crisium (the "Sea of Crises") on the eastern limb of the Earth-facing side of the moon.  

In a post on X, which included a video of the probe's new close-up view of the lunar surface, Firefly suggested intermittent communications blackouts with Blue Ghost would occur as the lander circles around the far side of the moon. While the lander is still on the near side, Firefly's team is continuing to receive data and finalize the probe's next engine burns and landing patterns. "That will get Blue Ghost even closer to the lunar surface and keep us right on track for landing on March 2," the post says.

 

How is NASA Facing the DOGE Days?

Eric Berger at Ars Technica has a headline today that caught my eye: "By the end of today, NASA’s workforce will be about 10 percent smaller" - subtitled "A dark and painful day at a space agency that brings so much light and joy to the world."  As is generally the case, Berger presents the facts in a balanced view of the situation.  

For openers, he quotes a number from NASA itself that between the headquarters its 10 field centers, the agency employs "nearly 18,000 civil servants."  Then he goes on to say:

However, by the end of today, that number will have shrunk by about 10 percent since the beginning of the second Trump administration four weeks ago. And the world's preeminent space agency may still face significant additional cuts.

There's no update to the source article on ARS, which they often do, nor do I see any news about this on a few of the NASA sites I visit regularly or NASASpaceflight dot com, so I assume there were no announcements about a layoff or Reduction In Force today.  Still, all that means is that maybe instead of "by the end of today..." it could have been "by the end of this week."

Berger addresses what seems to be a natural question: how many people leave NASA in a typical year, and says that number is around one thousand.  He says his sources tell him 750 people have taken the eight month severance pay layoff, which is a sizeable chunk of that 1,000.  A 10% RIF of 18,000 people, or 1800, is only slightly bigger than that 750 added to the 1000 per year, but I don't assume those are two different groups and that there might be sizeable overlap between the 750 the typical 1000 resignations per year.  

The culling of "probationary" employees will be more impactful. As it has done at other federal agencies, the Trump administration is generally firing federal employees who are in the "probationary" period of their employment, which includes new hires within the last one or two years or long-time employees who have moved into or been promoted into a new position. About 1,000 or slightly more employees at NASA were impacted by these cuts.
...
However, the cuts may not stop there. Two sources told Ars that directors at the agency's field centers have been told to prepare options for a "significant" reduction in force in the coming months. The scope of these cuts has not been defined, and it's possible they may not even happen, given that the White House must negotiate budgets for NASA and other agencies with the US Congress. But this directive for further reductions in force casts more uncertainty on an already demoralized workforce and signals that the Trump administration would like to make further cuts.

I think all of us who have worked in industry have been through layoffs, widespread (like in the 1980s) or just in a company that got into troubles of their own doing.  Layoffs suck.  Are the cuts necessary? 

It is also clear that, as within other federal agencies, there is significant "bloat" in NASA's budget. In some areas, this is plain to see, with the space agency having spent in excess of $3 billion a year over the last decade "developing" a heavy lift rocket, the Space Launch System, which used components from the Space Shuttle and costs an extraordinary amount of money to fly. In the meantime, the private launch industry has been running circles around NASA. Similarly, consider the Orion spacecraft. This program is now two decades old, at a cost of $1 billion a year, and the vehicle has never flown humans into space.

One could go on. Much of the space community has been puzzled as to why NASA has been spending on the order of half a billion dollars to develop a Lunar Gateway in an odd orbit around the Moon. It remains years away from launching, and if it ever does fly, it would increase the energy needed to reach the surface of the Moon. The reason, according to multiple sources at the agency when the Gateway was conceived, is that the lunar space station would offer jobs to the current flight controllers operating the International Space Station, which is due to retire in 2030.

Part of what DOGE has been all about is looking at things that seem to only exist to funnel money between politicians and contractors. "Create jobs" with cost-plus contracts, like the SLS he talks about. An even worse example is the Lunar Gateway Berger mentions.  Created to keep the jobs for the current ISS flight controllers it becomes obsolete the minute Starship's Human Landing System version becomes operational.  It’s not entirely clear, but NASA reportedly wanted to land just 400 lb of cargo, while the crewed Starship is probably capable of landing tons of cargo in addition to several astronauts. Why do they need the Gateway to stage people and cargo if the HLS can carry it all?

In recent years, NASA has been in the midst of a difficult transition. The agency deserves a lot of credit for nurturing a commercial space industry that now is the envy of the world. But as part of this, NASA has been moving away from owning and operating its rockets, spacecraft, and other hardware and buying services from this commercial space industry. This transition from traditional space to commercial space marks an important step for NASA to remain on the cutting edge of exploration and science rather than trying to compete with US industry.

What was a bit shocking to me - although it shouldn't have been - was reading some of the comments.  I didn't read many, maybe only a dozen out of the nearly 400 a little while ago, but the TDS and the Elon Derangement Syndrome were stunning.  The comments were either hatred of those two in particular, hatred of "rich people" in general, pro-union or pro-communist. 

The old saying about every comment taking away an IQ point sure seemed to be applicable there.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collects a sample from the asteroid Bennu. NASA's superpower is its capacity to dazzle us. Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

Jared Isaacman Lets Out a Peek at His Vision

While there is still no definite date given for Jared Isaacman's Senate confirmation hearing before the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, all we have known for sure until now is that the nominees typically have some private conversations with the senators that will be on the other side of the table, and otherwise tend to keep quiet.  They especially tend to avoid public statements that might make their confirmation hearings more difficult. 

Because of this dynamic, we've heard very little about his opinions on the big questions the agency has to deal with.  At this point, the success of the Artemis moon landing mission doesn't look like it's a safe bet. Do they keep the SLS or drop it, and if they drop SLS, how do they replace it?  What about the a potential for switching to Mars as the big manned goal and dropping the moon return, which Trump has hinted at?  There's the International Space Station sliding into obsolescence, the Mars Sample Return mission plan that remains unsolved, a limited pipeline of science missions, and the likelihood of budget cuts.  On top of all of this, it's hard to imagine the NASA staff is free of the unease federal workers face as the Trump Administration scrutinizes their activities for efficiency and, to be honest, working for the benefit of America.

However, Isaacman made some of his most in-depth remarks yet on his vision to lead the space agency this weekend on the social media site X. Commenting on an image of Mars, it is notable that Isaacman chose to focus on the benefits of sending humans to the red planet.

"When I see a picture like this, it is impossible not to feel energized about the future," he wrote. "I think it is so important for people to understand the profound implications of sending humans to another planet."

Among these, Isaacman cited the benefits of advancing state-of-the-art technologies including propulsion, habitability, power generation, in-situ resource utilization, and manufacturing.

"We will create systems, countermeasures, and pharmaceuticals to sustain human life in extreme conditions, addressing challenges like radiation and microgravity over extended durations," he said. "These advancements will form the foundation for lower-cost, more frequent crewed and robotic missions across the solar system, creating a flywheel effect to accelerate world-changing discoveries."

Isaacman added that he thought that taking the first steps toward humanity living beyond Earth was not just critical to the long-term survival of humanity, but that doing so would inspire a new generation of scientific and technological leaders. 

"Achieving such an outrageous endeavor—like landing American astronauts on another planet—will inspire generations of dreamers to build upon these accomplishments, set even bolder goals, and drive humankind’s greatest adventure forward," he wrote.

It seems inevitable that anything going on in DC becomes infected by contact with politicians.  Just being nominated to be NASA administrator by President Trump has critics screaming about conflicts of interest, assuming that since he hired SpaceX for his Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn missions that he'll unduly favor them if given the position as leader of NASA.  Never mind that SpaceX does more orbital flights than any other launch provider on the planet.  Hiring them isn't just a logical decision, it's favoritism. 

Although Isaacman's remarks this weekend were general in nature, we can draw some information from them. First of all, Isaacman does not appear to be foreclosing on the idea of a lunar component for NASA's deep space exploration program. He mentions "Moon to Mars" in his comments. However it is likely that NASA's lunar program will become more focused, with the goal of learning what we can on the Moon to support human missions to Mars.

As for Mars itself, it seems clear the Isaacman's spaceflight goals align with those of Trump—who, despite creating the Artemis lunar program during his first term, has always been more interested in sending humans to Mars—and Musk, who founded SpaceX with the express purpose of putting humans on Mars.

Jared Isaacman, the tall guy, with the Polaris Dawn crew last August, on arrival at the KSC to prepare for their mission.  August 19, 2024.  Left to right: Mission Specialist Anna Menon, Pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet, Commander Jared Isaacman, Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now  

SpaceX's Falcon 9 Fleet

There's an OBTW (Oh, By The Way...) footnote to what most reporters consider the real story; which is that Saturday morning's Starlink 12-8 mission flew successfully from SLC-40 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.  That footnote is that the flight established a new record for flights of an orbital class booster.  Booster B1067 now earns -26 in its name for its 26th successful mission and continues as the fleet leader. 

We've joked here and in the comments about remembering when it was a goal to get 10 flights out of a booster.  Then they increased the number to 20.  Currently they're saying 30 is the goal with some talk about going to 35 or 40. 

A while ago, I stumbled across a site called ElonX that digs deeply into things that aren't necessarily widely reported and one of them is a remarkable graphic that keeps track of every Falcon 9, Block 5, in the fleet.  I'd reproduce it here, but it's just too big at 11,000 x 4660 pixels, so I'll link to the full-size image here.  

Instead, what I did was edit the data to display less data.  I clipped off every booster with less than 15 flights, and the first 14 flights of everything shown here.  There are 201 missions depicted here on 10 boosters; the full sheet that this was clipped from has an additional eight boosters.

Originally created by @SpaceNosey, then maintained by @pedro_leon and currently maintained by @PavelVantuch.

The infographic is usually updated after each launch. Last update: February 16, 2025 (after Starlink 12-8)

The 10 boosters' numbers are on the left and every mission from 15 to their most recent missions stretch out to the right.  B1063 and B1071 have 23 flights, B1069 has 21 and so on.

I thought the information on this site was worth linking to and my edit worth sharing.  Hope you like!

Our Winter Ended With January

It's not particularly unusual, but still disappointing to me that our winter was pretty much over before the end of January.  It was rainy or windy (or both) for the entire month.  Not one day with frost or freeze, and not one day with a record high or low.  "Not even the much talked about Winter Storm that set Florida snow records in January?"  Nope - those cities are 500 miles from me.  Our lowest temp was 38.

While that last sentence implies it was all fairly close to average, the weather had me do something I've never done since we put in our current central air conditioning system in March of 2020: I turned on the central heater overnight in parts of the last weeks of January.  Not to heat the majority of the house, but to keep our bedroom temperature from going under 60 degrees.  Our bedroom is hardly ever the temperature the system thermostat is set to.  In the summer it stays hotter than the thermostat setpoint and in the winter it's cooler than the setpoint. 

I've posted about seasonal affective disorder (SAD) before, with the observation while I know that SAD is real and I sympathize with those who have it, I've noticed that, if anything, I have the opposite reaction.  When I realize the days are getting longer and there's no going back to shorter and cooler days, I get saddened while people with SAD feel better.  It's like how I have the opposite of Attention Deficit Disorder: Attention Surplus Syndrome or ASS.  

I especially get that "downer" reaction when I realize there are no cold temperatures in the forecast and we're running out of chances for cold weather.  Like this 10-day forecast just taken from Weather Underground. 

 

This 10-day forecast ends four days before the end of the month, and the lowest temperature is 54F five days from as I'm typing - Friday morning the 21st.  That's not even cold for here.  That's just barely below the "normal" low of 56.  That means it's practically time to start spring planting, weeding and all that stuff.  I really want to rip out the flower bed areas in front of the house and encourage the grass to grow in there.  Or pour concrete.  Lots of stuff is triggering my reaction of too much PITA (Pain In The Ass) for the feel-good you get from doing it.

 

 

Blue Ghost is in Lunar Orbit

On Monday we reported Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander had done its translunar orbit injection and was on the way to lunar orbit.  As planned, the lander had the engine burn to insert into lunar orbit yesterday and is now refining its orbit with landing scheduled for March 2nd.  

Firefly posted Thursday: 

The Firefly team nailed our most challenging burn to date! Starting at 7:51 p.m. CST on February 13, the team completed a 4 minute, 15 second Lunar Orbit Insertion burn with Blue Ghost’s RCS thrusters and main engine to enter an elliptical orbit around the Moon. Over the next 16 days, we’ll conduct additional maneuvers to circularize our orbit and get closer to the lunar surface.

The probe's onboard cameras captured several snapshots edited into this short video;

Firefly Aerospace posted to X (as if it was supposed to be from Blue Ghost):

Blue Ghost, as you know, launched on a Falcon 9 that also carried the Resilience lander from ispace, which will take another couple of months before landing.  ispace has been gearing up for a lunar flyby that will take place around Feb. 15, although landing looks to be around May.  That's not all of the moon landings for this year, though. 

Intuitive Machines, whose IM-1 was a successful mission although the landing was nothing like what was planned, is coming up soon, too.  I think I coined the term "first commercial crash landing" for IM-1 because the lander (officially Odysseus and quickly renamed Odie) broke a leg on the approach to its landing spot and tipped over upon landing.  Intuitive Machines will launch their IM-2 lander, called Athena, on February 26.  Athena will also ride a Falcon 9.  IM believes they've taken care of the cause of Odie's crash landing.

 

 

Blue Origin Announces 10% Layoffs

Thursday morning, Feb. 13 and less than one month after the successful first flight of their New Glenn rocket, Blue Origin told workers that the workforce would be cut by 10%.   

The cuts were announced during an all-hands meeting on Thursday morning led by the rocket company's chief executive, Dave Limp. During the gathering, Limp cited "business strategy" as the rationale for making the cuts to a workforce of more than 10,000 people.
...
In a follow-up email to employees on Thursday morning under the subject "Difficult Org News," Limp said the decision was the result of the company's planning for 2025 and need for sustainable growth. Blue's primary goal for the coming year is to scale up its manufacturing output and launch cadence of the New Glenn rocket. Limp cited the scramble to complete the development of New Glenn and get the rocket into orbit as rationale for the cuts.

CEO Limp added: "We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years, and with that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed.  It also became clear that the makeup of our organization must change to ensure our roles are best aligned with executing these priorities." 

That sounds to me like they need more proportionally less forward-looking employees like systems or design engineers, and more people that can get the production work of various levels done.  

With the cuts, Blue Origin will seek to trim its management ranks. Of the cuts, Limp said, "This resulted in eliminating some positions in engineering, R&D, and program/project management and thinning out our layers of management."

He added that these difficult decisions will set Blue Origin on course for success this year and beyond. "This year alone, we will land on the Moon, deliver a record number of incredible engines, and fly New Glenn and New Shepard on a regular cadence," he wrote.

Rumors have been circulating that the company has had a hiring freeze in place for the past six months, and that they've let the majority of their contractors go.   

This difficult decision is part of getting the New Glenn operational, so it's worth noting that SpaceNews reported today that Blue is planning the second launch of the vehicle in "late spring" with the intent of cleaning up all the questions left hanging by the first flight - primarily the loss of the booster when they hoped to land and recover it. 

Speaking at the 27^th Annual Commercial Space Conference here Feb. 12, Dave Limp, chief executive of Blue Origin, suggested a propulsion issue of some kind caused the loss of the New Glenn booster during its landing attempt on the Jan. 16 NG-1 launch.

“We had most of the right conditions in the engine but we weren’t able to get everything right to the engine from the tanks,” he said. “We think we understand what the issues are.”  [NOTE: "here" in the first sentence appears to refer to Washington DC - SiG]

Limp understandably doesn't want to get too specific about why they lost the booster but implies they believe they have a plausible explanation (or more than one).  He noted, though, that demonstrating the in-flight relight of the BE-4 engines was one thing Blue Origin could not demonstrate before the launch.  We've heard this before.  For example, we've read that some maneuvering of the rocket must be done to force fuel by inertia into a place in the fuel tank where it can be pumped to the engines. 

“It was a combination of a couple things,” he said. “This was our first attempt at it. I don’t want to go into too much detail because we’re still going through the anomaly investigation. I feel like the team has a really good handle to it and modifications are not complicated.”

Blue Origin's New Glenn lifts off on its first flight Jan. 16. Credit: Blue Origin

Vast's Haven-1 Private Space Station Looking Delayed

In a remarkable coincidence, the subject of the private space station being worked on by startup company called Vast Space came up in the comments to yesterday's post and today I stumbled across an update on their first launch, which will be the first module of their new, private space station. 

The story isn't surprising: it's that they're not going to meet their original schedule.  They were working to a launch this coming August and now expect their Haven-1 to launch No Earlier Than May 2026.  In my experience, it would be surprising if they met the first date they scheduled when they knew far less about the realities of building what they've been designing. 

Even with the delay, it's still an "ambitious timeline," the company said. But Vast remains optimistic: "If all goes as planned, we will have designed, built, and launched the world’s first commercial space station in three years — a pace never before achieved in human spaceflight."

Vast began building the Haven-1 module in July of '24 in their Long Beach, CA, headquarters. They transported the module to the company's test stand in Mojave, CA in January.  They've begun a long effort to measure the performance of the module against all of the specifications it was designed to.  The latest tests have passed on a very important performance requirement. 

Using dry nitrogen, Vast pressurized the module on the test stand twice — the first for a duration of five hours, and the second for 48 hours. According to the company's data, Haven-1's pressure sensors showed an "indiscernible" leak rate, exceeding the vessel's requirements and falling within compliance for NASA's crew-rated spacecraft qualifications.

This test module, currently still on the test stand, is not going to fly, but based on its performance to date, they've begun construction of the first flight-rated module.  

Vast's Haven-1 qualification article on the test stand in Mojave, CA. (Image credit: Vast Space)

As we've covered before, the International Space Station (ISS) is approaching retirement, with current plans to deorbit the ISS at the end of 2030.  NASA has been eager for companies to get commercial space stations up and running.  A handful of private contenders have voiced plans to construct their own LEO destinations — Vast Space, Axiom Space, Blue Origin, Sierra Space, Nanoracks, and others.

As those companies tread water while they gauge market demand or continue their station developments in the background, Vast says it's on track to get Haven-1 to orbit in record time, and has begun actively seeking out customers and scientists with research they want to fly to space.

NASA Picks SpaceX to Launch New Exoplanet Mission

NASA announced on Monday afternoon (Feb. 10) that it has picked SpaceX to launch Pandora, a 716-pound (325-kilogram) satellite designed to help scientists better understand how our understanding of exoplanets' atmospheres are affected by changes in their host stars.  Launch is expected No Earlier Than (NET) "this fall." 

Considering that the 716 lb figure is a small fraction of the lift capability of the Falcon 9, I'll SWAG that it'll be part of a ride share mission of some sort.  Once in orbit...

...the satellite will observe at least 20 known transiting exoplanets — worlds that cross the face of their parent star from the telescope's perspective. It will observe these planets 10 separate times, staring at them for 24 hours on each occasion.

"The satellite will use an innovative 17-inch (45-centimeter)-wide all-aluminum telescope to simultaneously measure the visible and near-infrared brightness of the host star and obtain near-infrared spectra of the transiting planet," NASA officials said in Monday's statement.

This is much like the way the very first exoplanets were discovered in the early 1990s. When the planet transits (passes in front of) the star it orbits, that star dims proportional to the amount of the star's disk that gets blocked out (astronomers refer to this as occultation or being occulted).  As the star's light reaches the telescopes here on Earth, they frequently measure the spectrum of the starlight.  By measuring the spectrum when not occulted and comparing it to when the planet comes between us, the chemical composition of the planet's atmosphere can be deduced.  

Artist's depiction of the drop in measured light as the planet (black circle) occults the star.  The light curve is the bottom middle line with a big "notch" (dip in brightness) during the occultation.  Image credit: NASA

Pandora will be seeking out planets with atmospheres dominated by hydrogen or water.

However, this process depends on the star itself. If the star has regions that are particularly dark or bright, much like sunspot groups or plages seen on our own Sun, they can cause the star’s spectrum to vary over time in ways that can mimic or suppress features in the planet’s spectrum. 

Pandora aims to disentangle the star and planet spectra by monitoring the brightness of the exoplanet’s host star in visible light while simultaneously collecting infrared data. Together, these multiwavelength observations will provide constraints on the star’s spot coverage to separate the star’s spectrum from the planet’s.

Firefly's Blue Ghost has Left Earth Orbit

In an update for flight week three, we read Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar landing mission has completed its lunar orbit insertion engine burn on Saturday, Feb. 8, and is on its way to the moon.  The next phase of the mission is the four day journey to the moon, entering lunar orbit

In the coming days, Firefly will perform a series of burns—including a four-minute main engine firing on its four-day journey to lunar orbit. Blue Ghost will then attempt its Moon landing at the beginning of March. 

Firefly's mission to the moon is around six weeks long and that was planned after time studying the various options.  The launch was January 15th from the Kennedy Space Center side of the Cape, LC-39A, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 that was also carrying a lunar lander from ispace in Japan, which will take even longer to get to the moon.  

So why did they choose their six week voyage to the moon?  It wasn't simply to use a lower cost launch vehicle - they don't even mention that.

Firefly opted for a circuitous, month-and-a-half-long journey to the Moon, which allowed onboard payloads to gather more data—and gave the company time to check systems before the main event.

“If we were going just straight to the Moon, we wouldn’t really have time to fix anything that was coming up,” Ray Allensworth, Firefly’s spacecraft program director, told Payload. 

One by one, test by test, Blue Ghost has worked properly.  The first big test, actually "do or die" for the lander, was firing up the spacecraft’s engines on their first burn.  Everything during the burn - and the verification tests afterward, has been as desired.  They had scheduled three test burns but cancelled the third after seeing the results of the second one. 

After the four day trip to the moon, Blue Ghost will spend 16 days in lunar orbit calibrating itself and lowering its orbit gradually.  Once pronounced ready, the landing attempt will be in Mare Crisium (the "Sea of Crises") on the eastern limb of the Earth-facing side of the moon. That shows up as 45 days after launch, or around the end of February. The New Moon is February 27 and the exact landing time is probably to be around sunrise at the Mare Crisium landing site - to maximize the lander's time.  Their website says the landing will be March 2.

Firefly rendering of Blue Ghost descending to land on the moon.  Image credit: Firefly Aerospace.

Final words to Ray Allensworth:

“The US hasn’t had a fully successful lunar mission since Apollo. To be able to do that from a commercial standpoint would be really important.”

The Side of DEI Nobody Talks About

There are many, many reactions to the DEI issues that we hear every day, but there's one drawback to it that's hardly ever mentioned. 

The basis for all the DEI talk is that hiring based on those aspects compensates for ages of discrimination; it somehow compensates people who weren't hired in the past by hiring someone today who has a superficial resemblance to the original person.  The reality is that hiring based on those superficial resemblances hurts the people who get hired based on them the most.  The victim of the DEI isn't really the one in the past, it's the less qualified person that gets hired today.  That person hired today hurts anyone hired after them. 

I retired just over nine years ago, and DEI was far less prominent in everyday use than it is today, but another term was used that had the same effects.  That was Affirmative Action.  At some point, everyone started to know what it meant to say someone was an affirmative action hire.  Everyone besides that affirmative action hire knew it meant taking extra time and effort to get the job done.  

The problem, of course, was that as it became apparent that all the affirmative action hires were part of the same ethnic or identity group every member of that group was assumed to be an AA hire until they proved otherwise - by being good at their job. 

Being a white dude of obvious European background, I never had to face this.  It was very simple: if you weren't considered the best applicant, you didn't get the job.  Working from the early 1970s through the mid 20-teens, I worked with very competent technicians and engineers of all backgrounds: black, white, men, women, as well as from many nationalities: Americans, various South American nations, Indians, Chinese, Japanese and more. Toward the latter years, a couple of the black engineers I knew would mention how much they hated hiring based on stuff like skin color and ethnic group because of the suspicion they were an AA hire. (One was a digital hardware engineer - designing gate arrays, while the other was a very high level software engineer).  So after climbing the ladder and accomplishment after accomplishment, or degree after degree, they felt they had to prove themselves over and over. 

If hiring were to openly return to being strictly based on merit, how long would it be before the last vestiges of suspicion someone was a DEI or Affirmative Action hire went away?   

While it's marginally related to the topic, it's just here because I find it funny:

Boeing Tells Workers SLS May Be Cut

The biggest space news of the last few days is a report out of Boeing that they're preparing for NASA to terminate the Space Launch System or SLS program. 

On Friday, with less than an hour's notice, David Dutcher, Boeing's vice president and program manager for the SLS rocket, scheduled an all-hands meeting for the approximately 800 employees working on the program. The apparently scripted meeting lasted just six minutes, and Dutcher didn't take questions.

During his remarks, Dutcher said Boeing's contracts for the rocket could end in March and that the company was preparing for layoffs in case the contracts with the space agency were not renewed. "Cold and scripted" is how one person described Dutcher's demeanor.

With Trump's pick for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, not having been approved by congress, all that can be said is that Boeing seems to be preparing for a worst case outcome.  There have been reports that the future of the entire Artemis program and ways to complete its goal to return Americans to the moon are being reviewed (in the often-quoted line of “...landing the first woman and first person of color...” or even the milder “first woman and the next man”).  

Multiple sources said there has been a healthy debate within the White House and senior leadership at NASA, including acting administrator Janet Petro, about the future of the SLS rocket and the Artemis Moon program. Some commercial space advocates have been pressing hard to cancel the rocket outright. Petro has been urging the White House to allow NASA to fly the Artemis II and Artemis III missions using the initial version of the SLS rocket before the program is canceled.  

Others have pointed out that the problem with the SLS has been the program was incentivized to be late and over-budget, and that keeping the program alive embodies the sunk cost fallacy so the smart thing to do is just drop it and cut the losses.  These critics point out that keeping the SLS around to make the first lunar landing could actually make things worse, arguing that large contractors (that is, Boeing) would be incentivized to slow down work and drag out their cost-plus contracts for as long as possible. 

On Saturday, a day after this story was published, NASA released a statement saying the SLS rocket remains an "essential component" of the Artemis campaign. "NASA and its industry partners continuously work together to evaluate and align budget, resources, contractor performance, and schedules to execute mission requirements efficiently, safely, and successfully in support of NASA’s Moon to Mars goals and objectives," a spokesperson said. "NASA defers to its industry contractors for more information regarding their workforces.

It's shocking how much the industry has changed since the SLS began.  As we've talked about before, NASA was directed by congress to start the program in 2011.  The joke that SLS stands for the “Shuttles' Leftover Shit” comes from the fact that the rocket is largely built from components of the space shuttle, including the Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME) and side-mounted boosters.  Calling them SSMEs isn't just a name; the only SLS mission to fly used SSMEs that were actually flown on shuttle missions.  The SLS rocket was initially supposed to launch by the end of 2016. It did not make its debut flight until the end of 2022.

NASA has spent approximately $3 billion a year developing the rocket and its ground systems over the program's lifetime. While handing out guaranteed contracts to Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Aerojet, and other contractors, the government's rocket-building enterprise has been superseded by the private industry. SpaceX has developed two heavy lift rockets in the last decade, and Blue Origin just launched its own, with the New Glenn booster. Each of these rockets is at least partially reusable and flies at less than one-tenth the cost of the SLS rocket.

My view of this is the only reason to keep the SLS is if it has an insurmountable lead over SpaceX and a bigger lead over Blue Origin.  I have to wonder if Artemis keeps going with SLS and the Starship-based Human Landing System can they land astronauts on the moon before the Chinese do?  Is there any way to get a replacement for the SLS-based system in time for it to make a difference? 

The first Space Launch System rocket rolls toward its launch pad, LC-39B. This image is dated 3/17/22; it would be another eight months before it would fly - November of '22 Credit: Trevor Mahlmann

German Company to test Radical Reentry Design

Thanks to the weekday newsletter, Payload, we learn that a German-based space startup called ATMOS has received regulatory approval to fly the first test flight of its novel Phoenix reentry capsule.  It's an approach I haven't seen documented before and I'm expecting most of you will find it interesting.  It also makes ATMOS the first European company to attempt a reentry from space. 

During the mission, scheduled to launch on SpaceX’s Bandwagon-3 rideshare mission as early as April, Phoenix will complete two Earth orbits before blasting through the atmosphere and landing in the Indian ocean—without any parachute.

Like all of rocket science, the tradeoffs associated with reentry are brutal, and a higher orbit brings higher speeds which makes the trades harder.  In the case of the Orion capsule or other satellites returning from the moon, they come in much faster than something in Earth orbit.  Yes, if they did a longer retro rocket burn they could reenter at a lower speed, but that comes at the cost of carrying fuel to burn which reduces the payload that can be sent to the moon to start with.  Since the modifications to Orion's mission profile to prevent the kind of heat shield damage the first flight had, it's arguable that a lower speed could have prevented that damage.  

The ATMOS team has come up with totally different approach. 

Unlike other reentry capsules, which use ablative heat shields, Phoenix relies on an inflatable heat shield to protect its payloads from the shock and heat of reentry. It inflates using a two-stage system of nitrogen gas canisters and air intakes to suck air out of the atmosphere, reaching a full diameter of 6 m. The combination of light weight and large surface area make for a slower, cooler reentry. 

Altogether, the 250 kg-class reentry vehicle can carry 100 kg of cargo at full capacity, an order of magnitude more efficient than other reentry technologies.

“It’s a very risky approach, but if it works, then there’s pretty much no technology out there that is as lightweight as ours,” ATMOS CEO Sebastian Klaus told Payload.

Phoenix I is ready to ship to Florida for its first flight. Image: ATMOS Space Cargo

This is a prototype flight of the technology and will carry at least three payloads for paying customers - who will get a discount since it is a prototype flight.  Of the three that Payload describes, at least two seem that they may also be prototypes.  

The company is looking to fly two more missions in '26 and four in '27 with an ultimate goal of one launch every month.  They're also planning on scaling the vehicle up in size, talking about carrying up to 25 metric tons (55,000 pounds) per flight. 

“Think about what you can do with 25 metric tons. You can talk about factories in space. You can talk about catching a complete satellite and bringing it back down to earth. You can think about bringing back a rocket upper stage and making rockets reusable,” Klaus said.

Update to The Butch and Suni Story

By now, I thought that story of President Trump asking Elon Musk to get Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back down from the space station was well and truly over.  I did a piece last week, Thursday Jan. 30 and I thought it was over then.  

Until today.  

It's being reported that NASA is going to change the plans they've been working to and are moving the Crew-10 mission from early April much closer to the originally planned mid-March date.  That could conceivably have Butch and Suni - along with their two Crew-9 crewmates, NASA's Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov - return to Earth as early as March 19th, about two weeks ahead of the currently published date. 

Bringing the two astronauts back to Earth next month will require some shuffling of spacecraft here on the ground and a delay of the privately operated Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station to later in the spring.

When the Crew-9 return was delayed, the explanation was that problems with certifying the Crew-10 Dragon Capsule, designated C213 by SpaceX, were the cause.   

SpaceX and NASA are still working to resolve the C213 Dragon issue, which may be related to batteries on the spacecraft. NASA now believes the vehicle will not be ready for its debut launch until late April. Therefore, according to sources at the agency, NASA has decided to swap vehicles for Crew-10. The space agency has asked SpaceX to bring forward the C210 vehicle, which returned to Earth last March after completing the Crew-7 mission. 

The next flight of C210, named Endurance, had been assigned to Axiom Space for their next mission to the ISS, Axiom 4, which seems to have a date of No Earlier Than April penciled in.  The source material doesn't specifically say that they've swapped the two so that Axiom 4 gets the new C213 with Crew-10 getting the older C210 capsule.

Sources said SpaceX is now working toward a no-earlier-than March 12 launch date for Crew-10 on Endurance. If this flight occurs on time—and the date is not certain, as it depends on other missions on SpaceX's Falcon 9 manifest—the Crew-9 astronauts, including Wilmore and Williams, could fly home on March 19. They would have spent 286 days in space. Although not a record for a NASA human spaceflight, this would be far longer than their original mission, which was expected to last eight to 30 days.

I know this completely unrelated to reality but Crew-10 seems to go well with C210, and since 1+3 = 4, C213 seems to go better with Axiom 4.  Just kidding.

Neither C210 or C213, this is the Crew Dragon used for the Inspiration 4 mission in September of '21, simply because it's a pretty picture of a Dragon capsule.  Image credit: SpaceX

Indian Navigation Satellite Stuck in Transfer Orbit

Eight days ago as I write, Jan. 28, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched their version of a navigational satellite called NVS-02.  Their Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mk II lifted off at 7:53 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (0053 UTC) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. 

As is common in satellites above the lowest, easiest to achieve orbits, once the launch vehicle delivered the NVS-02 payload to the desired deployment altitude, an engine onboard was then set to fire to transfer the satellite to the desired orbit.  On Sunday Feb. 2 the ISRO announced that due to a thruster failure on the satellite it was unable to reach its intended orbit. 

According to a statement posted on ISRO’s website but not otherwise publicized by the agency, “the orbit raising operations towards positioning the satellite to the designated orbital slot could not be carried out as the valves for admitting the oxidizer to fire the thrusters for orbit raising did not open.”

 ISRO goes on to say:

The satellite systems are healthy and the satellite is currently in elliptical orbit. Alternate mission strategies for utilising the satellite for navigation in an elliptical orbit is being worked out. 

The big problem facing the satellite is that it's in an orbit that's unstable.  The Space Track catalog maintained by the U.S. Space Force shows that the satellite remains in an orbit with a perigee of 165 kilometers and apogee of 37,582 kilometers.  That perigee is barely over 100 miles and that's a height where atmospheric drag is a concern, especially in periods near solar max as we are now in.  Solar storms can make the atmosphere expand which can increase drag a lot.  Remember back in 2022 when a solar storm cost SpaceX 40 out of 49 satellites it had just launched?  Those satellites had a perigee of approximately 210 kilometers, almost 50km higher than this one (or 130 miles) - and that wasn't even a strong solar storm. 

Later in the day Sunday ISRO posted to X:

The main Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) engine on the satellite remains in an unusable state, which is why ISRO is now going to attempt to use its Attitude Control System thrusters to slightly raise its perigee.

Any satellite with a perigee below 200 km is in a highly unstable orbit. The current perigee of NVS-02 is at 170 km.

ISRO will probably attempt to raise the perigee only somewhat above 200 km to put NVS-02 in a more stable orbit. It is highly doubtful whether they will be able to raise it all the way into a circular GSO orbit (which was the original destination).

The NVS-02 navigation satellite with its payload fairing before being encapsulated ahead of its Jan. 28 launch. Image credit: ISRO

Sometimes a Story is so Silly ...

Every now and then you run across a story that isn't so much news but something that you just have to pass on.  That story belongs to Eric Berger at Ars Technica this week for "Europe has the worst imaginable idea to counter SpaceX’s launch dominance."

The setup is not surprising: the European Space Agency is concerned about SpaceX and how far ahead of everyone else in the space industry they are.  The numbers are recognizable but still eye-popping when you read them.   

Last year, for example, SpaceX launched 134 orbital missions. Combined, Europe had three.

After this intro, Eric outlines several more legitimate reasons for the ESA to be looking for ways to regain some of their previous magic.  For one thing, Europe wants to launch something comparable to the Starlink satellites, but ultimately a smaller presence in space than Starlink to be available by the end of the decade.  

Sounds reasonable, right?  The issue is how they seem to be going about how to get there.

However, the approach being pursued by Airbus—a European aerospace corporation that is, on a basic level, akin to Boeing—seems like the dumbest idea imaginable. According to Bloomberg, "Airbus has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for advice on an effort to forge a new European space and satellite company that can better compete with Elon Musk’s dominant SpaceX."

The publication reports that talks are preliminary and include France-based Thales and Italy's Leonardo S.p.A. to create a portfolio of space services. Leonardo has hired Bank of America Inc. for the plan, which has been dubbed Project Bromo. (According to Merriam-Webster, "bromo" is a form of bromide, which originates from the Greek word brōmos, meaning bad smell.)

Project stink?  I swear I'm not making this up. 

While European companies have been playing catch up with the US for around 15 years, it's hard to imagine companies like Airbus, Thales Alenia Space and the others banding together to become nimble and more efficient operators in spaceflight.  But going to Goldman Sachs for advice? 

Two decades ago, the US military forced Lockheed and Boeing to merge their launch businesses to create a single company. Although there were several goals of this venture, which became United Launch Alliance, one of them was that by combining operations, the companies could avoid duplication and become more efficient. The opposite happened. Launch prices ballooned, and America consistently ceded the commercial launch market to foreign players into the 2010s, right up until when SpaceX got its Falcon 9 rocket flying frequently.

Europe's first Ariane 6 rocket takes flight for the first time on July 9, 2024. Credit: ESA - S. Corvaja

Americans on Mars By 2029?

I would say it's doubtful, but betting against Elon Musk has proven to be a pretty foolish thing to do.  The thing is, it doesn't seem to be Musk's idea, it seems to be President Trump's.  

Let me back up a little. 

Like every other government agency, NASA is in the throws of changes from President Trump's first weeks in office, along with Musk's department, DOGE.  The NASA folks are a bit rattled by it all.  Jared Isaacman, Trump's pick to lead the organization, hasn't been confirmed yet, and hearings are currently anticipated to be in the second half of February.  In the meantime, an interim administrator named Janet Petro was appointed, and like every other agency, has passed on the Executive Orders to remove diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility contracts and to "report" on anyone who did not carry out this order.  As I'd expect, there are people in NASA upset by that like every other agency we read about.

Isaacman's approval taking until nearly March seems to be more an issue of the large numbers that congress is having to approve and not a sign of likely disapproval.  In his last five years of funding orbital missions, Isaacman seemed to have come to be regarded as an earnest individual, genuinely interested in spaceflight and in advancing exploration for all.  He is seen as the kind of young, dynamic, pro-space leader with the potential to usher NASA into the 21st century and out of the Apollo era it has been stuck in for decades.  Most importantly, the idea of reaching Mars by 2029 is not his idea.  

January of '29 also happens to be the last days of Trump's term and many speculate that's why he talks of "men on Mars by the end of this decade." At this point, I find it hard to imagine the Artemis program will be successful in getting astronauts to the moon by 2030 and putting people on Mars is orders of magnitude harder.  

Artemis still depends on the horrific SLS, the Gateway station in a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit near the moon and more.  It also depends a lot on Starship, and the setback of losing the Starship on Flight Test 7 impacts this schedule when the required numbers of Starship flights are seen.

Going to Mars puts enormous demands on Starship.  There's going to be a need to launch numbers of Starships unlike anything ever launched before.  In a posting on X, Musk said, "Mass to orbit is the key metric, thereafter mass to Mars surface. The former needs to be in the megaton to orbit per year range to build a self-sustaining colony on Mars."  A megaton to orbit?  The current Starship is the highest capacity ever built and the largest Version 3 Starship proposed carries 200 tons to LEO.  Musk calculates that he would have to achieve 5,000 Starships launches of this size per year to support a Mars colony. That's on the order of 14 Starship launches per day.  You think near Earth orbit is crowded now?

All that Musk has said that I can find is that he plans to start launching unmanned Starships to Mars in the next launch window (optimum planetary alignment) in 2026, and, if that goes well, perhaps manned flights by 2028/29.

As hard as 5000 Starship launches a year sounds, there are still many problems out there.  Many of them are related to the "couple of months every two years" launch windows and the problems of being in space that long for a crew.  Crews will be exposed to more radiation from the sun and deep space than any other crew ever has been, and it doesn't get much better than that once they're on Mars.  The planet's lack of a protective atmosphere and magnetic field creates that.  A nuclear engine that could get them to Mars in a very short order and reduced the dependence on those tiny launch windows would help exposure during flight but not on the planet.

Final words to the summary on Space.com

Generally, as laid out by Bob Zubrin in the last century, a Mars Direct approach would begin with successfully landing many uncrewed cargo ships in the same location on Mars with supplies including construction materials, consumables, mining & drilling equipment, electrochemical reactors for production of methane and oxygen, tankage, and the components of a nuclear power plant. Much of this would have to be done 2 years before the first humans were launched.

Actually, in theory, all of this could be done over decades, but 2029 is wildly unlikely, even for a one way, one astronaut suicide mission to plant a flag.

SpaceX first released this artist's conception of a settlement on Mars some years ago.  It shows a domed city surrounded by photovoltaic farms and four Starships. Image credit: SpaceX  I'd love to live long enough to see it, but seriously doubt that's possible.

Japan Launches Navigation Satellite on H3 Rocket

The Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H3 is Japan's flagship rocket, and available in several configurations.  This morning at 3:30 AM EST or 0830 UTC, an H3 was launched from Tanegashima Space Center. 

Aboard was the 1,900-kilogram Michibiki 6 satellite, also known as the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZS-6), for Japan’s navigation satellite system. The system aims to provide Japan with positioning, navigation and timing services, while increasing the accuracy and reliability of GPS services in the region. 

The first Michibiki spacecraft for a four-satellite system was launched in 2010.  Since that time, an 11-satellite system, to provide redundancy, is being considered, according to a 2024 policy document from the Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan. 

You might recall that the H3 had a failure on its first flight in March of 2023 - due to a failure in the upper stage; leading ground controllers to issue a destruct command to destroy the stage and its ALOS-3 payload. It was over a year, July of '24, before they had a successful H3 launch, and they've had two more successes since then. This is vehicle number five.

The 63-meter-long H3 comes in configurations with no solid rocket boosters, two SRBs or four SRBs for higher payload needs. The latter pair of configurations can also utilize an elongated payload fairing. 
...
The expendable rocket was designed to be more cost-effective and therefore competitive on the international commercial launch market.

The H3 received a boost last year with the announcements that the H3 will launch an asteroid mission for the United Arab Emirates, currently scheduled for 2028, while Eutelsat signed a contract to use multiple H3 rockets from 2027.

This morning's launch from Tanegashima Space Center. Photo from The Mainichi (Image credit: Kyodo)  Studying the vehicle as best as I can, it looks like an SRB is facing the camera and in line with the booster's body, which makes this the two SRB version.  Watching the Japanese launch video confirms that.

This was Japan's first launch of the year.  The moon-bound lunar lander Resilience from Japanese company ispace is still said to be in excellent health and en route to the moon, after taking a ride on a Falcon 9 back on Jan. 15. 

Small Space News Story Roundup 52

Largely from this week's Rocket Report from Ars Technica, but not only from there.

Space Force Has Big Dreams For 2025

The main emphasis in this section was launches on ULA's Vulcan, but it's not just Vulcan. The US Space Force is projecting 11 national security launches aboard the Vulcan rocket in 2025.  That's an aggressive schedule considering that Vulcan isn't certified for national security payloads yet.  

While ULA aims to ramp up Vulcan flights for military missions, SpaceX has maintained its dominance in the commercial launch market and even absorbed additional national security launches in 2024 that were originally slated for Vulcan, highlighting the Space Force’s growing reliance on SpaceX’s proven Falcon rockets to maintain critical military space access.

Add New Glenn to the mix.  The first mission of the New Glenn in January was deemed a success by the Space Force and it seems Blue Origin is going to do a second qualifying launch by the spring.  Space Force doesn't appear to be concerned about Blue's inability to land the booster for recycling and re-use.  Brigadier General Kristin Panzenhagen emphasized that booster recovery isn't a criterion for NSSL eligibility.  

“For our national security space launch missions, the primary measure of success is delivering the payload to its destination,” she said. 
 
The flight positions New Glenn to compete for Lane 1 of the NSSL Phase 3 program, which covers less complex missions. A second successful flight will likely be required for the rocket to qualify for the more demanding Lane 2 missions.

Blue Origin’s path to certification remains proprietary, with the company given the option to balance demonstration launches and detailed data reviews to meet Space Force requirements. ULA publicly disclosed that its plan to certify Vulcan would require two successful flights.

Vulcan is still under pressure with certification expected in late February.  If Space Force gets 11 NSSL launches out of the 10 months left in the year ULA is going to have operate at a pace we haven't seen them meet in years - if ever. 

Sorry, but this story makes me laugh

It's actually a headline in the Rocket Report that SpaceX expended a Falcon 9 this past Wednesday, Jan. 29.  You know, like virtually every other launch by every other launch service in the world, they used up every pound of payload to orbit they could get out of this system before letting it crash into the Atlantic ocean. That included taking steps like removing the landing legs and grid fins to add those few pounds to the payload it could put in orbit.  

The payload was the SpainSat NG-1 satellite launched from Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39A. 

The gigantic difference between SpaceX expending booster B1073 and every other example you can think of is that this was the 21st flight of B1073.  I'm unaware of any other launch provider that currently is able to recover and re-fly boosters over 20 times.

The Airbus-built satellite, known as SpainSat NG-1 (New Generation), is the first of two satellites for Hisdesat. It was developed under a partnership with the European Space Agency, making its launch on a Falcon 9 somewhat notable.

Apparently, the FAA is still being the FAA

Apparently enough people think that the FAA is just going to let SpaceX operate without doing their usual process on Starship's Flight Test 7 that it's news the FAA is going to follow FAA policies.

Within hours of the Starship's RUD, people were reporting finding debris, although there were no reports of any serious damages. 

The good news is there were no injuries or reports of significant damage from the wreckage that fell over the Turks and Caicos. "The FAA confirmed one report of minor damage to a vehicle located in South Caicos," an FAA spokesperson told Ars on Friday. "To date, there are no other reports of damage."

It's not clear if the vehicle owner in South Caicos will file a claim against SpaceX for the damage. It would the first time someone makes such a claim related to an accident with a commercial rocket overseen by the FAA. Last year, a Florida homeowner submitted a claim to NASA for damage to his house from a piece of debris that fell from the International Space Station.

A piece of what appears to be heat shield tile recovered in the Caicos, as shown on X.