NASA – Page 2 – Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

Space Sunday: New Glenn “welds” it on second flight!

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Inara Pey

*Lift-off! With a massive plume of steam and water from the deluge system forced away from the launch pad by the 7 BE-4 engines, Blue Origin’s New Glenn mission 2 featuring the reusable first stage* Never Tell Me the Odds, rises from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, November 13th, 2025. Credit: Blue Origin

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.

*New Glenn approaching one minute into its flight on November 13th, 2025. Credit: Blue Origin*

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.

*Circled in red: the payload fairing protecting the ESCAPADE and Viasat payload are jettisoned by New Glenn’s upper stage. Credit: Blue Origin / NASA*

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.

*Captured from on the the range safety vessels near the Landing Platform Vessel* Jacklyn, 600 km off the Florida coast, these three shot show Never Tell Me the Odds apparently overshooting the landing ship, then coming to a hover and translating back over the vessel’s deck to touch-down safely. Credit: Blue Origin

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.

*Two images captured from a video camera on the Landing Platform Vessel* Jacklyn *showing two of the “energetic welding” disks under the feet of the New Glenn booster firing to fix the rocket to the deck of the ship. Credit: Blue Origin*

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.

*The twin ESCAPADE spacecraft,* Blue *and* Gold (with the mission at that time referred to as EscaPADE) in a clean room at Rocket Lab, the company responsible for building them on behalf of NASA, prior to being shipped to Kennedy Space Centre. Credit: Rocket Lab

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.

Originally, ESCAPADE would have hitched a ride to Mars on NASA’s Psyche mission spacecraft, seen in this artist’s rendering approaching it intended target for study, the asteroid 16 Psyche. However, delays in launching the Psyche mission meant ESCAPADE had to be removed from the mission. Credit: NASA

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.

Never Tell Me the Odds re-lights three of its BE-4 motors, creating an atmosphere shockwave (to the right of the booster) as it drops back into the denser atmosphere ahead of landing. If all goes according to current plans, this stage will be refurbished and used to power New Glenn’s next launch, currently targeting early 2026 with a lunar mission. Credit: Blue Origin via a NASA observation aircraft

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.

Space Sunday: Goddard fears and comet updates

Posted on November 2, 2025November 25, 2025 by Inara Pey

Goddard: Death by a Thousand Cuts?

Earlier in 2025, I wrote about the Trump administration’s apparent drive to decimate NASA’s science budget with it 2026 federal budget proposal (see: Space Sunday: of budgets and proposed cuts and Space Sunday: more NASA budgets threats). Within those pieces, I noted that one of the major targets within NASA when it came to potential cuts was the agency’s largest research centre, the Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC), Greenbelt, Maryland.

GSFC’s work in Earth sciences and observations – which obviously encompasses research into anthropomorphic causes of global warming and climate change, monitoring atmospheric and oceanographic pollution, etc., – is potentially the major reason for the nonsensical dislike both of Trump’s administration have shown towards the centre, although it is only in the current administration period that increasingly efforts to drastically reduce Goddard’s science abilities have been shown; efforts which overtly commenced in April 2025 with the effective discontinuing of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS – see the first of my articles linked to above).

As I noted at the time, GISS – renowned world-wide for its Earth sciences research across a number of disciplines, including agriculture, crop growth and sustainability and climatology (including building some of the largest datasets on current and past climate trends and fluctuations) has been an “off-campus” division of GSFC, operating out of the (Edwin) Armstrong Building operated by Columbia University and leased by the US government at a cost of 3.3 million a year, with said lease budgeted at this amount through until 2031.

At the end of April 2025, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), under the directorship of Project 2025 co-author Russell Voight (and a long-time, ultra-conservative with a hefty dislike of space and Earth sciences) announced it was terminating the lease effective from the end of May 2025, with no attempt being made to relocate personnel and the majority of the GISS data. Instead, staff were simply told to “work remotely”, with the then-director of GSFC, Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, unable to do anything in the face of the cancellation, other than offer her “confidence” that all GISS staff and activities would be relocated at some point in the future – which has not happened. Instead, staff GISS remain on “temporary remote working status”, within only some of the on-going work carried out by GISS being haphazardly relocated to “temporary” facilities at GSFC and elsewhere.

Not only did the “remote working status” shift for GISS staff stand at odds with another OMB directive requiring all federal agencies end remote working practices and return staff to office-based work, the closure of the Armstrong Building facilities meant that the vast amounts of data curated by GISS had no active home, and thus could not be accessed by GISS personnel, making it impossible for many of them to continue their work.

Among its many roles, Goddard was responsible for tracking many early crewed and uncrewed spacecraft, including the Mercury flights, via a worldwide network of ground stations called the Spacecraft Tracking and Data Acquisition Network (STDN). Credit: NASA

Since then, the situation for GSFC as a whole has worsened (as it has for some other key NASA activities spread across multiple centres). In particular, the new senior management team as brought-in by the Trump Administration appears to be acting as if the the 2026 budget has been signed into law and that all of the proposals contained in it as they relate to NASA / GSFC are now policy to be enacted without question or consultation.

In fact, when the former GSFC Director, the aforementioned Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, did attempt to consult with GSFC personnel via a series of town hall meetings (as were being held within other NASA centres), she was dismissed from her post in July 2025, to be replaced by her deputy, Cynthia Simmons, who adopted a similar autocratic “follow orders, don’t question” approach as had been adopted by GSFC’s incoming Director of the Engineering & Technology Division (ETD), Segrid Harris, earlier in 2025 year.

In moving to implement the “requirements” of the Trump 2026 NASA budget, both NASA senior management and the upper management of GSFC have sought to accelerate elements of what was to have been a 20-year development roadmap for Goddard, first initiated in 2019. This was to have seen the gradual internal relocation of divisions and departments on the campus, the closure of older facilities (and their potential replacement) and the phased removal of certain activities to other NASA centres. All of this was to have been carried out in full consultation with the affected divisions and departments and their personnel.

Now, however, this 20-year plan is being accelerated without explanation or consultation, with around one-third of the campus in the process of being emptied / abandoned, with some buildings being demolished, others simply being left to an uncertain future. Rather than taking several years to complete, the work is now set to be finished by March 2026. Facilities included in this tranche of work comprise the GSFC Visitor’s Centre (and that of the Wallops Island launch facilities, also operated by GSFC), effectively ending GSFC public-facing operations; and the majority of facilities geared towards personnel welfare – health and welfare facilities, cafeterias, recreational facilities, etc., together with a number of R&D and laboratory facilities.

A map of Goddard Space Centre, showing those facilities /buildings earmarked for closure / demolition (in orange-red). Those to the left of the two bright red lines (marking Goddard Road) are undergoing an “expedited” closure / demolition / abandonment, due to be completed by March 2026. Credit: Josh Dinner, obtained under US FOIA

Further, despite the current government shutdown, staff in facilities and buildings earmarked for relocation / closure elsewhere within the campus were, on the day the shutdown commenced, ordered to pack-up their office space / research so they might be relocated during the shutdown. Normally, if such an office move is to be performed when federal employees are furloughed, a federal work exception must be filed by the agency involved. However, reports suggest that of the 100 office relocation notifications issued at GSFC ahead of the shutdown, only two were had the required exceptions filed. Thus, there is a concern among personnel that the shutdown might yet be used as a cover to close additional facilities at the centre.

Of particular concern among GSFC personnel is the fact that some of the proposed relocation work will see divisions which had been specifically relocated to Goddard or formed under its auspices to oversee matters of safety across related aspects of NASA’s operations, thus preventing the kind of inter-centre clashes of management which contributed to tragedies like Challenger from ever happening again, being once more broken-up among various centres, once more diluting their ability to function effectively.

Such is the level of concern both within NASA personnel at GSFC and many of its supporting / affiliated partners such as the Planetary Society – that there have already been three public protests concerning what is happening both at GSFC and to NASA’s science budget in general. The most recent of these was held on Capitol Hill on October 5th, when both the House and Senate were directly called upon to intervene in the manner in which NASA’s non-human spaceflight activities are being impacted, and to force the Executive Branch to continue to properly fund all NASA centres pending the resolution of the current budget crisis.

GSFC staff working under the banner NASA Needs Help, attend a rally outside the US Capitol Building on October 5th, 2025, together with organisations such as The Planetary Society (represented by CEO Bill Nye) to extoll representatives and senators to support NASA’s science mission in the face of Executive branch opposition.

Nor is such concern limited just to NASA personnel and their affiliates. A recent report published by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation goes so far as to state a belief that the current actions on the part of the Executive branch where NASA is concerned could be illegal. For its part, NASA’s headquarters and the administration have responded to all concerns being voiced from all sides as being “false”, “inflammatory”, “wrong”, and – in the case of the Senate report – a “Democratic distraction”. Not only is the latter another demonstration of the Trump administration’s efforts to continually cry wolf and point the finger when their actions are rightfully challenged, it is also patently stupid, given the Senate Committee in question (as with all such Senate committees) is both Republican led and dominated (15 seats to 13), making any report it releases that is critical of the Executive branch to be bipartisan in nature.

A further irony here – which might actually be seen as both causative as well as foreshadowing – is that prior to her departure from the post of Acting NASA Administrator (to be replaced by Sean Duffy), Janet Petro issued two memos to all department heads at GSFC, stating that they should start enacting upcoming Trump’s budget requirements regardless of whether or not the budget would be passed by Congress. Exactly why she would do this is unclear, but it has been suggested that she saw it as inevitable that the Trump Administration would seek to force through their 2026 budget via funding impoundment rather than via working with lawmakers, and as such, GSFC would be better placed in being ready to adhere rather than attempting to oppose.

Currently, exactly what is going to happen at Goddard is unclear – but a lot of people at the centre have spoken out through various channels about their concerns and both the level of uncertainty at the centre and the frequently oppressive style of management now present. It is evident from this that many at the centre are completely demoralised. Earlier this year, NASA, under Sean Duffy, implemented a Deferred Resignation Programme (DRP) aimed at reducing the number of people directly employed by NASA by 20%, in line with the Trump budget proposal. At the time of writing, some 4,000 NASA employees were reported as having signed DRP agreements – 21% of NASA’s total direct workforce. Of these 4,000, 11% came from GSFC, the largest number of DRP agreements signed by staff at any single NASA centre.

On top of this, and following her ousting from Goddard as Director, Dr. Lystrup indicated that as many as 32% of GSFC’s federal staff will be departing NASA both as a result of the DRP programme and due to non-consultative re-organisations and shutdowns (as with GISS) targeting the centre. As such, the long-term future of the centre as a central pillar of NASA’s space and Earth sciences capabilities would appear to be in grave doubt.

3I/ATLAS

Comet 3I/ATLAS is the third confirmed object of extra-solar origin to be identified by astronomers as it passes through our solar system. It is also, and completely unsurprisingly, the third to be subject to all sorts of wild and completely incorrect assertions / suggestions that is is both artificial in nature and alien in construction.

I’ve covered 3I/ALTAS and some of the wild claims around it already in these pages (see here, here, and here), and as the evidence mounted that yes, it is in fact a natural object, albeit one originally formed far beyond our solar system, I’d hoped that the “alien artefact” theories would fade away. And they almost did.

However, in late September, and as it continued to close on the Sun, 3I/ATLAS “abruptly” changed colour when seen in natural light, becoming bright green. Such changes of colour are not uncommon with comets as they become more and more active as they approach the Sun and start outgassing greater volumes of chemicals and minerals trapped within them. In this, green is actually a common colour for comets, signalling as it does the presence of diatomic carbon – a chemical long-range spectrographic analysis had suggested might be present within the make-up of 3I/ATLAS. Unfortunately, this did not prevent the alien artefact theorist proclaiming the colour change as “evidence” of the comet’s artificial nature.

*Comet 3I/ATLAS ‘going green’ in late September. Credit: Gerald Rhemann / Michael Jager*

Then, at the start of October 3I/ATLAS passed within 0.19 AU of Mars, allowing it to be imaged by NASA’s orbiters and rovers. However, in order to compensation for 3I/ATLAS’ very low magnitude (+11), these attempts required long exposure times, and because the comet was moving at 58 kilometres per second relative to the Sun throughout the exposure time, the resulting images revealed the comet not as a rounded object, but one that appeared to be somewhat cylindrical in shape, once again causing the alien artefact theorists to again shout, “See! It’s artificial!”

At the same time, as this was happening, the US government shutdown commenced, halting many NASA activities, including proving on-going updates on missions and activities and things like 3I/ATLAS. However, rather than acknowledging the sudden “silence” from NASA was caused by the shutdown, the conspiracists decided it was because NASA had accidentally revealed a “hidden truth” about 3I/ATLAS in the images of it returned via the Mars missions (notably the Perseverance rover).

Oblivious to all of this, 3I/ATLAS reached perihelion on October 29th, passing the Sun at a distance of just 1.36 AU. Unfortunately, it did so on the opposite side of the Sun relative to Earth, so we had to rely on a number of deep space missions – including NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission, ESA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and NOAA’s GOES-19 satellite – to try to capture images of the event. Sadly, the combination of comet’s small size and closeness to the Sun did not make for particularly exciting images, the latter’s brightness largely wiping out the light and colour of the comet.

However, this does not mean we are no devoid of any further opportunities to see the comet. During November, 3I/ATLAS will re-emerge from “behind” the sun as it starts to head back out of the solar system. As it does so, it will have a much higher apparent magnitude, making it an ideal target for study not only for the big observatories like Vera C. Rubin, but also potentially by anyone with a larger amateur telescope (e.g. 10-in or larger).

Most excitingly, perhaps is that during November, 3I/ATLAS will be ideally placed for ESA’s Juice mission to take a couple of peeks at it.

ESA’s Juice mission (lavender line), having recently completed a flyby of Venus as it gather the momentum it needs to hurl itself out to Jupiter, should have two opportunities to study 3I/ATLAS, one starting on November 2nd, 2025, when the two will pass relatively close to one another in opposite directions, and another on November 25th, when Juice will be able to “look back” towards 3I/ATLAS. Credit: ESA

On November 2nd, 2025, Juice will be able to start a “hot” observation of 3I/ATLAS, hopefully catching it while it is still very active as it moves away from the Sun. However, this observation period will be slightly limited, as the instruments will need to be cooled between observations because they are not designed to continuously operate in the temperature environments close to the Sun. A second, “cooler” period of observation will commence on November 25th, when Juice has once more moved beyond the orbit of Earth and will be able to “look back” on the comet as it continues on its way out of the inner solar system.

All of these observations are likely to further confirm 3I/ATLAS as a remarkable interstellar comet, one much older than our own solar system; something which is a marvel in and of itself without any need to attribute its origin or presence in our back yard to some form of alien intelligence bent on mischief towards us.

Space Sunday: of Artemis 3 and NASA administrators

Posted on October 26, 2025 by Inara Pey

*Artemis Human Landing Systems (HLS): is Blue Origin’s Blue Moon (l) likely to usurp SpaceX’s Starship HLS (r) for Artemis 3? Credit: Blue Origin / SpaceX*

What has long been recognised by many who follow the US-led Project Artemis programme to return humans to the Moon now appears to be becoming recognised within the upper echelons of NASA’s management. Namely, that the biggest hold-up to the programme’s primary goal of safely landing a crew on the surface of the Moon and returning them to lunar orbit remains the inability of SpaceX to meet NASA’s – or even its own – time frames and deadlines in the development its Starship-derived Human Landing System (HLS) vehicle.

SpaceX was awarded the contract to develop the initial vehicle intended to deliver crews from cislunar space to the Moon’s South Pole and then return them back to cislunar space over five years ago, in May 2020. At the time, the announcement was controversial for a numbers of reasons:

It was both a last-minute entry into the competition to provide NASA with a suitable HLS vehicle, and the most technically complex of the three major proposal which went forward to the final selection process, requiring up to 14 launches of the SpaceX Starship / Superheavy system just to get it to lunar orbit.

The SpaceX HLS system for Artemis 3, comprising an orbital “refuelling depot” (far left) plus multiple Starship tanker launches (centre left) and the Starship HLS itself in order to deliver a 2-person crew launched by SLS / Orion (centre) to / from the surface of the Moon, with Orion returning them to Earth with their fellow Orion crew (right). Note that while only 4 “tanker” launches are shown in this graphic, given current projected Starship payload capacities, the number is more likely to be 8-12 such launches. Credit: SpaceX

Despite NASA stating two options for the initial HLS would be selected, only the SpaceX option was carried forward in the so-called “Option A” contract, with NASA providing SpaceX with an initial US $2.89 billion for vehicle development, with both Blue Origin and Dynetics effectively being frozen out.
The driving force behind the decision to go exclusively with SpaceX was NASA associate Administrator Kathryn Lueders, who had a long-standing relationship with SpaceX, and who subsequently retired from NASA in 2023 to join SpaceX. Whilst highly speculative in nature, there have been fingers pointed towards this chain of events as being more than coincidental.
The decision to go with SpaceX alone for at least the Artemis 3 mission (the first planned crewed landing) was upheld by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) in July 2021 after both Blue Origin and Dynetics filed complaints about the handling of the contract on NASA’s part. This decision came in spite of NASA’s own Office of Inspector General (OIG) having already reporting that the agency’s own estimates for the development time frame for HLS (four years) was entirely unrealistic, and that due to its complexity the SpaceX HLS approach would potentially result in the most severe of anticipated delays in HLS development, requiring up to 4 additional years of development and testing in order to be flight-ready.
In December 2023, a NASA Key Decision Point (KDP) review for Artemis 3, intended to assess whether or not the programme was on course to meet its intended targets, rated SpaceX as having only a 70% of achieving a required uncrewed demonstration test flight of their HLS vehicle (including landing it on the Moon and returning it to lunar orbit) by February 2028, some two years behind the Option A contract goal of flying this mission in mid-2026.

Oddly, both SpaceX and NASA placed part of the blame for the delay to the demonstration test with on-going (at the time) issues with the Orion crew capsule heat shield – even though Orion is an entirely separate vehicle to HLS, and does not form part of the contracted SpaceX HLS demonstration flight.

Further, while SpaceX has pointed to the 30 HLS development milestones it has achieved, these relate to hardware needed for power generation, communications, guidance and navigation, propulsion, life support, and space environments protection, rather than the vehicle as a whole, with some of these milestones either relating purely to the definition of some of this hardware, rather than any form of development and / or integrated testing.

Whilst SpaceX points to having achieved some 30 hardware milestones for its HLS vehicle, several of these milestones refer to system definitions, rather than hardware development, whilst other elements – such as the elevator system required to get the down the 30 metres separating the vehicle’s crew section from the surface of the Moon – has largely been driven by NASA rather than SpaceX. Credit: NASA / SpaceX

By the start of 2024, concerns around SpaceX’s ability to actually deliver on their promises for their HLS vehicle were such that Jim Free, the man then at NASA charged with overseeing the Artemis programme, was openly talking in terms of potentially swapping the Artemis 3 and Artemis 5 missions, the latter intended to be the first use of the Blue Moon HLS system in development by Blue Origin, and which at the time was seen as much further along in its development cycle than the SpaceX system.

Whilst Free has since retired from NASA, the acting administrator for the agency, Sean Duffy, echoed Free’s point of view on October 20th, 2025, indicating that he is now open to reviewing the Artemis 3 HLS contract. In particular, he has also suggested shifting to using Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander on the basis of growing scepticism that SpaceX will have their HLS system ready for Artemis 3 by 2028/29.

Whilst Artemis 3 remains mired in conflict, Artemis 2, the first crewed mission for the programme using NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion, achieved a further milestone on it wat to the launch pad on October 20th, 2025, when the Orion vehicle, encased in its launch shroud and topped by the Launch Abort System, was lowered from a high bay within the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, and mated to its adaptor on the top of the SLS rocket. Artemis 2 is currently expected to launch in March 0r April 2026 on a 10-day mission around the Moon. Credit: NASA

Unsurprisingly in this age of politics by insult, Duffy’s comments were met with childish name-calling on the part of the SpaceX CEO. To be sure, Duffy is perhaps not the best qualified to be leading NASA even on an interim basis (and has made a fair number of gaffes as head of the Department of Transportation); but as per the reasons noted above, there is good reason to question whether SpaceX can meet its obligations for HLS even within the revised times frame for the Artemis 3 mission (which is now looking to a possible 2028 launch).

Nor did the SpaceX CEO limit his scorn to Duffy; in the same string of social media posts he took aim at Blue Origin, claiming the company “has never delivered a payload to orbit, let alone the Moon” (which he later refined to mean “useful payload”). Given that the launch vehicle for Blue Moon – Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket – both successfully achieved Earth orbit and deployed a payload demonstrator on its maiden flight, both of which Starship has yet to do in a single launch despite (at the time of writing) 11 flights, this critique came over as little more than a petulant outburst than a reasoned defence of Starship HLS.

Following Duffy’s statements – which appear to also be driven in part by concerns over China’s stated aim to place taikonauts on the Moon by 2030 – speculation was rife in some circles as to whether NASA might seek to an alternative to SpaceX and Blue Origin as the Artemis 3 HLS provider. This speculation encapsulated both the idea that NASA might try for a “home-grown” HLS, or bring-in another company – such as Lockheed Martin (which has made no secret of its desire to supply an HLS alongside of its Orion crew vehicle) – to provide a suitable HLS.

However, given the lead-times involved in seriously moving forward with either of these options (which would likely see Artemis 3 pushed back well beyond a 2029), coupled with the costs involved when the Trump Administration is aggressively trying to reduce NASA’s budget, it would seem unlikely that either of these options would be seriously taken-up. As it stands and in the wake of Duffy’s comments, NASA has confirmed that both Blue Origin and SpaceX have been given until October 29th, 2025 to submit “accelerated proposals” for HLS development, but no other proposals for “alternate” HLS vehicles are currently being sought.

Exactly where this will all lead is also open to debate. As does, ironically enough, the overall leadership of NASA. Whilst only appointed Acting Administrator for the agency, Duffy has spent some of his time in the role floating the idea that NASA should be folded into his Department of Transportation. Were this to happen, it would effectively cement his position as the person in overall charge of the agency and its budget – although the idea has already received widespread pushback from the US space industry as a whole. At the same time, the White House has indicated it is possibly going to re-nominate Jared Isaacman for the role of NASA Administrator.

As I reported at the time in this pages, Isaacman was on the verge of being confirmed to the role earlier in 2025, when Trump’s White House abruptly withdrew his name as their nominee following a public spat between Trump and the SpaceX CEO (with whom Isaacman has had a close working relationship for several years), who at the time was coming to the end of his tenure as a “special advisor” to the White House. However, on October 14th, it was revealed that the Trump Administration has again been in talks with Isaacman about a potential resumption of his nomination to lead NASA, which he apparently is still interested in doing.

Space Sunday: of moons and Mars

Posted on October 5, 2025 by Inara Pey

*The Artemis 2 mission profile. Credit: Canadian Space Agency (CSA)*

NASA has announced that Artemis 2 – the first mission of the programme to send a crew to cislunar space – is now targeting a launch for the period between February 5th, 2026 and the end of April 2026.

The 10-day mission will carry a crew of four – three Americans and one Canadian – to the vicinity of the Moon and then back to Earth aboard an Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) in what will be the final test of that vehicle and its systems, together with the second flight of NASA’s Block 1 Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The latter – SLS – is currently undergoing the final steps in its assembly process. Earlier this year the core and upper stages of the rocket were stacked at Kennedy Space Centre’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), where the two solid rocket boosters also stacked within the VAB were then attached to either side of the rocket’s core stage.

Meanwhile, and as I noted in August 2025, the Orion vehicle for the mission, together with its European-built Service Module, moved from NASA’s Multi-Payload Processing Facility (MPPF) to the Launch Abort System Facility (LASF), where it is being mated with its launch abort system tower. Once completed, the combination of Orion and launch abort system will be transferred to the VAB for installation on the SLS vehicle.

Two images of NASA engineers installing the Orion Stage Adapter (just visible, top left) onto the the top of the mission’s SLS launch vehicle, inside the High Bay of the Vehicle Assembly building (VAB), Kennedy Space Centre, September 2025. Credit: NASA

To this end, at the end of September 2025, NASA integrated the Artemis 2 Orion Stage Adapter with the rest of the SLS system. As its name suggests, the Orion Stage Adapter is the element required to mate Orion to the launch vehicle. In addition, the adapter will be used to deploy four CubeSats containing science and technology experiments into a high Earth orbit after Orion has separated from the SLS upper stage and is en route to the Moon.

Also at the end of September, the four crew due to fly the mission – Reid Wiseman (mission commander), Victor Glover, and Christina Koch all from NASA, and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen – revealed the name they had chosen for their Orion capsule: Integrity.

A couple months ago, we thought, as a crew, we need to name this spacecraft. We need to have a name for the Orion spacecraft that we’re going to ride this magical mission on. And so we got the four of us together and our backups, Jenny Gibbons from the Canadian Space Agency and Andre Douglas from NASA, and we went over to the quarantine facility here, and we basically locked ourselves in there until we came up with a name.

– Artemis 2 mission commander, Reid Wiseman

Integrity will be the second Orion capsule to join NASA’s operational fleet, the first being the still unnamed craft flown during the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission in 2022. That mission revealed an issue with the initial design of the vehicle’s re-entry heat shield, which received more and deeper damage than had been anticipated (see: Space Sunday: New Glenn, Voyager and Orion). This delayed Artemis 2 in order for investigations into the cause to take place and solutions determined.

In short: a return from the Moon involves far higher velocities than a return from Earth orbit (entering the atmosphere at 40,000 km/h compared to 28,000 km/h), resulting in far higher temperatures being experienced as the atmosphere around the vehicle is super-heated by the friction of the vehicle’s passage through it, further leading to increased ablation of the heat shield. This could be offset by using a very substantial and heavy heat shield, but as Orion is also intended to be launched on vehicles other than SLS and for other purposes (e.g. just flying to / from low Earth orbit), it is somewhat mass-critical and in need of a more lightweight heat shield.

As a result, rather than making a single plunge back into Earth’s atmosphere at the end of lunar missions, Orion was supposed to perform a series of initial “skips” or “dips” in and out of the denser atmosphere. These would allow the vehicle bleed-off velocity ahead of a “full” re-entry whilst also reducing the amount of plasma heating to which the ablative material of the heat shield would be exposed.

However, post-flight analysis of the heat shield used in the Artemis 1 mission of 2022, it was found that the heat shield had suffered extensive and worryingly deep material loss – referred to as “char loss”, resulting in a series of deep pits within the heat shield. Investigation revealed the cause of this being the initial “skips” the vehicle made into and out of the denser atmosphere.

While these “skips” did indeed reduce the load on the outer layers of the heat shield, they also had the unintended impact of heating-up gases trapped inside the ablative layers of the heat shield during its construction, causing the underlying layer of the material in the heat shield to expand and contract and start to crack and break. They, when the capsule entered its final plunge through the atmosphere prior to splashdown, the material over these damaged areas ablated away as intended, exposing the damaged material, which then quickly broke-up to leave the pits and holes.

Two of the official NASA images showing the severe pitting and damage caused to the Orion heat shield following re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere at the end of the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, December 11th, 2022. Credit: NASA / NASA OIG

To mitigate this, Artemis 3 and 4 will fly with a redesigned heat shield attached to their Orion capsules. However, Artemis 2 will fly with the same design as used in Artemis 1, but its re-entry profile has been substantially altered so it will carry out fewer “skips” in and out of the atmosphere before the final entry, and will do so at angles that will reduce the amount of internal heating within the heat shield layers.

Ahead of its launch, the complete Artemis 2 launch vehicle and payload should be rolled-out from the VAB to the launch pad early in 2026. It will then go through a series of pre-flight demonstration tests, up to and including a full “wet dress rehearsal”, wherein the rocket will be fully fuelled with propellants and go through a full countdown and lunch operation, stopping just short of actually igniting the engines. These test will then clear the way for the crewed launch.

Flying over Mars with Mars Express

When it comes to exploring Mars, NASA understandably tends to get the lion’s share of attention, simply by volume of its operational missions on and around the Red Planet. However, they are far from alone; Mars is very much an international destination, so to speak. One of the longest continuous missions to operate around Mars, for example, is Europe’s Mars Express mission, an orbiter which has been studying Mars for more than 22 years, marking it as the second-longest running such mission after NASA’s Mars Odyssey mission (now in its 24th year since launch).

During its time in orbit, Mars Express has provided the most complete map of the Martian atmosphere and its chemical composition currently available; produced thousands of high-definition images of the planet’s surface, revealing many of its unique features whilst also helping scientists understand the role of liquid water in the formation of the ancient Martian landscape; acted as a communications relay between other Mars missions and Earth, and it has even studied the innermost of Mars’ two captive moons, Phobos.

*An infographic released by the European Space Agency in 2023 to celebrate 20 years of continuous operations by Mars Express around Mars. Credit: ESA*

It is through the high-definition images returned by the orbiter that ESA has at times promoted the mission to the general public, notably through the release of galleries of images and the production of detailed “flyover” videos of the planet, revealing its unique terrain to audiences through the likes of You Tube. At the start of October 2025, ESA released the latest of these movies featuring the remarkable Xanthe Terra (“golden-yellow land”). Located just north of the Martian equator and to the south of Chryse Planitia where Viking Lander 1 touched-down on July 20th, 1976, and a place noted for its many indications that water played a major role in its formation.

The images used in the film were gathered using the orbiter’s High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) during a single orbit of the planet. Following their transmission to Earth, these were combined with topography data gathered in the same pass to create a three-dimensional view of a part of the region centred on Shalbatana Vallis, a 1300 km-long outflow channel running from the southern highlands into the northern lowlands on the edge of Chryse Planitia. The film also includes passage over Da Vinci crater. Some 100 km across, this crater is intriguing as it contains a smaller, more recent impact crater within it, complete with debris field.

Uranian Moon Ariel the Latest Moon to have an Ocean?

Jupiter’s Galilean moons of Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, together with Saturn’s Enceladus and Titan are all thought to have (or had) oceans of icy slush or liquid water under their surfaces. In the case of the Galilean moons, the evidence is so strong, Both NASA and ESA are currently sending probes to Jupiter to study them and their interiors. Similarly, the evidence for Enceladus – as I’ve covered numerous times in these pages – having a liquid water ocean under its ice is so powerful that calls for a mission to visit it are equally as strong.

Now Uranus is getting in on the act of having moons with what could be (or could have been) liquid water oceans under their surfaces, the latest contender being Ariel, the planet’s fourth largest and second closest of Uranus’s moons in hydrostatic equilibrium (i.e. largely globular in shape) to the planet, after Miranda.

Measuring just 1,160 km in diameter, Ariel is a comparatively tiny moon and not too much is known about it, other than it its density suggests it is made up of a mix of rock and ice, with a lean towards the latter. It orbits and rotates in Uranus’s equatorial plane, which is almost perpendicular to the planet’s orbit, giving the moon an extreme seasonal cycle. But the most remarkable aspect of Ariel is its extreme mix of geological structures: massive surface fractures, ridges and grabens – part of the moon’s crust that have dropped lower than its surroundings—at scales larger than almost anywhere else in the solar system.

Only one space mission has come close to visiting Ariel. NASA’s Voyager 2 zipped by the moon in 1986 at a distance of 127,000 km. This allowed the probe’s camera system to gather images of around 35% of the moon’s surface that were of sufficient spatial resolution (approx. 2 km) so as to be useful for geological mapping. It has been these images which have allowed a team of researchers led by the Planetary Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to embark on an effort to understand Ariel’s likely interior structure and how its dramatic surface features might have been produced.

First, we mapped out the larger structures that we see on the surface, then we used a computer program to model the tidal stresses on the surface, which result from distortion of Ariel from soccer ball-shaped to slight football-shaped and back as it moves closer and farther from Uranus during its orbit. By combining the model with what we see on the surface, we can make inferences about Ariel’s past eccentricity and how thick the ocean might have been.

– Study co-author Alex Patthoff, Planetary Science Institute

Captured on July 26th, 2006 by the Hubble Space Telescope, this infrared image of Uranus showing tiny Ariel making a rare visible-from-Earth transit of its parent planet and casting a shadow on Uranus’ upper atmosphere. Credit: NASA / Space Telescope Science Institute

The movement of the moon towards and away from Uranus – its orbital eccentricity –is important, because it represents how much the moon is being affected by different gravitational forces from Uranus and the other four globular moons dancing around the planet. Forces which can causes stresses within the moon which might act as engines for generating the kinds of surface features imaged by Voyager 2.

Overall the team calculate that in the distant past, Ariel’s eccentricity was likely around 0.04. This doesn’t sound much, but it is actually 40 times greater that Ariel’s current eccentricity, suggesting that its orbit around Uranus was once more elliptical than we see today, but over the aeons it has gradually moved toward becoming more circular.

However, and more particularly, an eccentricity of 0.04 is actually four times greater than that of Jupiter’s Europa – a moon in an almost constant state of flux thanks to the gravitational influences of Jupiter and the other Galilean moons that it may well have a deep subsurface liquid ocean kept warm by geothermal venting powered by similar gravitational forces that may have been / are affecting Ariel.

Thus, if Ariel conforms to the Europan model, the team suggest that it could potentially harbour a liquid or semi-liquid water ocean, and that at one time, during the period of greatest orbital stresses, this ocean could have been entirely liquid in nature and some 170 kilometres deep. Such an ocean, the modelling revealed, would be fully capable of helping to produce surface features on Ariel of the same nature as those seen by Voyager 2, thanks to the internal stresses and movement of such a volume of water.

This same team carried out a similar study of tiny (just 470 km in diameter) Miranda. It also has curious surface features, a density suggesting it likely has an icy interior and a position where it is subject to contrasting gravitational forces courtesy of Uranus and the other moons. Applying their modelling to the available images data of Miranda also taken by Voyager 2, the team concluded there is a strong potential that at some point in the past, it may have had a subsurface liquid water ocean, although this may have long since become partially or fully frozen.

The highest-resolution Voyager 2 colour image of Ariel, captured in 1986. Canyons with floors covered by smooth plains – their smoothness believed to be the result of cryovolcanism – are visible at lower right. The bright crater Laica is at lower left. Credit: NASA/JPL

Whether or not either of these tiny moon does have any remaining subsurface liquid water, or whether their interiors have long since frozen, is obviously unknown. The team also admit that their work is entirely based on data gathered by Voyager 2 on the southern hemispheres of Miranda and Ariel; the nature of their northern hemispheres being entirely unknown. As such, a future study on both northern hemispheres might reveal factors and features that could dramatically change our understanding of both moons and their possible formation, and thus change the findings in both studies.

But for the meantime, two more potentially subsurface hycean moons in the solar system can be added to the list of such bodies.

Space Sunday: more NASA budgets threats

Posted on May 4, 2025May 4, 2025 by Inara Pey

*NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle (MPCV):now earmarked for “phasing out” in the White House budget request for NASA. Credit NASA*

In my previous piece on the NASA upcoming budget, as being put forward by the US 47th executive administration, I focused on how the proposal could impact NASA’s science capabilities. At the time, the entire budget request had yet to be published, and my article was based on what had been made public by way of passback documents circulating in Washington DC.

At that time, it was anticipated that the White House would push for around a 20% cut in NASA’s annual budget, the majority of which would target NASA’s Earth and Space Science operations. However, on Friday, May 2nd, 2025, the “skinny” version of the White House budget request was published, revealing that the administration is seeking an overall 24.8% cut in NASA’s spending compared to the agency’s existing budget. If enacted, it will be the biggest single-year cut in NASA’s entire history. And whilst around two-thirds of the proposed cuts do land squarely on NASA space / Earth science and legacy programmes, they do touch the agency’s human spaceflight ambitions as well.

First and foremost, the request calls for the immediate cancellation of the Lunar Gateway station (aka “Gateway”). This actually makes sense, simply because since its inception, Gateway has itself never made sense.

Starting as a series of studies called the Deep Space Gateway (DSG) in the mid-2010s, it became an official NASA project under – ironically – the first Trump Administration, when it became the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOP-G). It was presented at both a means to enable a return to the surface of the Moon and a gateway to the human exploration of the solar system. However, intended to occupy a Polar near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the Moon, travelling up to 70,000 km from the lunar surface whilst never coming closer than 3,000 km, it has been more a limitation than an enhancement to lunar operations.

*An artist’s impression of the first two modules of Gateway – the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) passing by the Moon. Credit: NASA*

While this orbit would allow for uninterrupted communications between the station and Earth, it also introduced multiple complexities of operation into any return to the Moon. As a result, multiple ancillary reasons for Gateway’s existence were cooked up: Earth sciences, heliophysics, fundamental space biology research, etc., all of which could be achieved more directly and cost-effectively through other means.

Thus, over the last 6 years Gateway has been consistently downsized and de-prioritised, constantly criticised by experts from within and outside NASA, and even seen as something of a complicated boondoggle in terms of design by those actually engaged in its design. Add to this the fact it offers little or nothing to lunar operations that could not be achieved from within a modest lunar orbit (200-300 km). Given all this, cancelling the project – even if it means pissing off international and commercial partners – is a sensible move.

As I noted in a recent Space Sunday report, the arrival of the Trump administration coincided with calls for the outright cancellation of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) on the ground of outright expense. but as I mentioned in that piece, any such complete cancellation of SLS would have left Artemis high and dry, and ideas of simply launching Orion utilising other launchers were as close to be nonsensical as to make no difference.

In a follow-up piece to that article, I suggested that a preferable approach would be to go ahead with Artemis with SLS until such time as the latter could be replaced. This is more-or-less what the Trump budget proposes, albeit it on a far tighter time frame; looking to “phase out” both SLS and Orion completely following the first lunar landing of the Artemis programme (Artemis 3), in favour of a “commercial” solution.

*The Orion MPCV mounted atop its ESM and mating adaptor to be used in the Artemis 2 cislunar space mission, was officially handed over to NASA on May 1st, 2025. Credit: Lockheed Martin*

Given that Artemis 3 is unlikely to fly before around 2028/9 (simply because the SpaceX lunar lander is unlikely to be ready before then), this does present an – albeit tight – window of opportunity; albeit one biased in favour of one commercial operator – SpaceX.

That company’s Crew Dragon vehicle has proven itself a remarkably versatile vehicle, capable of not only ferrying crews to the International Space Station, but also of carrying out space missions of 4-5 days duration in its own right. While its life-support and general facilities would require upgrade, as (likely) would the heat shield (which would have to protect the vehicle when re-entering Earth’s atmosphere at around 40,000 km/h compared to the 28,000 km/h experienced during a return from low-Earth orbit (LEO). But such upgrades are necessarily outside the realm of possibility.

A critical part of these upgrades would lie with the service module (aka “trunk”) supplying power and consumables (e.g. water and air) to Crew Dragon. This would have to be considerable beefier in terms of propellants and consumables it can carry, and also its propulsion. However, this is not something insurmountable. SpaceX has been working on a design for a “Dragon XL”, a large-capacity Cargo Dragon supported by an enhanced “trunk” which would have been used to support operations at Gateway. In theory, there’s a potential for this “trunk” to be enhanced into a suitable service module for Crew Dragon, allowing it to make trips to lunar orbit and back.

This does involve a number of challenges – one of them being how to launch such a combination. Currently, the heaviest payload SpaceX can send to the Moon is between 20-24 tonnes, using the Falcon Heavy (I am intentionally ignoring Starship here, as that is a long way from being anywhere near an operational, human-capable launch system). However, it’s unlikely a combined Crew Dragon + enhanced service module is going to fall within this limit (for example, the Apollo Command and Service modules massed 28.8 tonnes and Orion and its lightweight ESM mass 26.5 tonnes). Falcon Heavy is also not human-rated, so even if it could lob a Crew Dragon / enhanced service module combination to the Moon, it would need to undergo some degree of modification in order to gain a human flight rating, adding further complications.

Dragon XL: an uncrewed cargo vehicle NASA has requested from SpaceX to deliver cargo to to the Lunar Gateway station might help form a part of a replacement (also using Crew Dragon) for Orion to help deliver crews to lunar orbit. Credit: SpaceX

That said, even this is not a blocker: allowing for the risk of damage to the Crew Dragon’s heat shield, it might be possible to launch a crew to LEO atop a Falcon 9, allowing then to rendezvous and mate with an uprated service module and Falcon upper stage placed in to LEO by a Falcon Heavy. This would eliminate the need to human-rate Falcon Heavy whilst enabling the latter to launch a more capable combination of upper stage (to boost the combined Crew Dragon and service module onwards to the Moon) and service module to await the arrival of the Crew Dragon.

As noted, there are technical caveats involved in this approach. It also requires the provisioning of funding for said vehicle development – something not within the pages of this budget proposal; and it would make NASA exceptionally dependent on SpaceX for the success of Artemis.

Beyond changes NASA’s lunar ambitions, the 2026 budget request is seeking a reduction in International Space Station (ISS) spending of around half a billion dollars a year on 2024 spending, in “preparation” for the station’s 2030 decommissioning. The most immediate impact of the cut will be a reduction in overall ISS crew sizes, together with a reduction in the number of annual resupply missions – something that could impact the likes of Sierra Space with their contract for ISS resupply flights due to commence in 2026. In addition, the budget request seeks to “refocus” (aka “restrict”) research and space science activities in the ISS to those directly related to “efforts critical to the moon and Mars exploration programmes”. However, what this precisely means is not made clear.

Whilst promoting human mission to Mars, the budget proposal offers little if anything concrete, other than the cancellation of the automated Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, stating the return of any samples can be deferred until such time as humans reach Mars and can collect such samples directly.

Even in a massively simplified proposal from Rocket Lab (when compared to NASA’s multi-vehicle internationally-split idea), the Mars Sample Return Mission has been identified for complete cancellation. Credit: Rocket Lab

In this, MSR is the only science mission named for cancellation in the budget request. Given the manner in which NASA has consistently fumbled around with the mission over that last half-decade, its cancellation doesn’t come as a surprise. The non-mention of other programmes also doesn’t mean the concerns I raised in my previous Space Sunday have gone away; as noted, the budget request confirms the desire to make very deep cuts into NASA’s ability to carry out science and research across all disciplines.

Two additional programmes potentially impacted in this regard are the LandSat Earth imagining programme – which the Trump administration wants to see downscaled, and NASA’s research into what the administration calls “legacy space programmes” – such as their research into nuclear propulsion systems. The latter is again ironic given nuclear systems are potentially the most effective means of propulsion for Mars missions, and the budget request flag-waves the idea of humans to Mars.

As with Trump’s first term in office, the White House is seeking to eliminate all of NASA’s involvement in STEM and education (STEM being disgustingly referenced as being “woke” in the budget request). This includes cancelling the Established Programme to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This is again ironic, given that during his initial Senate confirmation hearings, prospective NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman (who is now almost certain to be confirmed, following a 19-9 vote by the Senate Commerce Committee) referred to EPSCoR as an “essential” NASA educational programme because “it helps connect students and researchers from underserved regions and institutions to the opportunities that NASA provides.”

In my last update, I noted that there is a reported desire among some within the Administration to see at least one NASA centre – The Goddard Space Flight Centre – to be closed. While the budget request does not directly earmark any NASA centres for closure, it does call for NASA to “streamline the workforce, IT services, NASA Centre operations, facility maintenance, and construction and environmental compliance activities”. As such, downsizing / closures remains a threat, and Goddard remains the centre with direct responsibility for many aspects of NASA’s science missions.

All of the above said, this is – at this stage at least – only a budget request. It remains to be seen as to how those in both side of Capitol Hill respond, and whether the White House will actually listen if / when objections are raised. Given the attitude of many within (notably, but not exclusively) the Republican Party towards science, climate change, the environment, DEI (which the budget also targets), green initiatives, etc., I have my doubts as to whether strong objections to the cuts to NASA’s science programmes will be raised.

Certainly there has been some push-back from within the bipartisan U.S. Planetary Science Caucus, but thus far the loudest voices of protest have come from outside US government circles, such as the globally-respected American Astronomical society and The Planetary Society – two organisations well-versed in America’s leadership in the fields of space and science – among others.

If enacted, the 56% cut to the National Science Foundation, the 47% cut to NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, and the 14% cut to the Department of Energy’s Office of Science would result in an historic decline of American investment in basic scientific research. These cuts would damage a broad range of research areas that will not be supported by the private sector. The negative consequences would be exacerbated because many research efforts can require years to decades to mature and reach fruition. Without robust and sustained federal funding, the United States will lose at least a generation of talent to other countries that are increasing their investments in facilities and workforce development. This will derail not only cutting-edge scientific advances, but also the training of the nation’s future STEM workforce. These proposed cuts will result in the loss of American leadership in science.

– from a statement issued by the American Astronomical Society, May 2nd, 2025

As it is, NASA is already tightening its belt: on April 29th, 2025, it postponed the release of the Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for the next Small Explorer (SMEX) mission.

Established in 1988 as a continuation of and enhancement to the long-running Explorer Programme, SMEX focuses on well-defined and relatively inexpensive space science missions in the disciplines of astrophysics and space physics which cost less than US $170 million per mission (excluding launch). Currently, the last SMEX mission was selected in 2021, but its launch has been delayed until 2027. As such, the 2025 AO would have earmarked a launch window between 2027 and 2031 for the selected mission. However, given the potential for up to two-thirds of the agency’s astrophysics budget to be cut, NASA has indicated it would not now issue the SMEX AO “until at least 2026”.

It is anticipated that more upcoming requests for science mission proposals will be placed “on hold” whilst this budget request is debated.

Space Sunday: of budgets and proposed cuts

Posted on April 27, 2025May 4, 2025 by Inara Pey

The Trump administration is seeking a 20% reduction in NASA’s budget for 2025/26. If met, it would likely killed projects such as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, seen here in an artist’s rendering. Credit: NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been a pioneer in all fields of space exploration, planetary Sciences, Earth sciences, meteorology (alongside of its sister agency, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its predecessor, the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA)). It has also been responsible for many advances in aircraft systems and aviation safety ever since its formation in 1958.

NASA, like any bureaucracy, hasn’t always got things right. Nor has it always gone about things in the right way – Project Artemis currently standing as prime example of this. But, in term of its size and federal budget allocation, NASA is perhaps one of the most cost-effective and successful US federal organs in modern history, with an ability to achieve so much with what amounts to so little.

As an illustrations of what I mean by the above. In 66 years of operations, NASA’s budget has rarely exceeded 1% of the US federal budget in any given year. In fact its peek budgetary allocations came – unsurprisingly – in the era of Apollo, but even then only reached a peak of 4.41% of the total US budget (1966). By the start of this century, NASA’s budget represented just 0.80% of federal spending and was in decline as a whole. For the last 15 years it has stabilised, but has rarely exceeded 0.50%.

In 66 years, NASA’s budget has rarely exceeded 1% of the US federal budget. It’s peak period lay in the Apollo era, when it averaged 2.43% over a 13-year period (1962-1974, including Apollo Skylab)

That’s a long way from being the kind of black hole of federal expenditure far too many people take it to be, and in terms of overall expenditure, NASA represents bloody good bang for the buck. Yet – and perhaps because of that incorrect public assumption – it remains a soft target with it comes to cutting the federal budget. Sometimes, admittedly, these cuts are driven by economic needs at the time, others are due political priorities pointing elsewhere. However, it is fair to say none have ever been driven a dogma of intentional deconstruction fuelled by ignorance; but that is what NASA is now facing under the current US administration’s budget proposals, leaked in part on April 11th, 2025.

These call for NASA’s budget to be reduced by 20% in the name of “cost-saving”. As the lion’s share of NASA’s budget – 50% in total – is devoted to all aspects of human spaceflight, and thus considered inviolable when it comes to cuts, the proposal directly targets NASA’s science, aeronautics, technology research and administrative budgets. They involve calls for the complete closure of at least one NASA research centre and a slashing on NASA’s overall science budget by as much as 50%.

There is nothing accidental about this targeting; the architect of the NASA cuts proposal is Russell Vought, one of those behind Project 2025, and a man known for his profound anti-science beliefs and doctrine. Such is his animosity – shared by others in the administration – towards subjects such as climate change, Earth observation and resource management, he is seemingly content to take a meat cleaver and hack off what is potentially NASA’s most cost-effective limb, one consistently responsible for delivering a wealth of invaluable knowledge to the world as a whole, simply to end the agency’s ability to carry out research into subjects he views with personal enmity.

Chief among these cuts is a two-thirds reduction in astrophysics spending (reduced to US $487 million); a 50% cut in heliophysics (down to US $455 million); more than 50% slashed from Earth sciences (down to just over US $1 billion) and 30% cut from planetary sciences (reduced to under US $2 billion).

The budget also specifically earmarks the Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC), NASA’s first and largest science facility, with a staff of 10,000, for closure. The rationale for this, again, appears to be GSFC’s involvement in climate studies. However, such is the breadth and depth of its work, any such closure would cripple much of NASA’s research and science capabilities – something I’ll come back to below.

Within NASA, the proposal – initially dismissed by acting Administrator Janet Petro as “rumours from really not credible sources” when word surfaced about it ahead of its publication – is now being regarded as an “extinction level event” for NASA’s entire science capability.

The proposal has drawn sharp response from Capitol Hill, including the bipartisan Congressional Planetary Science Caucus, together with threats to “block” the budget’s move through the Senate.

If enacted, these proposed cuts would demolish our space economy and workforce, threaten our national security and defence capabilities, and ultimately surrender the United States’ leadership in space, science, and technological innovation to our adversaries. We will work closely with our colleagues in Congress on a bipartisan basis to push back against these proposed cuts and program terminations and to ensure full and robust funding for NASA Science in Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations.

– Congressional Planetary Science Caucus statement

Nominee for the post of NASA Administrator, Jared Isaacman, who is going through his confirmation process during April and already facing questions over his relationship with the SpaceX CEO (who is already impacting NASA through his DOGE scheme and in trying to influence the White House’s thinking over projects such as the ISS), described the budget proposal as “not optimal”, and stated that if confirmed, he would advocate “for strong investment in space science—across astrophysics, planetary science, Earth science, lunar science, and heliophysics—and for securing as much funding as the government can reasonably allocate.”

But while there may well be vows to block the proposed cuts and to “advocate” for science, concern has already been raised at to how effective or real they might be. The Trump administration has established a strong track record for decision-making by fiat, bypassing Congress altogether – and Congress (notably the House) has been largely content to sit and watch the edicts from the White House whoosh by.

Under US law, there is the means for the Executive to arbitrarily impose budgets on federal agencies. The process is referred to as “impoundment”. In theory it can only be used following the start of the next government fiscal year – in this case, October 1st, 2025 – and then only if Congress and the White House remain at loggerheads over budgets. However, it has been reported that those in the White House see impoundment as a means to set budgets by executive decree, regardless of whether October 1st has been reached, in the expectation that should push come to shove, Congress will continue to sit on its hands.

GISS – First of 1,000 cuts?

Some proof of this might be evident in the case of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). Established in May 1961, GISS is a research division of the Goddard Space Flight Centre, and since 1966 it has been located at the Armstrong Hall (named for Edwin Armstrong, not Neil), New York City.

*Armstrong Hall, home of the GISS in New York City since 1966, now cut from federal building leases. Credit: NASA/Robert Schmunk*

In the decades since its establishment, GISS has become renowned for its Earth Sciences research across a variety of disciplines, including agriculture, crop growth and sustainability and climatology. It has built some of the largest dataset on current and past climate trends and fluctuations. It has also contributed to the fields of space research, both on a cosmological scale and through multiple NASA solar system missions from Mariner 5 to Cassini-Huygens. Researchers at the GISS have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, the Heinz Award and the World Food Prize for contributions to physics, science, environmental awareness, and improving the availability of food around the world.

In other words, it is a major centre for US scientific achievement.

However, on April 25th, 2025, the Trump Administration summarily cancelled the lease on Armstrong Hall – operated by Columbia University – ending GISS’s tenure there as from May 31st 2025. Again, The reason for this has been given “government waste of taxpayer’s money” (the lease had a further 6 years to run at a cost of US $3.3 million a year) – but the aim appears to be ending the GISS’s ability to conduct climate research.

Responding to the news in an e-mail to staff, GSFC director Dr. Makenzie Lystrup stated a confidence that the work of the GISS will continue, as its value is in “data and personnel”, not location, and promised to find the GISS a new home. However, given that GSFC is itself under threat, it remains to be seen whether a long-term future can be found for GISS and its data. In the meantime, all GISS staff have been placed on “temporary remote working agreements”.

Hubble at 35

The news of budget reductions potentially hitting NASA’s science capabilities come at a time when arguably what is one of its most iconic missions – the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) – celebrates 35 years of almost continuous operations (allowing for down-times due to on-orbit servicing and the odd moments in “safe” modes as a result of on-board issues).

Launched in 1990, Hubble’s story is one of triumph over near-disaster. On reaching orbit, a tiny error on the manufacture of is 2.4 metre diameter primary mirror came into focus – or rather, out-of-focus. Polishing on the perimeter of the mirror meant it was “too flat” by some 2200 nanometres (that’s 1/450 mm, or 1/11000 in). While tiny, the error was catastrophic in terms of Hubble’s clarity of vision, and effectively ended any chance of it carrying out cosmological observations before they started.

Fortunately, as we all know, NASA had the space shuttle, and Hubble had been specifically designed to be launched and serviced by that vehicle. It was therefore possible to come up with an ingenious solution to correct the error in the primary mirror – not by replacing it, but by giving Hubble a pair of “glasses” to correct its vision.

The first “lens in the glasses” took the form of deliberately introducing errors into the optics of the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WF/PC-2), an instrument already in development at the time Hubble was launched, and due to replace a similar instrument already on the telescope. These errors would completely cancel out the defects in the mirror’s surface, allowing the camera to take the required super-high resolution images with complete clarity.

The second “lens in the glasses” was an entirely new instrument called COSTAR (Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement), designed to eliminate the mirror’s flaws from impacting the other science instruments on the telescope, until such time as these instruments could also be replaced by units with their own in-built corrective elements. COSTAR did require the removal of another instrument from Hubble – High Speed Photometer – but it meant Hubble would be able to carry out the vast majority of its science activities unimpeded.

To celebrate 35 years of observations by the Hubble Space Telescope, four iconic images to summarise the telescope’s abilities. Top left: Mars seen from a distance of 97.6 million km in December 2024. Top right: planetary nebula NGC 2899, some 3,000-4,000 light-years from the Sun. Bottom left: a portion of the Rosette Nebula some 5,000 light-years from our Sun. Bottom right: The galaxy NGC 5335, which is a flocculent spiral galaxy approx. 236 million light years from our Sun. Credit: NASA / ESA / STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

In December 1993, the shuttle Endeavour delivered the WF/PC-2 and COSTAR to Hubble, where they were successfully installed. By 2002, subsequent servicing missions had successfully updated all of the remaining science instruments on Hubble, allowing COSTAR to be returned to Earth. This occurred in 2009 when the final shuttle servicing mission replaced COSTAR with the Cosmic Origins Spectroscope (COS).

Throughout its life, Hubble has made thousands of observations and contributed massively to science programmes, our understanding of our solar system, galaxy, and the greater cosmos. It has participated in studies conducted around the world and contributed to a huge volume of science and education endeavours. And despite failures, aging equipment and other issues, it repeatedly allows itself to be pulled out of every “safe” mode and resume operations through servicing missions and – since 2009 – via remote diagnostics and correction.

Such is its capacity to keep right on going, it is affectionately known as NASA’s Energiser Bunny by many in the programme.

All of which is made all the more poignant by the fact that NASA’s entire space observatories mission is at risk of closure as a result of the proposed Trump budget. Hubble, together with its semi-siblings, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Chandra X-ray Telescope (itself only saved from abandonment in March 2024) are all financed out of NASA’s Astrophysics budget, which the Trump administration wants to cut by 66%. Were this to happen, NASA would likely be unable to continue to operate all three telescopes – or even two of them – and certainly would be unable to complete and launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. And even if one or more of the observatories were to survive the cuts, all are dependent on the Goddard Space Flight Centre for their operational and engineering infrastructure and support – which again, the budget proposing closing, a move that would kill the telescopes.

Hopefully, none of this will happen, but one cannot deny the dark shroud it casts over Hubble’s anniversary.

NOAA As Well

As noted, one of the most unsettling aspects with the proposed NASA cuts is the idea that the White House might seek to impose cuts and reductions by fiat, bypassing Congress with the use of executive orders.

This threat, is given weight by the fact that an initial 800 employees of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were abruptly fired at the end of February 2025 on the grounds of “cutting costs”, the fact that they were “probationary” employees being disingenuously used to suggest they somehow weren’t qualified to work at the agency. Currently, it appears that a further 1,000 positions at the agency still hang in the balance.

Nor does the threat to NOAA end there. The Trump budget proposal recommends cutting NOAA’s comparatively tiny US $7 billion budget by 25%. Specifically – and unsurprisingly – chief among the agency’s work targeted by the cuts is anything related to climate studies. In fact, in this area, the proposed cuts are closer to 75%, effectively ending all of NOAA’s research into climate change and weather (and no, the two are not the same).

GOES – Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite – is a network of geostationary satellites jointly operated by NASA / NOAA for weather monitoring. Development of their next generation replacements could be put at risk as a result of proposed government budget cuts. Credit: NOAA / NASA

Although the administration has stated the National Weather Service will “not be touched”, both the layoffs in February and the proposed cuts could have potentially far-reaching impacts in that service’s capabilities. NOAA, in collaboration with NASA, currently operates three large Geostationary satellites for both weather forecasting and for gathering data on climate (called GOES). All three of the current units (only two of which are operational) are scheduled for replacement between 2032 and 2035. However, the Trump administration is also looking to end many joint ventures between NASA and NOAA. This, coupled with the proposed budget cuts means development of the replacement satellites could be impacted in the near future.

Further, by conflating “weather observations” with “climate change”, the administration has already severely impacted NOAA’s ability to carry out vital research into the development and operation of climate interactions that give rise to weather phenomena such as hurricanes.

NOAA was already stretched thin and understaffed. It’s going to go from stretched thin to decimated. NOAA provides most of the raw data and the models that predict hurricanes, and the hurricane forecasts many Americans see on their phones or TVs are created by the agency. Reducing the research and observation capabilities of the agency in this regard could regress hurricane forecasting capability by the equivalent of decades.

– Dr. Andrew Hazelton, former member of NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division.

All this comes at a time when the evidence for human activity being the single greatest release of greenhouse gasses into the environment, and thus the primary driver of climate change over and above any natural shifts in climate, are becoming more and more evident. As such, threats to Earth science budgets like those currently being proposed by the US administration, together with their headlong rush to increase US reliance on fossil fuels represents a further threat to our collective well-being.

	Inara Pey on The floating beauty of Sable H…
	h0neyheart on The floating beauty of Sable H…
	didohaas on The Colour of Vulnerability at…
	Sydney Couerblanc on Afterimages of Spring at Nitro…
	Inara Pey on Afterimages of Spring at Nitro…

ESCAPADE: the Long Way to Mars

What’s Next for New Glenn?

Share this:

Goddard: Death by a Thousand Cuts?

3I/ATLAS

Share this:

Share this:

Flying over Mars with Mars Express

Uranian Moon Ariel the Latest Moon to have an Ocean?

Share this:

Share this:

GISS – First of 1,000 cuts?

Hubble at 35

NOAA As Well

Share this: