The Hunt for Lunar Water

Just over a half hour ago, as I sit to start writing, Mrs. Graybeard and I stepped outside to watch the night's launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 from complex 39A on the Kennedy Space Center.  Among a variety of rideshare payloads, the highlight of the mission was Intuitive Machines IM-2 Lunar Lander, also named Athena.  

With Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander already in orbit around the moon, and ispace's Resilience lander finalizing its lunar orbit, this marks the third lander currently on the way to the moon.  Blue Ghost is currently planned to land on the moon Sunday, March 2, NET 2:34 AM. CST.  (NET = No Earlier Than).  YouTube video coverage here is expected to go live March 2nd at 1:20 AM CST.   Next will be tonight's launch, Intuitive Machine's Athena lander.  Athena is on a much faster trajectory than the Blue Ghost and Resilience landers, and will reach the moon on March 6th landing "around lunchtime".  ispace's Resilience simply says, "May."  

There's another satellite on tonight's ridesharing mission, NASA’s JPL Lunar Trailblazer satellite, on a similar trajectory as Athena.  

Lunar Trailblazer is expected to begin orbiting the Moon, mapping the quantity and location of water ice on the surface, while Athena descends to its landing site in the Mons Mouton region ~100 miles from the lunar South Pole.

During its 10 day mission closer to the south pole than any lunar lander ever, Athena will release two more payloads focused on the search for water: PRIME-1 and PLWS.

PRIME-1: NASA’s Polar Resource Ice Mining Experiment contains two instruments:

• A drill from Honeybee Robotics (The Regolith Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain, or TRIDENT)
• A mass spectrometer from NASA (Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations, or MSolo). 

The meter-long drill will bore into the lunar surface in 10-cm increments, depositing the soil on the surface for MSolo to analyze. MSolo will also examine the gasses emitted during the drilling process to better understand the lunar subsurface and detect possible contamination from the Nova-C lander.

PLWS: The Puli Lunar Water Snooper from Hungary-based Puli Space Technologies is a 400-g dowsing instrument attached to Intuitive Machines’ Micro Nova Hopper that will attempt to identify and measure the concentration of water in lunar soil—both near the landing site and in a permanently shaded crater nearby.

ispace's Resilience lander is bringing water electrolyzing equipment to demonstrate the production of oxygen and hydrogen on the Moon for the first time.  Of course, electrolysis equipment isn't going to do much good if Resilience doesn't have any water to electrolyze.

It's important to note that while previous sensing missions reported the presence of water, NASA’s SOFIA and China's Chang’e-5 mission say the water is "unevenly distributed" and finding it will be a challenge. 

Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 Athena lander. Image: Intuitive Machines

Another NASA Associate Administrator is Retiring

Fresh after the retirement of Associate Administrator Jim Free on Wednesday, Feb. 19, NASA announced Monday, Feb. 24, that Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development Cathy Koerner will retire from the agency at the end of this week.  Koerner has served in that role since the end of 2023.  

This isn't the first time a career move by Jim Free has led to a move by Cathy Koerner.

Koerner spent 34 years at NASA in various roles, including Orion program manager and deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development. She took the position of associate administrator for exploration systems development when Jim Free, the previous person in that role, became associate administrator, the highest civil-service position at the agency.

As pointed out in the first link in this piece, Free retired apparently after Trump selected Janet Petro to lead the agency on an interim basis, awaiting the senate confirmation of Trump's appointment of Jared Isaacman as NASA Administrator. 

“Cathy’s legacy is one of unwavering dedication to human spaceflight, and we are grateful for her years of service,” Petro said in a statement.
...
Replacing Koerner on an acting basis will be Lori Glaze, the deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development. Glaze is a planetary scientist who for several years was director of the agency’s planetary science division. She took a detail in the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD) last spring and, several months later, elected to stay in that directorate as deputy associate administrator.

Since both Free and Koerner have been associated with the Artemis moon missions, this has raised concerns about the future of Artemis - the main mission of the ESDMD that they led over the last several years.  There has been talk about killing off SLS, the Lunar Gateway, and other aspects of the Artemis program, including mentions by Jared Isaacman. 

There have been other moves. 

• Replacing Koerner on an acting basis will be Lori Glaze, her Deputy Assistant  Administrator.  Glaze is a planetary scientist who for several years was director of the agency’s planetary science division.
• Vanessa Wyche, director of the Johnson Space Center, has become acting associate administrator, replacing Free. She has been at NASA for 35 years, including nearly four years as director of the JSC.
• NASA hired Jackie Jester as associate administrator for the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs.  She had been senior director for government affairs at launch vehicle developer Relativity Space and had previously worked at NASA as a policy advisor.  
  

Finally: an important but unrelated footnote: 

Starship Flight Test 8 has been moved to Friday, Feb. 28 according to that post to X by Elon Musk.  Musk simply posted, “Starship Flight 8 flies Friday” and a quick check of NextSpaceflight shows the same time originally listed for Wednesday, 6:30 PM EST, 2330 UTC. 

Cathy Koerner, seen here at a NASA exploration workshop Feb. 12, will retire as associate administrator of exploration systems development Feb. 28. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

A Get Away Day

As in the saying that the day got away from me, with a visit to an "urgent care" place - not an ER, but not a "put it off for later or next week" thing, either.  Not Mrs. Graybeard or me, thankfully, but sucking up lots of time nonetheless.  Dinner was about two hours later than usual and the evening still had things to do to help out.  

So to put up something that people around here might want to read, as an anonymous commenter posted today at 2:23PM posted, today SpaceX uploaded a concise summary of their failure investigation of the RUD of Ship 33 which caused the end of Flight Test 7.  Here are what seem to be the most important four paragraphs:

After vehicle separation, Starship's six second stage Raptor engines powered the vehicle along its expected trajectory. Approximately two minutes into its burn, a flash was observed in the aft section of the vehicle near one of the Raptor vacuum engines. This aft section, commonly referred to as the attic, is an unpressurized area between the bottom of the liquid oxygen tank and the aft heatshield. Sensors in the attic detected a pressure rise indicative of a leak after the flash was seen.

Roughly two minutes later, another flash was observed followed by sustained fires in the attic. These eventually caused all but one of Starship’s engines to execute controlled shut down sequences and ultimately led to a loss of communication with the ship. Telemetry from the vehicle was last received just over eight minutes and 20 seconds into flight.

Contact with Starship was lost prior to triggering any destruct rules for its Autonomous Flight Safety System, which was fully healthy when communication was lost. The vehicle was observed to break apart approximately three minutes after loss of contact during descent. Post-flight analysis indicates that the safety system did trigger autonomously, and breakup occurred within Flight Termination System expectations.

The most probable root cause for the loss of ship was identified as a harmonic response several times stronger in flight than had been seen during testing, which led to increased stress on hardware in the propulsion system. The subsequent propellant leaks exceeded the venting capability of the ship’s attic area and resulted in sustained fires.

 Ship 33 from an onboard camera used to monitor it during the flight test.  Image credit: SpaceX

If you follow any of the good sources working to keep us updated (e.g., Lab Padre, NASASpaceflight, and others) you will have seen that SpaceX has been working at a high pace to make this Wednesday's projected launch of Flight Test 8.  The 60 second static fire mentioned in that linked post was part of testing out the ability to handle incidents like the ones that took out Ship 33.  A check of the FAA site linked to in that post still shows the start of the launch window to be Wednesday afternoon at 2330 UTC or 5:30 PM CST.

NASA's Associate Adminstrator Has Retired

In a statement late in the day on Wednesday, Feb. 19, NASA reported that associate administrator Jim Free was retiring effective yesterday, Feb. 22.  Free had been associate administrator, the top civil-service position in the agency, since the retirement of Bob Cabana at the end of 2023.  

Free was previously associate administrator for exploration systems development, a position NASA created in 2021 when it split the former Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate into two directorates, one overseeing exploration programs and the other the International Space Station and related operations. Earlier in his 30-year NASA career, he was director of the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

I know that I've mentioned Jim Free by name here in the blog many times, and while I don't claim any sort of insider knowledge of life inside NASA, I think the first mention that I remember by name was June 16, 2023 when I reported that he was arguing NASA should drop fixed price contracts and use only cost-plus.  It's simply hard to sum up how much I differ from Free on that.  His argument is that if a fixed cost contract doesn't deliver on time, the buyers are stuck; the problem is he completely ignores that big, cost-plus contracts (think SLS) are also late and you pay more for them to be delivered late. There's simply no evidence that cost-plus contracts deliver better results sooner.

Primarily based on his position, when Bill Nelson and Pam Melroy stepped down as NASA administrator and deputy administrator at the end of Biden's administration, Free was expected to take the top spot.  In fact, SpaceNews reports that on inauguration day, NASA's website listed Free as acting administrator.

However, several hours later the White House announced it had selected Janet Petro, director of the Kennedy Space Center, as acting administrator. The decision reportedly even took top agency officials by surprise.

There has been puzzlement over appointing Janet Petro so it's worth pointing out that back before the election, Free had voiced concern that a new administration might drop the priority on Artemis, saying, “We need that consistency in purpose. That has not happened since Apollo.  If we lose that, I believe we will fall apart and we will wander, and other people in this world will pass us by.”  Contrast that view of Artemis, which necessarily includes SLS, with the talk of going to Mars instead of the moon (and rather than both).  If you're a fan of SLS with its absurd cost overruns and schedule slips, it seems out of line with the current administration. 

NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free at an agency "all hands" event in December 2024. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

German Startup Isar Aerospace Closing in on a Big First

Isar Aerospace is closing in on two firsts, one is big for them, the other is big for all of Europe.  The big one for the seven year old startup company is launching the first test flight of their Spectrum orbital launch vehicle.  The really big one is they're on track to be the first orbital launch from Europe - as well as the first by a European company.  

"We are almost ready for the test flight. All we need is the license," said Daniel Metzler, co-founder and CEO of Isar Aerospace. "By enabling space access from mainland Europe, we provide a critical resource for ensuring sovereignty and resilience."

Isar announced Friday (Feb. 21) that they had completed a 30 second static test firing of the first stage of Spectrum. The nine-engine booster was test-fired at Andøya Spaceport in Norway the previous Friday, Feb. 14.

The second stage had been static fired last year. With both stages passing their tests, Isar says its launch verhicle is qualified for its first flight.

Aside from the normal preparations for a rocket launch—such as mating the two stages of the launcher together and integrating its payload fairing—the primary hurdle remaining for Isar is regulatory in nature. In a statement, Isar said the first flight of the Spectrum rocket will take place "as soon as possible" following approval and licensing from the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority.

The Aviation Authority will establish the launch window and allowable times, as the FAA does for US launches.   

A couple of years ago there was buzz about who was going to emerge as the winner in a race of small launch vehicles; those that can carry one ton to low Earth orbit.  Isar Aerospace's Spectrum is a member of this class. 

The fully assembled Spectrum rocket will stand about 92 feet (28 meters) tall and measure more than 6 feet (2 meters) in diameter. The expendable launcher is designed to haul payloads up to 1 metric ton (2,200 pounds) into low-Earth orbit. Spectrum is powered by nine Aquila engines on its first stage, and one engine on the second stage, burning a mixture of propane and liquid oxygen propellants.

Isar is headquartered near Munich, Germany, a central hub of European Space efforts. The company says it has raised more than 400 million euros (about $420 million), more than any other European launch startup.  They build Spectrum in house, including all their Aquila engines. 

"The flight will be the first integrated test of tens of thousands of components," said Josef Fleischmann, Isar's co-founder and chief technical officer. "Regardless of how far we get, this first test flight will hopefully generate an enormous amount of data and experience which we can apply to future missions."
...
The first flight of the Spectrum rocket will attempt to reach a polar orbit, flying north from Andøya Spaceport. Located at approximately 69 degrees north latitude, the spaceport is poised to become the world's northernmost orbital launch site.

Because it's an experimental mission, the test flight won't carry any customer payloads. 

The nine-engine first stage for Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket lights up on the launch pad on February 14. Credit: Isar Aerospace

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.