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--- transportation:spacecraft [2026/10/30 03:56] – [Spaceplane] timb
+++ transportation:spacecraft [2026/11/06 21:29] (current) – [Hera] timb
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+====== Launch ======
+===== Capability (Worldwide) =====
+== Analysts find looming launch crisis is “more severe” than anticipated ==
+There’s no evidence that Starship will launch traditional satellites, either.
+Eric Berger – Oct 30, 2026 9:12 AM
+A new report from the analytics firm Quilty Space confirms that, outside of China, the world faces a significant shortage of rockets over the next five years.
+The firm estimates that between now and 2030, there will be a shortfall of about 150 launches compared to demand from satellite operators and civil space agencies. If demand from the US military is added in—and SpaceX does not extend the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy program to accommodate increased national security needs—the shortage could be doubled.
+“What we wanted to get at is to understand how severe this launch crisis is and when will it be resolved,” said Caleb Henry, director of research at Quilty Space. “What we learned is that the launch crisis is more severe than we thought and that it will not go away this decade for sure, and it might not abate until sometime late in the 2030s.”
+The report tallies a number of familiar factors that have gone into this crisis: the war in Ukraine taking Russian rockets off the Western market; Amazon Leo demand; developmental delays in a new generation of rockets, from New Glenn and Vulcan to Neutron, Terran R, and Nova; and more recently, the retirement of the Falcon 9 as a rocket for commercial service.
+At a time when the supply of commercial rockets is contracting, demand for satellite launch is soaring, from megaconstellation operators such as Amazon to a flurry of small satellite startups. The report estimates the crunch will become most acute in 2028 but should then slowly improve.
+“How should people react and plan around this?” Henry asked. “To be honest, I don’t have a good answer. If you haven’t booked your launch already, and you need one, you’re late.”
+https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/10/analysts-find-looming-launch-crisis-is-more-severe-than-anticipated/
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 https://gizmodo.com/high-tech-cube-asteroid-smashed-nasa-dart-1849715523
+== Europe’s Hera Probe Sends Back Its Closest View Yet of NASA’s DART Crash Site ==
+Strange grooves on asteroid Didymos may be fallout from NASA's historic asteroid smash.
+Passant Rabie - November 6, 2026, 3:45 pm ET
+Two years ago, Europe sent a spacecraft on a mission to investigate the aftermath of a human-instigated cosmic collision. Now, Hera is closing in on its destination, and it just sent back the first close-up view of its target.
+The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera mission snapped an image of the Didymos asteroid system from about 37 miles (60 kilometers) away. The black-and-white photo shows the side of Didymos that NASA’s DART spacecraft never got to see before it crashed into its smaller companion, Dimorphos. And, according to the team behind the mission, the asteroid looks very different from this side, with some features that may have been created in the aftermath of the impact.
+“The first thing we said was wow!” Patrick Michel, Hera principal investigator, said in a statement. “This feels like looking at a whole new world.”
+https://gizmodo.com/europes-hera-probe-sends-back-its-closest-view-yet-of-nasas-dart-crash-site-2000836333
@@ Line 27403: / Line 27446: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/upcoming-hack-to-keep-nasas-voyager-1-alive-exploits-a-quirk-in-its-1970s-hardware-2000796070
+== Voyager 1 Is Approaching a Full Light-Day From Earth—and It Just Scared the Crap Out of NASA ==
+Voyager 1 is nearing one light-day away from Earth, when radio signals will take 24 hours to travel between Earth and the spacecraft.
+Passant Rabie - November 2, 2026, 1:45 pm ET
+NASA’s Voyager 1 is on the verge of making history, but the aging spacecraft is having a little trouble keeping in touch with home. Just weeks before becoming the first human-made object to travel a full light-day away from Earth, the probe briefly went silent, and NASA engineers are still working to understand why.
+NASA lost contact with Voyager 1 in mid-October after engineers failed to detect its radio signal during two communication attempts 24 hours apart. The signal reappeared a day after the second attempt, but engineers are still investigating what caused the outage, according to NASA.
+Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 has traveled an astonishing 16 billion miles (26 billion kilometers) from Earth, but NASA engineers aren’t ready to let it go just yet. In a bid to extend the spacecraft’s already remarkable journey through interstellar space, the team recently pulled off a crucial power-saving maneuver that could keep the aging probe operational longer than originally expected.
+https://gizmodo.com/voyager-1-is-approaching-a-full-light-day-from-earth-and-it-just-scared-the-crap-out-of-nasa-2000833762