A couple of stories from the sports entertainment media complex in the last couple of days really crystallized something for me, which is the answer to the question of, when it comes to money in America in 2025, when is enough enough? And the answer is, quite literally, never.
First, we have the spectacle of the Big Ten conference (now with 18 teams) offering to give sloppy blowjobs to private equity gangsters in return for a quick infusion of much-needed cash. After all, expenses are going up! This is higher “education” in America, and expenses are always going up, because, um, that’s just what they do. It’s really mysterious, like gravity or the tides, but luckily there’s a lot of money in that white powder:
The Big Ten is in discussions about a private capital deal that would infuse at least $2 billion into the league and its schools, sources told ESPN on Wednesday. . . .
The setup being discussed, sources said, is that this will essentially be the formation of a new commercial entity within the Big Ten that would house all revenue generation such as media rights, sponsorships and league revenue streams.
The working title for the new entity is Big Ten Enterprises, sources told ESPN.
The private capital company would get money back through the new entity through annual distribution in proportion to its financial stake. The Big Ten will essentially have 20 equity shares, comprising the 18 schools, the league and this investor. . . .
One of the philosophies behind the proposed move, which is being shepherded by Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, is that the league believes its ability to generate revenue holistically has been underserved, and it would be sharing a small percentage of greater profits with the outside investor.
It also helps the league potentially better scale and leverage its 18 members.
Another source familiar with the Big Ten’s discussions summed it up this way: “We’re underselling the strength of what we do the way we are structured. This is a way to organize ourselves better.”
As a micro example of that, Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen was quoted in an Associated Press article last week on the looming discussion of teams wearing corporate logos on their jersey: “If you jump in now, and I’m going to get a little bit [of money] because of the jersey patches. I would really like to see if there’s an opportunity for our conference to put all those jersey patch rights together and, all of a sudden, they’re worth a whole lot more to the institutions when 18 are playing instead of just one.”
When the PE pimps presented a similar plan to the Big XII conference a few months ago, the pitch deck included things like rivalry games in Dubai, so we can look forward to Nebraska v. Iowa at a Middle East army base in the Ethanol Subsidy Classic, Brought to You By the Blackstone Group.
Not surprisingly, the conference’s highest-rent courtesans, Michigan and Ohio State, have some serious doubts about all this, since it’s their “brands” that ultimately leverage all these synergies synergistically, so we’ll see how far this goes.
For some historical context, the Michigan athletic department budget in 1976 was $4.5 million, which is $25.67 million in August 2025 dollars. This was the largest such budget in the nation at the time — it had doubled over the previous seven years — and this trend was considered unsustainable by many observers.
Michigan athletic budget in the current fiscal year is $266.3 million. So you can see why an immediate cash infusion from the good folks in the private equity “space” is so crucial.
Speaking of the Middle East in autumn, David Cross has thoughts:
I’ve been asked for my opinion on the Riyadh Comedy Festival and rather than answer the same question 23 times, I’ll just put this out here. Oh, and I should preface this with the fact that I was not offered the gig but it should go without saying that there’s not enough money for me to help these depraved, awful people put a “fun face” on their crimes against humanity.
Here goes:
What do you think I think? I am disgusted, and deeply disappointed in this whole gross thing. That people I admire, with unarguable talent, would condone this totalitarian fiefdom for…what, a fourth house? A boat? More sneakers?
We can never again take seriously anything these comedians complain about (unless it’s complaining that we don’t support enough torture and mass executions of journalists and LGBQT peace activists here in the states, or that we don’t terrorize enough Americans by flying planes into our buildings). I mean that’s it; you have a funny bit about how you don’t like Yankee Candles or airport lounges? Okay great, but you’re cool with murder and/or the public caning of women who were raped, and by having the audacity to be raped, were guilty of “engaging in adultery”? Got any bits on that?
These are some of my HEROES! Now look, some of you folks don’t stand for anything so you don’t have any credibility to lose, but my god, Dave and Louie and Bill, and Jim? Clearly you guys don’t give a shit about what the rest of us think, but how can any of us take any of you seriously ever again? All of your bitching about “cancel culture” and “freedom of speech” and all that shit? Done. You don’t get to talk about it ever again. By now we’ve all seen the contract you had to sign.
You’re performing for literally, the most oppressive regime on earth. They have SLAVES for fuck’s sake!!!
I don’t understand how being rich can make someone such a whore. Poor people desperate to improve their (or their families lives), sure. Still not acceptable but I can understand the desperation to put food on the table. But this? I mean, it’s not like this is some commercial for a wireless service or a betting app. This is truly the definition of “blood money”. You might as well do commercials for Lockheed Martin or Zyklon B.
Holy shit, I remember the backlash I got for appearing in Alvin and the Chipmunks! You would’ve thought that I had taken money from a bunch of people responsible for funding Al Qaeda!
Unless you open your sets with, “This is dedicated to all of the widows and widowers and kids orphaned by this bloodthirsty oppressive regime especially from the zany shenanigans on 9/11. Never Forget Motherfuckers! Alright, so it’s great to be here. I’m gonna be killing it tonight! But in the good way! Straight up. No MbS.” then your hypocrisy will never not be noted.
-David
P.S. for anyone who wants to actually spend their money on something worthwhile, the Human Rights Foundation does amazing work. Learn more and donate at https://hrf.org
One thing I’ve watched pretty much totally collapse over the past generation, and the past decade in particular, has been what could be called the I’ll do a lot of things but I won’t do that ethos. The notion that you shouldn’t sell certain things no matter what you’re offered because that would be wrong is becoming almost literally incomprehensible, in a frank plutocracy in which money is essentially God.
And Donald Trump’s presidency is, as in so many other ways, both a symptom and accelerant of this particular social disease.
When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession -as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life -will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semicriminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease. All kinds of social customs and economic practices, affecting the distribution of wealth and of economic rewards and penalties, which we now maintain at all costs, however distasteful and unjust they may be in themselves, because they are tremendously useful in promoting the accumulation of capital, we shall then be free, at last, to discard.
> One thing I’ve watched pretty much totally collapse over the past generation….has been what could be called the I’ll do a lot of things but I won’t do that ethos. The notion that you shouldn’t sell certain things no matter what you’re offered because that would be wrong is becoming almost literally incomprehensible
Senate Democrats have voted down a Republican bill to keep funding the government, putting it on a near certain path to a shutdown after midnight Wednesday for the first time in nearly seven years.
The Senate rejected the legislation as Democrats are making good on their threat to close the government if President Donald Trump and Republicans won’t accede to their health care demands. The 55-45 vote on a bill to extend federal funding for seven weeks fell short of the 60 needed to end a filibuster and pass the legislation.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Republicans are trying to “bully” Democrats by refusing to negotiate on an extension of expanded Affordable Care Act tax credits that expire at the end of the year.
“We hope they sit down with us and talk,” Schumer said after the vote. “Otherwise, it’s the Republicans will be driving us straight towards a shutdown tonight at midnight. The American people will blame them for bringing the federal government to a halt.”
The failure of Congress to keep the government open means that hundreds of thousands of federal workers could be furloughed or laid off. After the vote, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget issued a memo saying “affected agencies should now execute their plans for an orderly shutdown.”
Threatening retribution to Democrats, Trump said Tuesday that a shutdown could include “cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”
I see they’re still sticking with the “if you don’t provide votes in exchange for less than nothing we will do things we will do anyway” approach.
Dissatisfaction over the whole situation has found a broad following among ordinary users. Unable to do much about Trump or Carr until the next election, people have instead begun canceling their Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions in protest of ABC's actions.
Y Combinator founder Paul Graham was among them, tweeting this weekend that his family "just cancelled our Disney+ subscription because of the shameful way they caved to the Trump administration over Jimmy Kimmel. This is a way to be heard, and save money too." In follow-ups, Graham complained that Disney is "spineless" rather than driven by any true convictions. "When wokeness has the upper hand, they give in to that, and when Trump does, they give in to him," he wrote.
On Sunday night, comedian John Oliver also asked his fans to boycott the streaming services. "As for Disney, I’d argue they need to stand by Kimmel and his staff," he said. "And there are ways that you can encourage them to do that. You could exert pressure on them by canceling Disney+ or Hulu. Google searches on how to do that have skyrocketed in the past few days."
The Disney+/Hulu cancellations attracted enough media attention to be featured in the ultra-mainstream pages of USA Today, while people took to posting screenshots of their Disney+/Hulu cancellation notices on social media.
While some people complained that the cancellation page itself was unreachable, perhaps due to traffic pressures, I had no problem reaching it on Monday morning. While I never watched Kimmel's show, nor did I find his clips particularly side-splitting, I also have zero interest in giving money to US media that seem so enthusiastic about capitulation and self-censorship. That's unlikely to be good for anyone in the long run, no matter your politics.
Aiden Pleterski, the self-styled Crypto King accused in Ontario of defrauding investors out of tens of millions of dollars, has pleaded guilty in a case of intimate partner violence. Court records show Pleterski, 26, pleaded guilty in a Newmarket court to charges including assault and harassment.
Back in 1971, the late physicist Stephen Hawking made an intriguing prediction: The total surface area of a black hole cannot decrease, only increase or remain stable. So if two black holes combine, the newly formed black hole will have a larger surface area. This became known as Hawking's area theorem. Analysis of the gravitational signal from a black hole merger detected in January provides the best observational evidence to date in support of Hawking's theorem, according to a new paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
The breakthrough just happens to coincide with the 10-year anniversary of the LIGO collaboration's Nobel Prize-winning first detection of a black hole merger. A second paper has been submitted (but not yet accepted), placing theoretical limits on a predicted third tone at a higher pitch that could be lurking in the event's gravitational wave signal.
Now known as LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA (LVK), the collaboration searches the Universe for gravitational waves produced by the mergers of black holes and neutron stars. LIGO detects gravitational waves via laser interferometry, using high-powered lasers to measure tiny changes in the distance between two objects positioned kilometers apart. LIGO has detectors in Hanford, Washington, and in Livingston, Louisiana. A third detector in Italy, Advanced Virgo, came online in 2016. In Japan, KAGRA is the first gravitational-wave detector in Asia and the first to be built underground. Construction began on LIGO-India in 2021, and physicists expect it will turn on sometime after 2025.
Each instrument is so sensitive that it also picks up small ambient vibrations, like a rumbling freight train or natural thermal vibrations in the detectors themselves. So the LIGO collaboration goes to great lengths to shield its instruments and minimize noise in its data. On September 14, 2015, at 5:51 am EST, both detectors picked up signals within milliseconds of each other for the very first time. The waveforms of those signals serve as an audio fingerprint—in this case, evidence for two black holes spiraling inward toward each other and merging in a massive collision event, sending powerful shock waves across spacetime. Picking up the signals was a stunning achievement, and nobody was surprised when the first direct observation of gravitational waves won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Early detected mergers involved either two black holes or two neutron stars. In 2021, LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA confirmed the detection of two separate "mixed" mergers between black holes and neutron stars. Once the source was pinpointed, a network of telescopes around the globe was able to capture the accompanying “kilonova”—a massive burst of energy that behaves a bit like a high-powered strobe light, giving astronomers an unprecedented recording of a major celestial event that combined light and sound. It officially ushered in a new age of so-called multi-messenger astronomy (MMA).
A numerical relativity simulation of the recently observed GW250114 event, a binary black hole merger detected by LIGO on January 14, 2025.
The collaboration also detected asymmetrical mergers, where one black hole is much more massive than its partner, as well as discoveries that challenged the so-called "mass gap" between black holes and neutron stars. And this summer, the LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA collaboration detected the gravitational wave signal (dubbed GW231123) of the most massive merger between two black holes yet observed, resulting in a new black hole that is 225 times more massive than our Sun.
Looking for telltale overtones
LIGO is now nearly four times more sensitive than when it recorded that first Nobel-worthy black hole merger. And that sensitivity enabled the collaboration to record the sharpest gravitational wave signal thus far, dubbed GW250114. The event was remarkably similar to its 2015 "twin," involving two black holes of about 30 solar masses whose merger produced an equally "loud" signal and resulted in a new black hole of about 63 solar masses. But the difference in the two signals' fidelity enabled researchers to better isolate certain frequencies or tones in the "ringdown," using that information to calculate the new black hole's properties and compare it to theoretical predictions.
The breakthrough has been several years in the making. In 2019, we reported that physicists had "heard" the ring of an infant back hole for the first time by splicing the 2015 signal into the telltale "overtones" in the data. Not only were the overtones present, but the pattern of pitch and decay matched predictions for the black hole's mass and spin derived using the general theory of relativity. The result also supported the so-called "no hair" theorem for the classical description of black holes, which holds that all you need to describe black holes mathematically is their mass and their spin, plus their electric charge. It was the first experimental measurement that succeeded in directly testing the no-hair theorem.
But the final reverberations as the newly formed black hole settled into its new state, aka the ringdown, from that first event were significantly fainter, and scientists were unable to distinguish between the ringing from the initial collision and the ringdown. For GW250114, LIGO's improved sensitivity meant that scientists could measure the frequency and duration of the merged black hole's ringdown much more precisely. The resulting analysis bolsters the 2019 results confirming the "no hair" theorem.
Audio comparison of the 2015 and 2025 gravitational wave signals. Credit: LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA
With the latest event, physicists obtained an "exquisitely detailed view of the signal both before and after the black hole merger," said co-author Maximiliano Isi of Columbia University, who led a 2021 study using the same method on the 2015 data to observationally confirm Hawking's area theorem. As with the no-hair theorem, the clearer signal from GW250114 further bolsters that earlier result. The GW250114 data revealed that the two initial black holes had a total surface area of about 240,000 square kilometers, about the size of the United Kingdom. After the merger, the new black hole was about 400,000 square kilometers, about the size of Sweden.
“Even though it's a very simple statement—'areas can only increase'—it has immense implications," said Isi. Notably, Hawking and Jacob Bekenstein later showed that a black hole's area is proportional to its entropy, which also must increase per the second law of thermodynamics. This is a key element in ongoing attempts to develop a quantum theory of gravity. "It’s really profound that the size of a black hole’s event horizon behaves like entropy," said Isi. "It means that some aspects of black holes can be used to mathematically probe the true nature of space and time.”
Caltech physicist Kip Thorne, a longtime friend of Hawking, recalled that when LIGO detected its first gravitational wave signature, Hawking called and asked him if the collaboration would be able to test his theorem. Hawking died in 2018. "If [he] were alive, he would have reveled in seeing the area of the merged black holes increase," said Thorne.
Welcome to Edition 8.10 of the Rocket Report! Dear readers, if everything goes according to plan, four astronauts are less than six months away from traveling around the far side of the Moon and breaking free of low-Earth orbit for the first time in more than 53 years. Yes, there are good reasons to question NASA's long-term plans for the Artemis lunar program—the woeful cost of the Space Launch System rocket, the complexity of new commercial landers, and a bleak budget outlook. But many of us who were born after the Apollo Moon landings have been waiting for this moment our whole lives. It is almost upon us.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
North Korea fires solid rocket motor. North Korea said Tuesday it had conducted the final ground test of a solid-fuel rocket engine for a long-range ballistic missile in its latest advancement toward having an arsenal that could viably threaten the continental United States, the Associated Press reports. The test Monday observed by leader Kim Jong Un was the ninth of the solid rocket motor built with carbon fiber and capable of producing 1,971 kilonewtons (443,000 pounds) of thrust, more powerful than past models, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
Mobility and flexibility ... Solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, have advantages over liquid-fueled missiles, which have historically comprised the bulk of North Korea's inventory. Solid rocket motors can be stored for longer periods of time and are easier to conceal, transport, and launch on demand. The new solid rocket motor will be used on a missile called the Hwasong-20, according to North Korean state media. The AP reports some analysts say North Korea may conduct another ICBM test around the end of the year, showcasing its military strength ahead of a major ruling party congress expected in early 2026.
Astrobotic eyes Andøya. US-based lunar logistics company Astrobotic and Norwegian spaceport operator Andøya Space have signed a term sheet outlining the framework for a Launch Site Agreement, European Spaceflight reports. The agreement, once finalized, will facilitate flights of Astrobotic's Xodiac lander testbed from the Andøya Space facilities. The Xodiac vertical takeoff, vertical landing rocket was initially developed by Masten Space Systems to simulate landing on the Moon and Mars. When Masten filed for bankruptcy in 2022, Astrobotic acquired its intellectual property and assets, including the Xodiac vehicle.
Across the pond ... So far, the small Xodiac rocket has flown on low-altitude atmospheric hops from Mojave, California, reaching altitudes of up to 500 meters, or 1,640 feet. The agreement between Astrobotic and Andøya paves the way for "several" Xodiac flight campaigns from Andøya Space facilities on the Norwegian coast. "Xodiac's presence at Andøya represents a meaningful step toward delivering reliable, rapid, and cost-effective testing and demonstration capabilities to the European space market," said Astrobotic CEO John Thornton.
Ursa Major breaks ground in Colorado. Ursa Major on Wednesday said it has broken ground on a new 400-acre site where it will test and qualify large-scale solid rocket motors for current and future missiles, including the Navy’s Standard Missile fleet, Defense Daily reports. The new site in Weld County, Colorado, north of Denver, will be ready for testing to begin in the fourth quarter of 2025. Ursa Major will be able to conduct full-scale static firings, and drop and temperature storage testing for current and future missile systems.
Seeking SRM options ... Ursa Major said the new facility will support national and missile defense programs. The company's portfolio includes solid rocket motors (SRMs) ranging from 2 inches to 22 inches in diameter for missiles like the Stinger, Javelin, and air-defense interceptors. Ursa Major aims to join industry incumbents Northrop Grumman, L3Harris, and newcomer Anduril as a major supplier of SRMs to the government. "This facility represents a major step forward in our ability to deliver qualified SRMs that are scalable, flexible, and ready to meet the evolving threat environment," said Dan Jablonsky, CEO of Ursa Major, in a statement. "It’s a clear demonstration of our commitment and ability to rapidly advance and expand the American-made solid rocket motor industrial base that the country needs, ensuring warfighters will have the quality and quantity of SRMs needed to meet mission demands."
Falcon 9 launches first satellites in a military megaconstellation. The first 21 satellites in a constellation that could become a cornerstone for the Pentagon's Golden Dome missile-defense shield were successfully launched from California on Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Ars reports. The Falcon 9 took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, and headed south over the Pacific Ocean, reaching an orbit over the poles before releasing the 21 military-owned satellites to begin several weeks of activations and checkouts.
First of many ... These 21 satellites will boost themselves to a final orbit at an altitude of roughly 600 miles (1,000 kilometers). The Pentagon plans to launch 133 more satellites over the next nine months to complete the build-out of the Space Development Agency's first-generation, or Tranche 1, constellation of missile-tracking and data-relay satellites. Military officials have worked for six years to reach this moment. The Space Development Agency (SDA) was established during the first Trump administration, which made plans for an initial set of demonstration satellites that launched a couple of years ago. In 2022, the Pentagon awarded contracts for the first 154 operational spacecraft, including the ones launched Wednesday. "Back in 2019, when the SDA was stood up, it was to do two things. One was to make sure that we can do beyond line of sight targeting, and the other was to pace the threat, the emerging threat, in the missile-warning and missile-tracking domain. That's what the focus has been," said Gurpartap "GP" Sandhoo, the SDA's acting director.
Another Falcon 9 was delayed three times. SpaceX scrubbed launching a communications satellite from an Indonesian company for a third consecutive day on Wednesday, Spaceflight Now reports. Possible technical issues got in the way of a launch attempt after back-to-back days of weather delays at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The Falcon 9 finally launched Thursday evening with the Boeing-built Nusantara Lima communications satellite, targeting a geosynchronous transfer orbit. It’s the latest satellite from the Indonesian company Pasifik Satelit Nusantara.
A declining market ... This was just the fifth geosynchronous communications satellite to launch on a commercial rocket this year, all by SpaceX. There were 21 such satellites that launched on commercial vehicles in 2015, including SpaceX's Falcon 9, Europe's Ariane 5, Russia's Proton, ULA's Atlas V, and Japan's H-IIA. Much of the world's launch capacity today is used to deploy smaller communications satellites into low-Earth orbit, primarily for broadband connectivity rather than for the video broadcast market once dominated by higher-altitude geosynchronous satellites.
Putin urges Russia to build more rocket engines. Russian President Vladimir Putin urged aerospace industry leaders on September 5 to press on with efforts to develop booster rocket engines for space launch vehicles and build on Russia's longstanding reputation as a leader in space technology, Reuters reports. Putin, who spent the preceding days in China and the Russian far eastern port of Vladivostok, flew to the southern Russian city of Samara, where he met industry specialists and toured the Kuznetsov design bureau engine manufacturing plant.
A shell of its former self ... "It is important to consistently renew production capacity in terms of engines for booster rockets," Russian news agencies quoted Putin as saying during the visit. "And in doing so, we must not only meet our own current and future needs but also move actively on world markets and be successful competitors." The Kuznetsov plant in Samara builds medium-class RD-107 and RD-108 engines for Russia's Soyuz-2 rockets, which launch Russian military satellites and crew and cargo to the International Space Station. Their designs can be traced to the dawn of the Space Age nearly 70 years ago. Meanwhile, the outlook for heavier-duty Russian rocket engines is murky, at best. Russia's most-flown large rocket engine in the post-Cold War era, the RD-180, produced by a company called Energomash, is out of production after the end of sales to the United States.
India nabs a noteworthy launch contract. Astroscale, a satellite servicing and space debris mitigation company based in Japan, has selected India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) to deliver a small satellite named ISSA-J1 to orbit in 2027. This is an interesting mission. The ISSA-J1 spacecraft will fly up to two large pieces of satellite debris in orbit to image and inspect them. ISSA-J1, developed in partnership with the Japanese government, is one in a series of Astroscale missions testing different ways of approaching, monitoring, capturing, and refueling other objects in space. The launch agreement was signed between Astroscale and NewSpace India Limited, the commercial arm of India's space agency.
Rideshare not an option ... "We selected NSIL after thorough evaluations of more than 10 launch service providers over the past year, considering technical capabilities, track record, cost, and other elements," said Eddie Kato, president and managing director of Astroscale Japan. India's PSLV is right-sized for a mission like this. ISSA-J1 is a rarity in that it must launch on a dedicated rocket because it has to reach a specific orbit to line up with the pieces of space debris it will approach and inspect. Rideshare launches, such as those that routinely fly on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, are cheaper but go to standard orbits popular for many different types of satellite missions. A dedicated launch on a Falcon 9 would presumably have been more expensive than a flight on India's smaller PSLV. Rocket Lab's Electron, another rocket popular for dedicated launches of small satellites, lacks the performance required for Astroscale's mission.
Russian cargo en route to ISS. Another cargo ship is flying to humanity's orbital outpost with the successful launch of Russia's Progress MS-32 supply freighter on Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, NASASpaceflight.com reports. The supply ship launched aboard a Soyuz-2.1a rocket and arrived in orbit about nine minutes later, kicking off a two-day pursuit of the International Space Station. This was the 300th launch of an assembly, crew, or cargo mission to the ISS since 1998, including a handful of missions that didn't reach the complex due to rocket or spacecraft failures.
Important stuff ... The Progress MS-32 cargo craft will dock with the aft port of the space station's Russian Zvezda service module on Saturday. The payloads flying on the Progress mission include food, experiments, clothing, water, air, and propellant to be pumped into the space station's onboard tanks. The spacecraft will also reboost the lab's orbit.
Metallic tiles? Not so great. It has been two weeks since SpaceX's last Starship test flight, and engineers have diagnosed issues with its heat shield, identified improvements, and developed a preliminary plan for the next time the ship heads into space, Ars reports. Bill Gerstenmaier, a SpaceX executive in charge of build and flight reliability, presented the findings Monday at the American Astronautical Society's Glenn Space Technology Symposium in Cleveland. The test flight went "extremely well," Gerstenmaier said, but he noted some important lessons learned with the ship's heat shield.
Crunch wrap reigns supreme ... "We were essentially doing a test to see if we could get by with non-ceramic tiles, so we put three metal tiles on the side of the ship to see if they would provide adequate heat control, because they would be simpler to manufacture and more durable than the ceramic tiles. It turns out they're not," Gerstenmaier said. "The metal tiles... didn't work so well." One bright spot with the heat shield was the performance of a new experimental material around and under the tiles. "We call it crunch wrap," Gerstenmaier said. "It's like a wrapping paper that goes around each tile." On the next Starship flight, SpaceX will likely cover more parts of the heat shield with this crunch wrap material. Gerstenmaier said the inaugural flight of Starship Version 3, with upgraded engines and more fuel, is now set to occur next year.
An SLS compromise might be afoot in DC. The Trump administration is seeking to cancel NASA's Space Launch System rocket after two more flights, but key lawmakers in Congress, including Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, aren't ready to go along. So is this an impasse? Possibly not, as sources say the White House and Congress may not be all that far apart on how to handle this. The solution involves canceling part of the SLS rocket now, but not all of it, Ars reports.
Goodbye EUS? ... The compromise might be to cancel a large new upper stage for the SLS rocket called the Exploration Upper Stage. This would save NASA billions of dollars, and the agency could instead procure commercial upper stages, such as those built by United Launch Alliance or Blue Origin, to fly on SLS rockets after NASA's Artemis III mission. It would also eliminate the need for NASA to finish building an expensive new launch tower at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The upper stage flying on the first three SLS missions is no longer in production. Sources indicated to Ars that Blue Origin has already begun work on a modified version of its New Glenn upper stage that could fit within the shroud of the SLS rocket.
Next three launches
Sept. 13: Soyuz-2.1b | Glonass-K1 No. 18L | Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia | 02:30 UTC
Sept. 13: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-10 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 15:41 UTC
Sept. 14: Falcon 9 | Cygnus NG-23 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 22:11 UTC
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