Welcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light—a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we’ll take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.
One of the longest-standing mysteries about Mars has been the presence of dark and light streaks on the rolling hills surrounding Olympus Mons. This week’s image, from the European Space Agency, shows some of these streaks captured last October.
This massive mountain rises about 22 km above the surface of Mars, more than twice as high as Mount Everest on Earth. It is bordered by hummocky deposits, called aureoles, that were formed by landslides from the mountain. A striking feature of these aureoles is the periodic appearance of bright and dark streaks—sometimes for days and sometimes for years.
For decades, scientists have wondered what they might be.
The streaks look remarkably like flowing water. Initially, scientists believed these features might be flows of salty water or brine, which remained liquid long enough to travel down the aureole. This offered the tantalizing possibility that life might yet exist on the surface of Mars in these oases.
However, it now appears that this is not the case. According to new research published Monday in the journal Nature Communications, these slopes are dry, likely due to layers of fine dust suddenly sliding off steep terrain. To reach this conclusion, the researchers used a machine-learning algorithm to scan and catalog streaks across 86,000 satellite images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. They created a map of 500,000 streaks across the surface of Mars. In doing so, the researchers found no evidence of water.
The image in today’s post comes from the European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, and it has been slightly modified to enhance the appearance of the streaks. It looks like art.
“So, we’re off working now with that program office to go start off a more commercial line,” Purdy said. “And when I say commercial in this particular aspect, just to clarify, this is accomplishing the same GSSAP mission. Our operators will fly the GSSAP system using the same ground systems and data they do now, but these would be using faster, commercial build times… and cheaper, less expensive parts in order to bring that together in a faster sense.”
An artist’s illustration of two of the Space Force’s GSSAP surveillance satellites, built by Northrop Grumman. Credit: US Space Force
The next-gen GSSAP spacecraft may not meet the same standards as the Space Force’s existing inspector satellites, but the change comes with benefits beyond lower costs and faster timelines. It will be unclassified and will be open to multiple vendors to build and launch space surveillance satellites, injecting some level of competition into the program. It will also be eligible for sales to other countries.
More for less with GPS
There’s another area where Purdy said the Space Force was surprised by what commercial satellite builders were offering. Last year, the Pentagon used a new “Quick Start” procurement model authorized by Congress to establish a program to bolster the GPS navigation network, which is run by the Space Force but relied upon by commercial users and private citizens around the world.
The Space Force has more than 30 GPS satellites in medium-Earth orbit (MEO) at an altitude of roughly 12,550 miles (20,200 kilometers). Purdy said the network is “vulnerable” because the constellation has a relatively small number of satellites, at least relative to the Space Force’s newest programs. In MEO, the satellites are within range of direct-ascent anti-satellite weapons. Many of the GPS satellites are aging, and the newer ones, built by Lockheed Martin, cost about $250 million apiece. With the Resilient GPS program, the Space Force aims to reduce the cost to $50 million to $80 million per satellite.
The satellites will be smaller than the GPS satellites flying today and will transmit a core set of signals. “We’re looking to add more resiliency and more numbers,” Purdy said.
“We actually didn’t think that we were going to get much, to be honest with you, and it was a surprise to us, and a major learning [opportunity] for us, learning last year that satellite prices had—they were low in LEO already, but they were lowering in MEO,” Purdy said. “So, that convinced us that we should proceed with it. The results have actually been more surprising and encouraging than we thought.
“The [satellite] buses actually bring a higher power level than our current program of record does, which allows us to punch through jamming in a better sense. We can achieve better results, we think, over time, going after these commercial buses,” Purdy said. “So that’s caused me to think, for our mainline GPS system, we’re actually looking at that for alternative ways to get after that.”
Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy oversees the Space Force’s acquisition programs at the Pentagon. Credit: Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post via Getty Images
In September, the Space Force awarded four agreements to Astranis, Axient, L3Harris, and Sierra Space to produce design concepts for new Resilient GPS satellites. Astranis and Axient are relatively new to satellite manufacturing. Astranis is a pioneer in low-mass Internet satellites in geosynchronous orbit and a non-traditional defense contractor. Axient, acquired by a company named Astrion last year, has focused on producing small CubeSats.
The military will later select one or more of these companies to move forward with producing up to eight Resilient GPS satellites for launch as soon as 2028. Early planning is already underway for a follow-on set of Resilient GPS satellites with additional capabilities, according to the Space Force.
The experience with the R-GPS program inspired the Space Force to look at other mission areas that might be well-served with a similar procurement approach. They settled on GSSAP as the next frontier.
Scolese, director of the NRO, said his agency is examining how to use commercial satellite constellations for other purposes beyond Earth imaging. This might include a program to employ commercially procured satellites for signals intelligence (SIGINT) missions, he said.
“It’s not just the commercial imagery,” Scolese said. “It’s also commercial RF (Radio Frequency, or SIGINT) and newer phenomenologies as where we’re working with that industry to go off and help advance those.”
Mission patches are a decades-old tradition in spaceflight. They can range from the figurative to the abstract, prompting valuable insights or feeding confusion. Some are just plain weird.
Ars published a story a few months ago on spaceflight patches from NASA, SpaceX, Russia, and the NRO, the US government’s spy satellite agency, which is responsible for some of the most head-scratching mission logos.
Until recently, China’s entries in the realm of spaceflight patches often lacked the originality found in patches from the West. For example, a series of patches for China’s human spaceflight missions used a formulaic design with a circular shape and a mix of red and blue. The patch for China’s most recent Shenzhou crew to the country’s Tiangong space station last month finally broke the mold with a triangular shape after China’s human spaceflight agency put the patch up for a public vote.
But there’s a fascinating set of new patches Chinese officials released for a series of launches with top secret satellites over the last two months. These four patches depict Buddhist gods with a sense of artistry and sharp colors that stand apart from China’s previous spaceflight emblems, and perhaps—or perhaps not—they can tell us something about the nature of the missions they represent.
Guardians of the Dharma
The four patches show the Four Heavenly Kings, protector deities in Buddhism who guard against evil forces in the four cardinal directions, according to the Kyoto National Museum. The gods also shield the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha, from external threats.
These gods have different names, but in China, they are known as Duōwén, Zēngzhǎng, Chíguó, and Guăngmù. Duōwén is the commander and the guardian of the north, the “one who listens to many teachings,” who is often depicted with an umbrella. Zēngzhǎng, guardian of the south, is a god of growth shown carrying a sword. The protector of the east is Chíguó, defender of the nation, who holds a stringed musical instrument. And guarding the west is Guăngmù, an all-seeing god usually depicted with a serpent.
Venus Aerospace tests its rotating detonation rocket engine in flight for the first time this week. Credit: Venus Aerospace
Venus Aerospace tests its rotating detonation rocket engine in flight for the first time this week. Credit: Venus Aerospace
Welcome to Edition 7.44 of the Rocket Report! We had some interesting news on Thursday afternoon from Down Under. As Gilmour Space was preparing for the second launch attempt of its Eris vehicle, as part of the pre-launch preparations, something triggered the payload fairing to deploy. We would love to see some video of that. Please.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Rotating detonation rocket engine takes flight. On Wednesday, US-based propulsion company Venus Aerospace completed a short flight test of its rotating detonation rocket engine at Spaceport America in New Mexico, Ars reports. It is believed to be the first US-based flight test of an idea that has been discussed academically for decades. The concept has previously been tested in a handful of other countries, but never with a high-thrust engine.
Hypersonics on the horizon… The company has only released limited information about the test. The small rocket, powered by the company’s 2,000-pound-thrust engine, launched from a rail in New Mexico. The vehicle flew for about half a minute and, as planned, did not break the sound barrier. Governments around the world have been interested in rotating detonation engine technology for a long time because it has the potential to significantly increase fuel efficiency in a variety of applications, from Navy carriers to rocket engines. In the near term, Venus’ engine could be used for hypersonic missions.
Gilmour Space has a payload fairing mishap. Gilmour Space, a venture-backed startup based in Australia, said this week it was ready to launch a small rocket from its privately owned spaceport on a remote stretch of the country’s northeastern coastline, Ars reports. Gilmour’s three-stage rocket, named Eris, was prepped for a launch as early as Wednesday, but a ground systems issue delayed an attempt until Thursday US time. And then on Thursday, something odd happened: “Last night, during final checks, an unexpected issue triggered the rocket’s payload fairing,” the company said Thursday afternoon, US time.
Always more problems to solve… Gilmour, based in Gold Coast, Australia, was founded in 2012 by two brothers, Adam and James Gilmour, who came to the space industry after careers in banking and marketing. Today, Gilmour employs more than 200 people, mostly engineers and technicians. The debut launch of Gilmour’s Eris rocket is purely a test flight. Gilmour has tested the rocket’s engines and rehearsed the countdown last year, loading propellant and getting within 10 seconds of launch. But Gilmour cautioned in a post on LinkedIn early Wednesday that “test launches are complex.” And it confirmed that on Thursday. Now the company will need to source a replacement fairing, which will probably take a while.
The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s and Stephen Clark’s reporting on all things space is to sign up for our newsletter. We’ll collect their stories and deliver them straight to your inbox.
Is an orbital launch from Argentina imminent? We don’t know much about the Argentinian launch company TLON Space, which is developing a (very) small-lift orbital rocket called Aventura 1. According to the company’s website, this launch vehicle will be capable of lofting 25 kg to low-Earth orbit. Some sort of flight test took place two years ago, but the video cuts off after a minute, suggesting that the end of the flight was less than nominal.
Maybe, maybe not… Now, a publication called Urgente24 reports that an orbital launch attempt is underway. It is not clear exactly what this means, and details about what is actually happening at the Malacara Spaceport in Argentina are unclear. I could find no other outlets reporting on an imminent launch attempt. So my guess is that nothing will happen soon, but it is something we’ll keep an eye on regardless. (Submitted by fedeng.)
Poland launches suborbital rocket. Poland has successfully launched a single-stage rocket demonstrator at the Central Air Force Training Ground in Ustka, European Spaceflight reports. The flight was part of a project to develop a three-stage solid-fuel rocket for research payloads. In 2020, the Polish government selected Wojskowe Zakłady Lotnicze No. 1 to lead a consortium developing a three-stage suborbital launch system.
Military uses eyed… The Trójstopniowa Rakieta Suborbitalna (TRS) project involves the Military Institute of Armament Technology and Zakład Produkcji Specjalnej Gamrat and is co-financed by the National Center for Research and Development. The goal of the TRS project is to develop a three-stage rocket capable of carrying a 40-kilogram payload to an altitude exceeding 100 kilometres. While the rocket will initially be used to carry research payloads into space, Poland’s Military Institute of Armament Technology has stated that the technology could also be used for the development of anti-aircraft and tactical missiles.
Latitude signs MoU to launch microsats. On Wednesday, the French launch firm Latitude announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding for the launch of a microsatellite constellation dedicated to storing and processing data directly in orbit. In an emailed news release, Latitude said the “strategic partnership” represents a major step forward in strengthening collaborations between UAE and French space companies.
That’s a lot of launches… Madari Space is developing a constellation of microsatellites (50 to 100 kg), designed as true orbital data centers. Their mission is to store and process data generated on Earth or by other satellites. Latitude plans its first commercial launch with its small-lift Zephyr rocket as early as 2026, with the ambition of reaching a rate of 50 launches per year from 2030. An MoU represents an agreement but not a firm launch contract.
China begins launching AI constellation. China launched 12 satellites early Wednesday for an on-orbit computing project led by startup ADA Space and Zhejiang Lab, Space News reports. A Long March 2D rocket lifted off at 12: 12 am Eastern on Wednesday from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. Commercial company ADA Space released further details, stating that the 12 satellites form the “Three-Body Computing Constellation,” which will directly process data in space rather than on the ground, reducing reliance on ground-based computing infrastructure.
Putting the intelligence in space… ADA Space claims the 12 satellites represent the world’s first dedicated orbital computing constellation. This marks a shift from satellites focused solely on sensing or communication to ones that also serve as data processors and AI platforms. The constellation is part of a wider “Star-Compute Program,” a collaboration between ADA Space and Zhejiang Lab, which aims to build a huge on-orbit network of 2,800 satellites. (Submitted by EllPeaTea.)
SpaceX pushes booster reuse record further. SpaceX succeeded with launching 28 more Starlink satellites from Florida early Tuesday morning following an overnight scrub the previous night. The Falcon 9 booster, 1067, made a record-breaking 28th flight, Spaceflight Now reports.
Booster landings have truly become routine… A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, SpaceX landed B1067 on its drone ship, Just Read the Instructions, which was positioned in the Atlantic Ocean to the east of the Bahamas. This marked the 120th successful landing for this drone ship and the 446th booster landing to date for SpaceX. (Submitted by EllPeaTea.)
What happens if Congress actually cancels the SLS rocket? The White House Office of Management and Budget dropped its “skinny” budget proposal for the federal government earlier this month, and the headline news for the US space program was the cancellation of three major programs: the Space Launch System rocket, the Orion spacecraft, and the Lunar Gateway. In a report, Ars answers the question of what happens to Artemis and NASA’s deep space exploration plans if that happens. The most likely answer is that NASA turns to an old but successful playbook: COTS.
A market price for the Moon… This stands for Commercial Orbital Transportation System and was created by NASA two decades ago to develop cargo transport systems (eventually, this became SpaceX’s Dragon and Northrop’s Cygnus spacecraft) for the International Space Station. Since then, NASA has adopted this same model for crew services as well as other commercial programs. Under the COTS model, NASA provides funding and guidance to private companies to develop their own spacecraft, rockets, and services and then buys those at a “market” rate. Sources indicate that NASA would go to industry and seek an “end-to-end” solution for lunar missions—that is, an integrated plan to launch astronauts from Earth, land them on the Moon, and return them to Earth.
Starship nearing its next test flight. SpaceX fired six Raptor engines on the company’s next Starship rocket Monday, clearing a major hurdle on the path to launch later this month on a high-stakes test flight to get the private rocket program back on track. SpaceX hasn’t officially announced a target launch date, but sources indicate a launch could take place toward the end of next week, prior to Memorial Day weekend, Ars reports. The launch window would open at 6: 30 pm local time (7: 30 pm EDT; 23: 30 UTC).
Getting back on track… If everything goes according to plan, Starship is expected to soar into space and fly halfway around the world, targeting a reentry and controlled splashdown into the Indian Ocean. While reusing the first stage is a noteworthy milestone, the next flight is important for another reason. SpaceX’s last two Starship test flights ended prematurely when the rocket’s upper stage lost power and spun out of control, dropping debris into the sea near the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Next three launches
May 16: Falcon 9 | Starlink 15-5 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 13: 43 UTC
May 17: Electron | The Sea God Sees | Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand | 08: 15 UTC
May 18: PSLV-XL | RISAT-1B | Satish Dhawan Space Centre, India | 00: 29 UTC
Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston.
Payload fairing problems have caused a number of rocket failures, usually because they don’t jettison during launch, or only partially deploy, leaving too much extra weight on the launch vehicle for it to reach orbit.
Gilmour said it is postponing the Eris launch campaign “to fully understand what happened and make any necessary updates.” The company was founded by two brothers—Adam and James Gilmour—in 2012, and has raised approximately $90 million from venture capital firms and government funds to get the first Eris rocket to the launch pad.
The astronauts on NASA’s Gemini 9A mission snapped this photo of a target vehicle they were supposed to dock with in orbit. But the rocket’s nose shroud only partially opened, inadvertently illustrating the method in which payload fairings are designed to jettison from their rockets in flight. Credit: NASA
The Eris rocket was aiming to become the first all-Australian launcher to reach orbit. Australia hosted a handful of satellite launches by US and British rockets more than 50 years ago.
Gilmour is headquartered in Gold Coast, Australia, about 600 miles south of the Eris launch pad near the coastal town of Bowen. In a statement, Gilmour said it has a replacement payload fairing in its factory in Gold Coast. The company will send it to the launch site and install it on the Eris rocket after a “full investigation” into the cause of the premature fairing deployment.
“While we’re disappointed by the delay, our team is already working on a solution and we expect to be back at the pad soon,” Gilmour said.
Officials did not say how long it might take to investigate the problem, correct it, and fit a new nose cone on the Eris rocket.
This setback follows more than a year of delays Gilmour blamed primarily on holdups in receiving regulatory approval for the launch from the Australian government.
Like many rocket companies have done before, Gilmour set modest expectations for the first test flight of Eris. While the rocket has everything needed to fly to low-Earth orbit, officials said they were looking for just 10 to 20 seconds of stable flight on the first launch, enough to gather data about the performance of the rocket and its unconventional hybrid propulsion system.
A US-based propulsion company, Venus Aerospace, said Wednesday it had completed a short flight test of its rotating detonation rocket engine at Spaceport America in New Mexico.
The company’s chief executive and co-founder, Sassie Duggleby, characterized the flight as “historic.” It is believed to be the first US-based flight test of an idea that has been discussed academically for decades, a rotating detonation rocket engine. The concept has previously been tested in a handful of other countries, but never with a high-thrust engine.
“By proving this engine works beyond the lab, Venus brings the world closer to a future where hypersonic travel—traversing the globe in under two hours—becomes possible,” Duggleby told Ars.
A quick flight
The company has only released limited information about the test. The small rocket, powered by the company’s 2,000-pound-thrust engine, launched from a rail in New Mexico. The vehicle flew for about half a minute, and, as planned, did not break the sound barrier.
Governments around the world have been interested in rotating detonation engine technology for a long time because it has the potential to significantly increase fuel efficiency in a variety of applications, from Navy carriers to rocket engines.
In contrast to a traditional rocket engine, in which a highly pressurized propellant and an oxidizer are injected into a combustion chamber where they burn and produce an energetic exhaust plume, a rotating detonation engine is different in that a wave of detonation travels around a circular channel. This is sustained by the injection of fuel and oxidizer and produces a shockwave that travels outward at supersonic speed.
But that didn’t solve the problem. Once again, Starship’s engines cut off too early, and the rocket broke apart before falling to Earth. SpaceX said “an energetic event” in the aft portion of Starship resulted in the loss of several Raptor engines, followed by a loss of attitude control and a loss of communications with the ship.
The similarities between the two failures suggest a likely design issue with the upgraded “Block 2” version of Starship, which debuted in January and flew again in March. Starship Block 2 is slightly taller than the ship SpaceX used on the rocket’s first six flights, with redesigned flaps, improved batteries and avionics, and notably, a new fuel feed line system for the ship’s Raptor vacuum engines.
SpaceX has not released the results of the investigation into the Flight 8 failure, and the FAA hasn’t yet issued a launch license for Flight 9. Likewise, SpaceX hasn’t released any information on the changes it made to Starship for next week’s flight.
What we do know about the Starship vehicle for Flight 9—designated Ship 35—is that it took a few tries to complete a full-duration test-firing. SpaceX completed a single-engine static fire on April 30, simulating the restart of a Raptor engine in space. Then, on May 1, SpaceX aborted a six-engine test-firing before reaching its planned 60-second duration. Videos captured by media observing the test showed a flash in the engine plume, and at least one piece of debris was seen careening out of the flame trench below the ship.
SpaceX ground crews returned Ship 35 to the production site a couple of miles away, perhaps to replace a damaged engine, before rolling Starship back to the test stand over the weekend for Monday’s successful engine firing.
Now, the ship will head back to the Starbase build site, where technicians will make final preparations for Flight 9. These final tasks may include loading mock-up Starlink broadband satellites into the ship’s payload bay and touchups to the rocket’s heat shield.
These are two elements of Starship that SpaceX engineers are eager to demonstrate on Flight 9, beyond just fixing the problems from the last two missions. Those failures prevented Starship from testing its satellite deployer and an upgraded heat shield designed to better withstand scorching temperatures up to 2,600° Fahrenheit (1,430° Celsius) during reentry.
Welcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light—a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we’ll take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.
This week’s Tuesday Telescope photo is pretty meta as it features… a telescope.
This particular telescope is under construction in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, one of the darkest places on Earth with excellent atmospheric visibility. The so-called “Extremely Large Telescope” is being built on a mountaintop in the Andes at an elevation of about 3,000 meters.
And it really is extremely large. The primary mirror will be 39 meters (128 feet) in diameter. Like, that’s gigantic for an optical telescope. It is nearly four times larger than the largest operational reflecting telescopes in the world.
The Europeans are in a contest, of sorts, with other very large telescope construction projects. A consortium of several countries, including the United States, is building the Giant Magellan Telescope, which will have a primary diameter of 25.4 meters. This facility is also located in the Atacama Desert. Both facilities are targeting first light before the end of this decade, but this will depend on funding and how smoothly construction proceeds. A third large project, the Thirty Meter Telescope, is planned for Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. However, this effort has stalled due to ongoing opposition from native Hawaiians. It is unclear when, or if, it will proceed.
In any case, within less than a decade, we are going to undergo a radical revolution in how we see the cosmos when one or more of these next-generation ground-based optical telescopes come online. What will we ultimately observe?
The mystery of what’s up there left to be discovered is half the fun!
SpaceX’s plan to turn Starbase into Texas’ newest city won the approval of voters—err, employees.
A decommissioned Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile inside a silo at a museum in Green Valley, Arizona.
Welcome to Edition 7.43 of the Rocket Report! There’s been a lot of recent news in hypersonic testing. We cover some of that in this week’s newsletter, which is just a taste of the US military’s appetite for fielding its own hypersonic weapons, and conversely, the Pentagon’s emphasis on the detection and destruction of an enemy’s hypersonic missiles. China has already declared its first hypersonic weapons operational, and Russia claims to have them, too. Now, the Pentagon is finally close to placing hypersonic missiles with combat units. Many US rocket companies believe the hypersonics sector is a lucrative business. Some companies have enough confidence in this emerging market—or lack of faith in the traditional space launch market—to pivot entirely toward hypersonics. I’m interested in seeing if their bets pay off.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Stratolaunch tests reusable hypersonic rocket plane. Stratolaunch has finally found a use for the world’s largest airplane. Twice in the last five months, the company launched a hypersonic vehicle over the Pacific Ocean, accelerated it to more than five times the speed of sound, and autonomously landed at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, Ars reports. Stratolaunch used the same Talon-A vehicle for both flights, demonstrating its reusability, a characteristic that sets it apart from competitors. Zachary Krevor, Stratolaunch’s president and CEO, said his team aims to ramp up to monthly flights by the end of the year.
A 21st century X-15 … This is the first time anyone in the United States has flown a reusable hypersonic rocket plane since the last flight of the X-15, the iconic rocket-powered aircraft that pushed the envelope of high-altitude, high-speed flight 60 years ago. Like the Talon-A, the X-15 released from a carrier jet and ignited a rocket engine to soar into the uppermost layers of the atmosphere. But the X-15 had a pilot in command, while the Talon-A flies on autopilot. Stratolaunch is one of several companies participating in a US military program to test parts and technologies for use on future hypersonic weapons. “Why the autonomous flight matters is because hypersonic systems are now pushing the envelope in terms of maneuvering capability, maneuvering beyond what can be done by the human body,” Krevor said.
The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s and Stephen Clark’s reporting on all things space is to sign up for our newsletter. We’ll collect their stories and deliver them straight to your inbox.
New details about another recent hypersonic test. A hypersonic missile test on April 25 validated the launch mechanism for the US Navy Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) weapon program, the Defense Department said on May 2. The CPS missile, the Navy’s name for what the US Army calls the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. While the Army and Navy versions use the same hypersonic glide vehicle and missile, they use different launch mechanisms. Last year, the Army tested its version of the hypersonic missile launcher. Now, the Navy has validated the cold-gas launch mechanism it will install on guided missile destroyers.
Deploying soon … “The cold-gas approach allows the Navy to eject the missile from the platform and achieve a safe distance above the ship prior to first stage ignition,” said Vice Adm Johnny R. Wolfe Jr., director of the Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs, which is the lead designer of the common hypersonic missile. The Army plans to field its Long Range Hypersonic Weapon—also called “Dark Eagle”—with a combat unit later this year, while the Navy’s version won’t be ready for testing at sea until 2027 or 2028. Both missiles are designed for conventional (non-nuclear) strikes. The Army’s Dark Eagle will be the US military’s first operational hypersonic weapon.
Sentinel needs new silos. The Air Force will have to dig entirely new nuclear missile silos for the LGM-35A Sentinel, creating another complication for a troubled program that is already facing future cost and schedule overruns, Defense News reports. The Air Force originally hoped the existing silos that have housed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles could be adapted to launch Sentinel missiles, which would be more efficient than digging entirely new silos. But a test project at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California showed that approach would be fraught with further problems and cause the program to run even further behind and over budget, the service said.
Rising costs … Sentinel, developed by Northrop Grumman, will replace the Air Force’s fleet of Minuteman III ICBMs, which entered service in 1970, as the land-based leg of the military’s nuclear triad. Sentinel was originally expected to cost $77.7 billion, but projected future costs ran so severely over budget that in January 2024, the program triggered a review process known as a critical Nunn-McCurdy breach. After that review, the Pentagon last year concluded Sentinel was too critical to national security to abandon, but ordered the Air Force to restructure it to bring its costs under control. Additional studies of the program are highlighting more potential problems.
Gilmour says it (hopefully) will wait no more. The Australian launch startup Gilmour Space Technologies has been given approval by Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority for the debut launch of its Eris orbital rocket, InnovationAus.com reports. There is still one final regulatory hurdle, a final sign-off from the Australian Space Agency. If that happens in the next few days, Gilmour’s launch window will open May 15. The company has announced tentative launch schedules before, only to be thwarted by technical issues, regulatory hangups, or bad weather. Most recently, Gilmour got within six days of its targeted launch date in March before regulatory queries and the impact of a tropical cyclone forced a delay.
Stand by for history … The launch of Gilmour’s three-stage Eris rocket will be historic. If successful, the 82-foot-tall (25-meter) rocket will be Australia’s first homegrown orbital launcher. Eris is capable of hauling cargos up to 672 pounds (305 kilograms) to orbit, according to Gilmour. The company has dispatched a small team from its Gold Coast headquarters to the launch site in Queensland, on Australia’s northeastern coast, to perform testing on the vehicle after it remained dormant for weeks. (Submitted by trainticket)
Fresh insights into one of SpaceX’s worst days. When a Falcon 9 rocket exploded on its launch pad nearly nine years ago, SpaceX officials initially struggled to explain how it could have happened. The lack of a concrete explanation for the failure led SpaceX engineers to pursue hundreds of theories. One was the possibility that an outside “sniper” had shot the rocket. This theory appealed to SpaceX founder Elon Musk. A building leased by SpaceX’s main competitor in launch, United Launch Alliance, lay just a mile away from the Falcon 9 launch pad, and a video around the time of the explosion indicated a flash on its roof. Ars has now obtained a letter sent to SpaceX by the Federal Aviation Administration more than a month after the explosion, indicating the matter was elevated to the FBI. The bureau looked into it, and what did they find? Nothing, apparently.
Investigation terminated … “The FBI has informed us that based upon a thorough and coordinated review by the appropriate Federal criminal and security investigative authorities, there were no indications to suggest that sabotage or any other criminal activity played a role in the September 1 Falcon 9 explosion,” an FAA official wrote in the letter to SpaceX. Ultimately, engineers determined the explosion was caused by the sudden failure of a high-pressure helium tank on the Falcon 9’s upper stage.
Eric Schmidt’s motivations become clearer. In the nearly two months since former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt acquired Relativity Space, the billionaire has not said much publicly about his plans for the launch company. However, his intentions for Relativity are becoming increasingly clear: He wants to have the capability to launch a significant amount of computing infrastructure into space, Ars reports. During a congressional hearing last month, Schmidt discussed the need more electricity to power data centers that will facilitate the computing needs for AI development and applications.
How big this crisis is … “People are planning 10 gigawatt data centers,” Schmidt said at the hearing. “Gives you a sense of how big this crisis is.” In an exchange with my colleague Eric Berger on X, Schmidt seemed to confirm he bought Relativity Space as a means to support the development of data centers in space. Such data centers, ideally, would be powered by solar panels and be able to radiate heat into the vacuum of space. Relativity’s Terran R rocket, still in development, is well-sized to play a role in launching the infrastructure for data centers in space. But several big questions remain: How big would these data centers be? Where would they go within an increasingly cluttered low-Earth orbit? Could space-based solar power meet their energy needs? Can all of this heat be radiated away efficiently in space? Economically, would any of this make sense?
Rocket Lab, meet Rocket Cargo. Rocket Lab’s next-generation Neutron rocket has been selected for an experimental US Air Force mission to test rapid, global, cargo-delivery capabilities, a milestone for the company as it pushes further into the national security launch market, Space News reports. The mission, slated for no earlier than 2026, will fall under the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) “Rocket Cargo” program, which explores how commercial launch vehicles might one day deliver materiel to any point on Earth within hours—a vision akin to airlift logistics via spaceflight.
A new mission for Neutron … Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, said the Rocket Cargo contract from AFRL represents an “experimental phase” of the program. “It’ll be interesting to see if that turns into a full requirement for an operational capability,” he said Thursday. Neutron is expected to carry a payload that will reenter Earth’s atmosphere, demonstrating the rocket’s ability to safely transport and deploy cargo. SpaceX’s Starship, with roughly 10 times more payload lift capacity than Neutron, is also on contract with AFRL for demonstrations for the Rocket Cargo program. Meanwhile, Beck said Neutron remains on schedule for its inaugural launch from Wallops Island, Virginia, later this year.
Trump calls for canceling the Space Launch System. The Trump administration released its “skinny” budget proposal earlier this week. Overall, NASA is asked to take a 25 percent cut in its budget, from about $25 billion to $18.8 billion. There are also significant changes proposed in NASA’s biggest-ticket exploration programs. The budget would cancel the Lunar Gateway that NASA has started developing and end the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft after two more flights, Artemis II and Artemis III, Ars reports. A statement from the White House calls the SLS rocket “grossly expensive” with projected costs of $4 billion per launch.
If not SLS, then what? … “The budget funds a program to replace SLS and Orion flights to the Moon with more cost-effective commercial systems that would support more ambitious subsequent lunar missions,” the Trump administration wrote. There are no further details about those commercial systems. NASA has contracted with SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop reusable landers for the Moon, and both of these systems include vehicles to move from Earth orbit to the Moon. In the budget proposal, the White House sets a priority for a human expedition to Mars to follow the Artemis program’s lunar landing.
FAA unlocks SpaceX launch cadence. Although we are still waiting for SpaceX to signal when it will fly the Starship rocket again, the company got some good news from the Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday, Ars reports. After a lengthy review, the federal agency agreed to allow SpaceX to substantially increase the number of annual launches from its Starbase launch site in South Texas. Previously, the company was limited to five launches, but now it will be able to conduct up to 25 Starship launches and landings during a calendar year.
Waiting for clearance … Although the new finding permits SpaceX to significantly increase its flight rate from South Texas, the company still has work to do before it can fly Starship again. The company’s engineers are still working to get the massive rocket back to flight after its eighth mission broke apart off the coast of Florida on March 6. This was the second time, in two consecutive missions, that the Starship upper stage failed during its initial phase of flight. After two consecutive failures, there will be a lot riding on the next test flight of Starship. It will also be the first time the company attempts to fly a first stage of the rocket for a second time. According to some sources, if additional testing of this upper stage goes well, Starship could launch as early as May 19. This date is also supported by a notice to mariners, but it should be taken as notional rather than something to be confident in.
SpaceX adds to its dominion. Elon Musk’s wish to create his own city has come true, the Texas Tribune reports. On Saturday, voters living around SpaceX’s Starship rocket testing and launch facility in South Texas approved a measure to incorporate the area as a new city. Unofficial results later Saturday night showed the election was a landslide: 212 voted in favor; 6 opposed. After the county certifies the results, the new city will be official.
Elections have consequences … Only 283 people, those who live within the boundaries of the proposed city, were eligible to vote in the election. A Texas Newsroom analysis of the voter rolls showed two-thirds of them either work for SpaceX or had already indicated their support. The three unopposed people who ran to lead the city also have ties to SpaceX. It’s not clear if Musk, whose primary residence is at Starbase, cast a ballot. The vote clears the way for Musk to try to capture more control over the nearby public beach, which must be closed for launches.
Next three launches
May 10: Falcon 9 | Starlink 15-3 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 00: 00 UTC
May 10: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-91 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 06: 28 UTC
May 11: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-83 | Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 04: 24 UTC
Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.
Kosmos 482, a Soviet-era spacecraft shrouded in Cold War secrecy, will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere in the next few days after misfiring on a journey to Venus more than 50 years ago.
On average, a piece of space junk the size of Kosmos 482, with a mass of about a half-ton, falls into the atmosphere about once per week. What’s different this time is that Kosmos 482 was designed to land on Venus, with a titanium heat shield built to withstand scorching temperatures, and structures engineered to survive atmospheric pressures nearly 100 times higher than Earth’s.
So, there’s a good chance the spacecraft will survive the extreme forces it encounters during its plunge through the atmosphere. Typically, space debris breaks apart and burns up during reentry, with only a small fraction of material reaching the Earth’s surface. The European Space Agency, one of several institutions that track space debris, says Kosmos 482 is “highly likely” to reach Earth’s surface in one piece.
Fickle forecasts
The Kosmos 482 spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, now part of Kazakhstan, aboard a Molniya rocket on March 31, 1972. A short time later, the rocket’s upper stage was supposed to propel the probe out of Earth orbit on an interplanetary journey toward Venus, where it would have become the third mission to land on the second planet from the Sun.
But the rocket failed, rendering it unable to escape the gravitational grip of Earth. The spacecraft separated into several pieces, and Russian engineers gave up on the mission. The main section of the Venus probe reentered the atmosphere in 1981, but for 53 years, the 3.3-foot-diameter (1-meter) segment of the spacecraft that was supposed to land on Venus remained in orbit around the Earth, its trajectory influenced only by the tenuous uppermost layers of the atmosphere.
The mission was part of the Soviet Union’s Venera program, which achieved the first soft landing of a spacecraft on another planet with the Venera 7 mission in 1970, and followed up with another successful landing with Venera 8 in 1972. Because it failed, Soviet officials gave the next mission, which would have become Venera 9, a non-descriptive name: Kosmos 482.
NASA has not publicly announced the astronauts who will fly on Crew-12 next year, but according to sources, it has already assigned veteran astronaut Jessica Meir and newcomer Jack Hathaway, a former US Navy fighter pilot who joined NASA’s astronaut corps in 2021. If these changes go through, presumably one of these two would be removed from the mission.
Will this actually happen?
The cuts are by no means a certainty. The president’s budget proposal is just the beginning of a monthslong process in which the White House Office of Management and Budget will work with Congress to establish funding levels and programmatic priorities for fiscal year 2026. If this budget process is like those in years past, a final budget may not even be set by the start of the fiscal year this October.
Congress has been broadly supportive of the space station, which is slated to fly through 2030 before being decommissioned. The Trump White House nominee to lead NASA, Jared Isaacman, also spoke in favor of “maximizing” science on the space station during his confirmation hearing last month. In subsequent answers to written questions, Isaacman reaffirmed this position.
“My priority would be to maximize the remaining value of the ISS before it is decommissioned,” Isaacman wrote. “We must prioritize the highest-potential science and research that can be conducted on the station—and do everything possible to ‘crack the code’ on an on orbit economy.”
This comment reflects a desire to focus on science that will help jump-start a commercial economy in low-Earth orbit, as opposed to the White House budget’s desire to focus on research related to the Moon and Mars.
Isaacman has not been confirmed yet—that should happen within the next couple of weeks—so he did not have direct input into setting the White House budget proposal. That process was led by Russell Vought, who leads the White House Office of Management and Budget.
“Demonstrating the reuse of fully recoverable hypersonic test vehicles is an important milestone for MACH-TB,” said George Rumford, director of the Test Resource Management Center, in a statement. “Lessons learned from this test campaign will help us reduce vehicle turnaround time from months down to weeks.”
Krevor said Talon-A carried multiple experiments on each mission but did not offer any details about the nature of the payloads, citing proprietary reasons and customer agreements.
“We cannot disclose the nature of those payloads other than to say typical materials, instrumentation, sensors, etc.,” he said. “The customers were thrilled with their ability to recover the payloads shortly after landing.”
Stratolaunch completed the first powered flight of a Talon-A vehicle last year when the rocket plane launched over the Pacific Ocean and fired its liquid-fueled Hadley engine—produced by Ursa Major—for about 200 seconds. The Talon-A1 vehicle accelerated to just shy of hypersonic speed, then fell into the sea as planned and was not recovered.
That set the stage for Talon-A2’s first flight in December.
Military officials previously stated that they set up the MACH-TB program to enable more frequent flight testing of hypersonic weapon technologies, including communication, navigation, guidance, sensors, and seekers. Stratolaunch aims for monthly flights of the Talon-A rocket plane by the end of the year and eventually wants to ramp up to weekly flights.
“These flights are setting the stage now to increase the cadence of hypersonic flight testing in this country,” Krevor said. “The ability to have a fully reusable hypersonic flight architecture enables a very high cadence of flight along with a lot of responsiveness. The DoD can call Stratolaunch if there’s a priority program, and we can have a hypersonic flight next week, assuming the readiness of all the other technologies and payloads.”
Pentagon officials in 2022 set a goal of growing US capacity for hypersonic testing from 12 to 50 flight tests per year. Krevor believes Stratolaunch will play a key part in making that happen.
Catching up
So why is hypersonic flight testing important?
The Pentagon wants to close what it views as a technological gap with China, which US officials acknowledge has become the world’s leader in hypersonic missile development. Hypersonic weapons are more difficult than conventional missiles for aerial defense systems to detect, track, and destroy. Unlike ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons ride at the top of the atmosphere, enhancing their maneuverability and ability to evade interceptors.
Hypersonic flight is an unforgiving environment. Temperatures outside the Talon-A vehicle can reach up to 2,000° Fahrenheit (1,100° Celsius) as the plane plows through air molecules, Krevor said. He declined to disclose the duration, top speed, and maximum altitude of the December and March test flights but said the rocket plane performed a series of “high-G” maneuvers on the journey from its drop location to Vandenberg.
