Category: Other Worlds and Tech

“Stranded” runs the risk of becoming one of the most over-wrought terms used by the by western media in regards to on-orbit human space operations. In recent times it has been used on two occasions, both involving US astronauts, when calling on it was for more about creating sensational headlines than reporting the overall situation.

The first came in 2022/23 when Soyuz MS-22, docked at the ISS, was struck by a small meteor in December 22, severely damaging its lift support cooling systems. Following reviews of the impact, it was agreed that the crew of three – Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin, and NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio – would remain on the ISS until the next Soyuz vehicle could be launched uncrewed in February 2023 and then serve as the means to return the three to Earth.

However, this decision did not leave the three men “stranded” in orbit. After extensive testing and computer modelling, Roscosmos determined that should an emergency evacuation of the station be required, Soyuz MS-22 could make a return to Earth carrying Prokopyev and Petelin and without broiling them to death. Arrangements were therefore made for Rubio to b3e able to return to Earth alongside the NASA / SpaceX Crew 5 astronauts should the need arise. Ultimately, these contingencies were not required; the uncrewed Soyuz MS-23 arrived at the ISS ahead of the MS-22 vehicle departing, resolving the issue. MS-22 subsequently made an automated return to Earth during which temperatures within the descent module did not exceed the upper safety limits for flying a 2-man crew home.

In 2024 much of the news media positively relished the idea that two US astronauts – Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams – were “stranded” in space when the Boeing CST-100 Starliner they were testing had issues with its thruster systems. Whilst Boeing were confident the issues did not put the astronauts at risk (and indeed, the vehicle made a successful automated return to Earth in September 2024), the decision was made to keep Wilmore and Williams on the station until the next crewed mission to the station – NASA / SpaceX Crew 9 – could be launched, but only with two crew aboard so as to leave the remaining seats free for Williams and Wilmore.

The Crew 9 vehicle eventually launched in September 2024, after the Starliner vehicle had departed the ISS to make room for it. To ensure Wilmore and Williams were not “stranded” in an event of an emergency during the period between the departure of Starliner and the arrival of Crew 9, contingencies were put in place to enable them to return to Earth with the crew of NASA / SpaceX Crew 8. But again, none of this was required. Wilmore and Williams continued to work alongside their colleagues on the ISS, fulfilling the roles vacated by the two Crew 9 astronauts left on the ground, and came home on that vehicle in March 2025, never once having been truly “stranded”.

In the past couple of weeks “stranded” has again been rolled-out by the media, this time in reference to the Chinese Tiangong space station – and this time it does have an underlying cause for concern.

On October 31st, 2025, Shenzhou 21 arrived at the Chinese space station with three crew aboard – mission commander Zhang Lu, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang. They were due to carry out several days of formal hand-over with their comrades Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie, who has been aboard the station since April 2025, prior to the latter three boarding their Shenzhou 20 spacecraft and making a return to Earth.

However, at the start of November, 2025, tiny fragments of debris struck Shenzhou 20, and the homecoming crew’s departure would be delayed until the damage to their vehicle had been fully accessed. This assessment revealed the integrity of a viewport on the vehicle’s orbital module had been compromised, and as a result Shenzhou 20 was deemed unsuitable for returning the crew to Earth. Instead, they came home on Shenzhou 21 on November 21st, thus leaving the crew of that mission, Zhang, Wu and Zhang without a means to evacuate the station in an emergency.

And this is where their situation differs to those of the Boeing Starliner crew and Soyuz MS-22: there are no contingencies available except for CMSA to launch an automated Shenzhou vehicle to Tiangong at the earliest opportunity. Fortunately, CMSA work their manned launch vehicles in pairs so that while launches are 6-months apart, at the time of any given launch the vehicle intended to follow it is in a state where it can be readied for launch in a relatively short time should it be required. In this case, CMSA appear to be targeting November 25th, 2025 as a launch date for Shenzhou 22 – although this has not been officially confirmed.

This still leaves the Shenzhou 21 crew in an uncomfortable position, and highlights a growing concern about human space operations in low Earth orbit: it’s getting increasingly crowded with junk and debris, and collisions and impacts are growing increasingly likely.     As it is, both the ISS and Tiangong have to make at least 2 significant orbital adjustments a year to avoid debris (with the ISS having to do so five times in 2023), whilst a 2024 European Space Agency study highlighted the fact that there are more than 6,000 items of man-made debris on low Earth orbit of 10 cm or greater in size spanning altitudes of between 375-600 km, marking many of them as potential threats to both the ISS and Tiangong, which orbit between (370-460 km).

Nor does it end there. A study carried out in 2023 revealed that low Earth orbit is seeing debris of 6cm and larger increase at a rate of 2,400 object per year.

As such, the Shenzhou 21 crew situation has given rise to renewed calls for some form of “space rescue” system to be implemented. The problem is – how? There is a degree of commonality in space vehicle design – docking mechanisms for connecting modules to one another and for connecting spacecraft to said modules or, potentially, to one another, are now built to a common standard: the International Docking System Standard (IDSS). However, it’s not entirely clear how closely nations like China adhere to the IDSS. Further, while IDSS may allow rendezvous and docking between craft, it doesn’t specify standards for things like consumable transfers between craft, such as might be required in an emergency (e.g. air, water, propellants).

In addition, the majority of crewed vehicles currently operating aren’t really designed to go pottering around from point-to-point offering assistance. A Soyuz or Crew Dragon from the ISS can’t simply pootle over to Tiangong and offer assistance were its required. The two stations are in very different orbits relative to one another, and the nature of orbital mechanics mean that trying to get from one to the other would likely exhaust a vehicle’s propellant reserves.

This means that in order to be effective, any rescue system need to be both specialised and available on a launch-as-needed basis. But again, this is easier said than done. Who should develop and operate such a system? Who should pay for it? Where should it be based; on the ground, with an entire supporting launch infrastructure with all the complexities that entails, or in orbit – with all the very different complexities that entails? Should the system be crewed, and if so, by whom and on what basis (civilian? military?) or fully automated?

Currently, there are no easy answers – but with commercial activities in Earth orbit about to increase tenfold as companies look towards flying their own orbital research and tourist facilities and their own crew vehicles to link them with Earth, then it is becoming increasingly imperative serious thought is given to try to find answers – and act on them.

Never Tell Me the Odds Comes Home, Blue Origin Reveal Plans

The first stage booster used in Blue Origin’s highly-successful NG-2 mission (see Space Sunday: New Glenn “welds” it on second flight!) has returned to Blue Origin’s facilities at Cape Canaveral Space Force base on November 20th. It will now undergo a examination and refurbishment in readiness for its next flight, which could be as soon as January or February 2026.

The Booster, called Never Tell Me the Odds in a reference to the difficulties involved in bringing a 57.5 metre tall, 7 metre diameter booster back to Earth from the edge of space and landing it smoothly on a vessel 600 km out in the Atlantic – appeared to be in remarkably good condition following its flight as it was delivered to the company’s launch preparation facilities close to Launch Complex 36, from where it had launched on November 13th.

The reason for looking so pristine (particularly in reference to the sooty state of recovered Falcon 9 boosters) is really down to the “clean burn” of the BE-4’s liquid oxygen / liquid methane propellants; it should not be taken as any indication the stage is fit to fly at this point in time. That determination will only come following a complete and careful examination. However, simply seeing it back at CSSF and LC-36 is undeniably a positive further step for Blue Origin.

At around the same time as Never Tell Me the Odds returned to base, Blue Origin revealed its future plans for New Glenn.

In the near-term, the company plan to start operating the vehicle with uprated engines, with the seven BE-4 first stage motors able to generate 4.5 million pound of thrust at lift-off (up from 3.9 million) and the two BE-3U motors of the upper stage increasing their combined thrust from 320,000 pounds to 400,000. Engines of both types capable of handling this increased output have already been tested on the ground, so it might not be too long before they start to be used on New Glenn launches.

In the medium-term, the company also hopes to make the payload fairings recoverable / reusable. Doing so could help support increased flight rates and lower launch costs. However, as SpaceX discovered (albeit by having to go for a complex recovery system of parafoils and high-speed chase boats which looked spectacular but proved impractical), making payload fairings recoverable and actually recovering them in a cost-effective manner might not be that easy.

Most intriguingly and long-term, Blue Origin announced an entirely new variant of New Glenn – the “9×4” – a reference to the fact that it will use 9 BE-4 engines in the first stage (rather than seven) and four in the upper stage (rather than two), whilst maintaining the same overall design and diameter across the two stages (although both will be longer to account for the increased propellant requirements).

This new behemoth is intended to deliver up to 70 tonnes to low Earth orbit, 14 tonnes to geosynchronous orbit and 20 tonnes to the Moon, all with the first stage reusable. In addition the diameter of the payload fairings atop the second stage will be increased from 7 metres to 8.4 metres to handle particularly large payloads (such as space station modules).

It is because of the latter capability – 20 tonnes to the Moon compared to New Glenn’s 7 tonnes – that some are already suggesting the “9×4” should be given a name of its own: the “New Armstrong”, after Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the Moon. Blue Origin has not responded to these calls as yet.

Exactly how commercially viable such a vehicle would be within the commercial sector is hard to say. The SpaceX Falcon Heavy has already demonstrated that launchers with lifting capabilities of 50 tonnes or more really don’t play much of a role in the commercial launch business, instead primarily relying on government contracts. One potential area of use for the New Glenn “9×4” could be in lifting elements of the in-development Orbital Reef commercial space station, a project being led by Blue Origin and Sierra Space – but such work is liable to be niche, rather than a mainstay of revenue generation.

The GEO capability perhaps has more appeal – a 20-tonne capacity could in theory allow the “9×4” to rideshare communications satellites to orbit, reducing the launch costs to customers, with the company’s Blue Ring orbital “tug” positioning them. However, it is in the government sector and lunar operations theatre that the new behemoth would potentially have a role. A 14-20 payload capacity would be very attractive for military launches and to efforts such as Artemis and in launching deep-space science missions into the solar system.

Again, Blue Origin has offered no time frame on when the “9×4” will enter service; however, the degree of commonality it has with New Glenn likely means its development cycle could be relatively brief. In reporting on it, some pundits have suggested the “9×4” could have a maiden launch in 2027, although this does seem a tad ambitious, particularly given Blue Origin’s “soft and gentle” approach. As such, 2030 would seem a more reasonable time frame for “9×4” to start flights.

Some have already suggested that “9×4” could be a viable replacement for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket in carrying crews to the Moon. However, and as I’ve noted in these pages, replacing SLS is easier said than done. Whilst New Glenn has been designed from the ground-up to be capable of making crewed launches (something SpaceX’s Starship most definitely is not in its current configuration), there is currently no crewed vehicle it is actually capable of launching. Orion, for example, the only crewed vehicle the US has that is specifically designed to handle carrying crews from Earth to Cislunar space, is currently completely incompatible with New Glenn.

But that said, it is not entirely inconceivable that, given a suitable amount of time (and remember, SLS systems for Artemis 2 through 5 are already well in hand in terms of construction), and with Artemis 5 realistically unlikely to launch before 2031, there is potential for Lockheed Martin and Blue Origin to put their heads together to see if they could develop a means by which Orion could be launched by New Glenn “9×4” to launch Orion. This would still likely require some form on on-orbit propellant resupply – but that would likely only be a single additional launch, so it’s not entirely out of the question (given SpaceX plan to launch around 8-12 Starships for every vehicle it sends to the Moon).

That said, New Glenn being used in crewed lunar missions is not something I’d personally put my money on right now; it just seems so much better suited to rapid cargo delivery to the Moon, again particularly when compared to Starship – even if the latter could in theory carry 5 times more per vehicle to the Moon.

Thursday, November 13th, 2025 witnessed the second launch of New Glenn, the heavy lift launch vehicle from Blue Origin, marking the system as 2 for 2 in terms of successful launches, with this one having the added bonus of achieving an at-sea recovery for the rocket’s first stage, in the process demonstrating some of New Glenn’s unique capabilities.

In all, the mission had four goals:

• Launch NASA’s much-delayed ESCAPADE (ESCApe and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) mission on its seemingly indirect (but with good reason) way to Mars.
• Carry out a demonstration test of a new commercial communications system developed by private company Viasat.
• Act as a Second National Security Space Launch demonstration, clearing New Glenn to fly military payloads to orbit.
• Successfully recover the first stage of the rocket – which is designed to be re-used over 25 flights – with an at-sea landing aboard a self-propelled ocean-going landing platform.

Of these four goals, the recovery of the first stage booster was regarded more of an added bonus, were it to occur, rather than an overall criteria of mission success. This was reflected in the name given to that first stage: Never Tell Me the Odds (which sci-fi fans may recognise as a quote from the Star Wars franchise – bonus points if you can name the film, scene and speaker! 😀 ).

The first attempt to launch the rocket – officially designated GS1-SN002 with informal reference of NG-2 – was actually made on Sunday, November 9th, 2025. However, this was scrubbed shortly before launch due to poor weather along the planned ascent path for the vehicle. A second attempt was to have been made on November 12th, but this was called off at NASA’s request because – and slightly ironically, given the aim of the ESCAPADE mission – space weather (a recent solar outburst) posing a potential risk to the electronics on the two ESCAPADE satellites during what would have been their critical power-up period had the launch gone ahead.

Thus, lift-off finally occurred at 20:45 UTC on November 13th, with the 98-metre tall rocket rising into a clear sky from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida in what was to be a flawless flight throughout. As with New Glenn’s maiden flight, the vehicle appeared to rise somewhat ponderously into the sky, particularly when compared to the likes of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.

The reason for this is simple: New Glenn is a very big vehicle, closer in size to NASA’s Saturn V than Falcon 9, and carrying over double the propellant load of the latter. So, whilst they are individually far more powerful than Falcon 9’s nine Merlin engines, the seven BE-4 engines powering New Glenn off the pad have a lot more inertia to overcome, hence the “slow” rise. Falcon Heavy, meanwhile has the advantage in that while it can carry a heavier payload (with a caveat I’ll come back to), it also has an additional 18 Merlin engines to get it going.

Anyway, once clear of the tower, the launch proceeded rapidly for the initial 14 minutes of powered ascent, with the highlights being:

• At 3 minutes 9 seconds after launch, having powered the rocket to an altitude of 77 kilometres, the first stage motors shut down and a few second later the upper stage separated, pushed clear of the first stage by a series of spring-loaded rods, allowing it to ignite its two BE-3U motors without damaging the first stage.
• Immediately following this, two significant steps in the flight occurred completely autonomously.
  • In the first, the flight control systems on the rocket’s upper stage recognised that the first part of the vehicles ascent had been optimised for first stage recovery, rather than achieving orbit. They therefore commanded a “pitch up” manoeuvre, significantly increasing the upper stage’s angle of ascent, allowing it to reach its intended initial orbit.
  • In the second, the first stage used its reaction control systems (RCS) to enter a “coast” phase, essentially a controlled free-fall back towards Earth, re-orienting itself ready to perform a propulsive breaking manoeuvre.
• After 50 seconds of continued ascent following separation, the upper stage of the rocket successfully jettisoned its payload fairings, exposing the two small ESCAPADE satellites, to space.

• Dropping in free-fall for some four minutes, the rocket’s first stage re-lit three of its BE-4 motors at an altitude of around 66 km, slowing its re-entry into the denser atmosphere.
• Following the re-entry burn, the motors shut down and the stage used the aerodynamic “strafes” close to its engine exhausts together with the upper guidance fins, to take over “flying” itself down towards the waiting landing vessel.
• At 8 minutes 33 seconds after launch, the three centre Be-4 motors re-lit again at an altitude of just under 2 km, slowing the stage and bringing it to an upright position in preparation for landing.

It was at this point that New Glenn demonstrated the first of its unique characteristics: it brought itself to a near-hover abeam of the landing vessel prior to deploying its six landing legs. It then gently crabbed sideways until it was over the landing ship before gently lowering itself to a perfect touch-down right in the middle of the landing ring painted on the deck.

Immediately on touch-down, special pyrotechnic “disks” under the booster’s landing legs fired, effectively welding the stage to the deck of the ship to eliminate any risk of the booster toppling over during the return to port.

Called “energetic welding”, this capability has been developed by Blue Origin specifically for New Glenn landings at sea, but is seen as having potential uses elsewhere when “instant bonding” of this kind is required. Once the booster has been returned to port, the bonding disks can be separated from both ship and booster with no damage to the latter and a minor need to replace some of the deck plating on the former.

New Glenn’s ability to hover is also worth addressing. Some have claimed that this capability detracts from New Glenn as a launch vehicle as it reduces the amount of payload it might otherwise lift to orbit. Such claims are misplaced: not only is the amount of propellant used during a hover quite minimal overall, it clearly allows New Glenn to make much more of a controlled landing than can be achieved by the likes of SpaceX Falcon 9 stages, thus increasingly the booster’ survivability. Also, as experience is gained with further stage recoveries, there is no reason to suppose the ability to hover / translate / land cannot be further refined to use less propellant than may have been the case here.

And this point brings me back to comparative payload capabilities. It is oft pointed out that whilst big, New Glenn is a “less capable” launch vehicle than SpaceX Falcon Heavy on the grounds the latter is able to lift 63 tonnes to low Earth orbit (LEO) and 27.6 tonne to Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO), compared to New Glenn “only” being able to manage 45 and 13.6 tonnes respectively.

However, these comparisons miss out an important point: Falcon Heavy can only achieve its numbers when used as a fully expendable launch system, whereas New Glenn’s capabilities are based on the first stage always being recovered. If the same criteria is applied to Falcon Heavy and all three core stages are recovered, its capacity to LEO is reduced to 50 tonnes – just 5 more than New Glenn, whilst its ability to launch to the more lucrative (in terms of launch fees) GTO comes down to 8 tonnes; 5.6 tonnes less than New Glenn (if only the outer two boosters on a Falcon Heavy are recovered, then it can lift some 16 tonnes to GTO; 2.4 tonnes more than New Glenn). Given that reusability is supposedly the name of the game for both SpaceX and Blue Origin, the two launch systems are actually very closely matched.

But to return to the NG-2 flight. While the first stage of the rocket made its way down to a successful landing, the upper stage continued to run its two motors for a further ten minutes before they shut down as the vehicle approached the western coast of the African continent. Still gaining altitude and approaching initial orbital velocity, the upper stage of the rocket “coasted” for 12 minutes as it passed over Africa before the BE-3U motors ignited once again, and the vehicle swung itself onto a trajectory for the Sun-Earth lagrange L2 position, the two ESCAPADE satellites separating from it some 33 minutes after launch.

ESCAPADE: the Long Way to Mars

That New Glenn launched the ESCAPADE mission to the Sun-Earth L2 position rather than on its way to Mars has also been a source for some confusion in various circles. In particular, a common question has been why, if New Glenn is so powerful, could it not lob what is a comparatively small payload – the two ESCAPADE satellites having a combined mass of just over one tonne – directly to Mars.

The answer to this is relatively simple – because that’s what NASA wanted. However, it is also a little more nuanced when explaining why this was the case.

Interplanetary mission are generally limited in terms of when they can be optimally launched in order to be at their most efficient in terms of required propellant mass and capability. In the case of missions to Mars, for example, the most efficient launch opportunities for missions occur once every 24-26 months. However, waiting for such launch windows to roll around might not always be for the best; there are times when it might be preferable to launch a mission head of its best transfer time and simply “park” it somewhere to wait until the time is right to send it on its way.

During its development, ESCAPADE – as a low-cost mission intended to be developed and flown for less than US $55 million – had originally been intended to piggyback a ride to Mars aboard NASA’s much bigger Psyche mission. This mission would be heading to asteroid 16 Psyche, but in order to reach that destination, it would have to perform a fly-by gravity assist around Mars. Thus, it became the ideal vehicle on which ESCAPADE could hitch a ride, separating from the Psyche spacecraft as the latter approached Mars in May 2026.

However, Psyche’s  launch was pushed back several times, such that by the time it eventually launched in October 2023, the additional delta-vee it required in order to still make its required fly-by of Mars was so great, there was no way the two ESCAPADE satellites could carry enough propellants to slow themselves into orbit around Mars after Psyche dropped them off. Thus, the mission was removed Psyche’s launch manifest.

Instead, NASA sought an alternative means to get the mission to Mars, eventually tapping Blue Origin, who said they could launch ESCAPADE on the maiden flight of their New Glenn vehicle at a cost of US $20 million to NASA, and do so during the 2024 Mars launch window opportunity.

Unfortunately, that maiden flight of New Glenn was in turn pushed back outside of the Mars 2024 launch window (eventually taking place in January 2025), leaving it unable to both launch ESCAPADE towards Mars and achieve its other mission objective of remaining in a medium-Earth orbit to demonstrate a prototype Blue Ring orbital vehicle. And so NASA opted to remove ESCAPADE from that launch and instead opt to test out the theory of using parking orbits for interplanetary missions, rather than leaving them on the ground where they might eventually face cancellation – as was the case with Janus, another mission which was originally to have flown with the Psyche mission, but was also pulled from that launch due to its repeated delays.

Using ESCAPADE to test the theory of parking orbits also made sense because of the mission’s function: studying the Martian magnetosphere and its interaction with the Solar wind. Whilst the Sun-Earth L2 position doesn’t have a magnetosphere, it is subject to the influence of the solar wind. Given just how valuable a piece of space real estate its is proving to be with several mission operating in orbits around it, understanding more about the role the solar wind and plasma plays in the overall stability of the region makes a lot of sense – and ESCAPADE’s science capabilities mean its two satellites can carry out this work whilst they loiter there through 2026.

Currently, both satellites are performing well, having unfolded their solar arrays and charged themselves up. As noted, they will make a fly-by of Earth in late 2026 to slingshot themselves on to Mars, which they will reach in 2027. On their arrival, they will initially share a highly elliptical orbit varying between 8,400 km and 170 km above the surface of the planet, operating in tandem for six months. After this, they will  manoeuvre into different orbits with different periods and extremes, allowing them to both operate independently to one another in their observations and to also carry out comparative studies of the same regions of the Martian magnetosphere from different points in space.

What’s Next for New Glenn?

As of the time of writing, Never Tell Me the Odds remains at sea aboard the landing platform vessel Jacklyn. Following its successful landing, the booster went through an extensive “safing” procedure managed by an automated vehicle, during which propellants and hazardous gasses were removed, and its systems purged with inert helium. Assuming it is in a condition allowing it to be refurbished and reused as planned following its return to dry land, the stage will most likely re-fly in early 2026 as part of an even more ambitious mission.

GS1-SN002-2, provisionally aiming for a January 2026 launch, is intended to fly the Blue Moon Pathfinder mission to the Moon, where it will attempt a soft landing as part of a demonstration of capabilities required for NASA’s Project Artemis. Blue Moon is the name given to Blue Origin’s family of in-development lunar landing craft, with Blue Moon Mark 1 being a cargo vehicle capable of remote operations and delivering around 3 tonnes of materiel to the surface of the Moon per flight, and Blue Moon Mark 2 being a larger crewed vehicle capable of delivering up to 4 people at a time to the Moon for extended periods.

Both of these craft use common elements: avionics, propulsion systems (the BE-7 cryogenic engine), navigation and precision landing systems, data and communications systems, etc.  Blue Moon Pathfinder is intended to demonstrate all of these systems and capabilities, landing the vehicle on the Moon within 100 metres of a designated landing point. If successful on all counts, GS1-SN002-2 will not only demonstrate / confirm the reusability of the New Glenn first stage, it will provide a very clear and practical demonstration of Blue Origin’s emerging lunar mission capabilities, something which may well justify claims that the company is somewhat ahead of SpaceX in having a lunar landing capability that could meet the 2027/28 launch time frame for Artemis 3, the first crewed mission of the programme intended to land on the Moon.