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NASA Goddard And International Space Cooperation

Ariel Replica of First British/US satellite Ariel 1. (credit: NASM) NASA Goddard and the dawn of international cooperation in space by Trevor Williams Monday, December 8, 2025 The International Geophysical Year (IGY) that ran from July 1957 to December 1958 was the largest international scientific effort ever conducted to that date [1, p. 34]. Both the United States and the Soviet Union developed plans to launch satellites in conjunction with the IGY: indeed, Sputniks 1–3; Explorers 1, 3, and 4; Vanguard 1; and Pioneers 1 and 3 were launched during it. British scientists contributed to the IGY by tracking Sputnik and using the data to deduce atmospheric density and gravity harmonics of the Earth [1, p. 40], as well as by making ionospheric studies using the new Skylark series of sounding rockets [1, p. 46]. GSFC was initially intended to carry out all aspects of spacecraft design, even human spaceflight: the six-story Building 8 was designed to accommodate the Project Mercury staff. An international grouping of scientific organizations, the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), was then set up to build on the collaborative work of the IGY. In March 1959, or just over a year after the launch of Sputnik, the United States made an offer to COSPAR to launch, at no cost, scientific experiments or entire spacecraft proposed by other nations [1, p. 462]. The United Kingdom and Canada both took the United States up on this offer, in the case of the UK for the launch of individual experiments integrated into a satellite built by NASA (Ariel 1), and for Canada the launch of an entire spacecraft built by that country (Alouette 1). Both of these missions heavily involved the newly established NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and both led to extensive subsequent international space science collaboration which continues even to the present day. Ariel NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 2010. (credit: NASA) Origins of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center When NASA was created on October 1, 1958 it absorbed the facilities of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It also incorporated two Army establishments, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency at Redstone Arsenal and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, plus the Vanguard rocket program from the Naval Research Laboratory. These covered the areas of aeronautics and launch vehicle design, but did not address spacecraft design and operations. A new center was therefore established to cover this area: carved out of land from the Dept. of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland, it was initially named the Beltsville Space Center [2, p. 28]. On May 1, 1959, it was renamed the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in honor of the American rocketry pioneer Robert H. Goddard, who launched the first liquid fueled rocket from his Aunt Effie’s farm on March 16, 1926. Ariel Robert H. Goddard and first liquid fueled rocket. (credit: NASA) GSFC was initially intended to carry out all aspects of spacecraft design, even human spaceflight: the six-story Building 8 was designed to accommodate the Project Mercury staff. Later, when the wide scope of space work became apparent, Goddard became focused on robotic missions, particularly those involving science: this has remained the key thrust of the center ever since. To accomplish these missions, until recently more than 10,000 space scientists and engineers worked at Goddard, making it the largest such center in the world. Many of these efforts have involved international collaboration, such as the Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO), Orbiting Geophysical Observatory (OGO), Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO), International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE), Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) programs. Leading the way for all of these were the first two collaborative space missions. Ariel 1, the first international satellite Ariel 1 was a collaborative effort between the United States and the United Kingdom to design, build, launch and operate the first international satellite. Initial discussions in late 1959 and early 1960 centered on proposals submitted to NASA by the British National Committee for Space Research [1, pp. 74-78] in response to the United States’ launch offer to COSPAR. This was only about two years after the flight of the first artificial satellite: at this point, the US had successfully launched a total of around 16 spacecraft. NASA Goddard was assigned responsibility for the construction and launch of Ariel 1, even though it had been in existence for less than a year. NASA was responsible for the design, management, launch, and operation of the spacecraft, as well as downlinking data and tracking. Design and operation of the on-board experiments, as well as their data reduction, was the responsibility of Great Britain. Ariel 1 had a mass of 62 kilograms and a design lifetime of one year. Its name comes from the spirit in Shakespeare’s The Tempest; in the play, Ariel serves the magician Prospero. Nine years later, the first British satellite to be put into orbit by a launch vehicle of British design, the Black Arrow [5], was in turn named Prospero. Ariel 1 was launched on April 26, 1962 into a 390-by-1,214-kilometer orbit by a Thor-Delta from Cape Canaveral. Upon release, it was spinning with the third stage at 160 revolutions per minute (rpm). A “stretch yo-yo despin” system, where the tip masses are attached to springs which extend while deploying, slowed the spin rate to 76.5 rpm. This was then further reduced by deployment of the spacecraft’s various appendages: four solar panels, two experiment booms, and two inertia booms (serving to balance the spacecraft). The resulting final spin rate at separation was 36.6 rpm [3, p. 14]. Ariel Ariel 1 Thor-Delta launch vehicle; note Union Jack on side. (credit: NASA) The seven instruments, produced by the British universities University College London (in association with the University of Leicester), Imperial College London, and the University of Birmingham, focused on the interaction between the Sun and the Earth’s ionosphere. Specifically, the experiments studied the ionization that occurs in the upper atmosphere, as well as the external energy sources (solar X-rays, ultraviolet light, and cosmic rays) that drive this ionization. All instruments apart from the University College London measurement of solar Lyman-alpha emission in the ultraviolet band, which failed during launch, operated well and yielded good results. A similar division of responsibilities between the US and UK was taken for the follow-on Ariel 2, with one modification: since this spacecraft was a near copy of Ariel 1 rather than an original design, GSFC practice was followed and a portion of the fabrication was contracted out, in this case to Westinghouse Electric [4, p 6]. Ariel 2 was launched in 1964 and focused on radio astronomy. The subsequent Ariel 3–6 series, launched between 1967 and 1979 and studying various fields including ionospheric science, cosmic rays and X-ray astronomy, remained a US-UK collaboration but differed in that the spacecraft were entirely designed and constructed in Britain. All were launched on Scout launch vehicles; Ariel 1 had also been designed to launch on a Scout, but launch vehicle delays necessitated shifting it to a Thor-Delta. Ironically, one of the Ariel components that apparently suffered damage from Starfish Prime radiation was the kill switch that was designed to deactivate the spacecraft transmitter aftre about a year. Ariel 1 was one of several satellites that were seriously affected by radiation from the Starfish Prime nuclear weapon test that was carried out in space on July 9, 1962, less than three months after Ariel 1 was launched. Starfish initially caused all of the Ariel experiment sensors to become saturated; a few days later, on July 13, 1962, telemetry became erratic, and the spacecraft tape recorder failed at the end of July. In addition, radiation damage to the solar arrays and other electronics became evident. Because Starfish Prime had such a significant impact on the Ariel mission, it is worth discussing it in some detail. Starfish Prime The American Starfish Prime [6] was the largest nuclear detonation ever conducted in space. It was one of five tests that made up Operation Fishbowl, which in turn was part of the 31-test Operation Dominic: this was set up in reaction to a Soviet announcement in August 1961 that they were ending a three-year moratorium on nuclear testing. Most of the Operation Dominic tests were of air-launched atmospheric weapons, but those of Operation Fishbowl were detonated in space. Ariel Starship Prime over Hawaii. (credit: American Physical Society) Starfish Prime was launched on a Thor missile from Johnston Atoll and triggered at an altitude of about 400 kilometers. Its yield of 1.4 megatons gave rise to a stronger than predicted electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and the creation of an artificial radiation belt, raising the natural electron intensity of the inner Van Allen belt by several orders of magnitude. The strong EMP led, among other things, to the “Hawaiian streetlight incident” [7], where more than 300 street lights simultaneously failed at the time of the test, despite Hawaii being around 1,450 kilometers away from the explosion. A subset of the electrons generated by Starfish Prime remained in space for up to five years, greatly exceeding some of the pre-test predictions of duration. This led to damage to several spacecraft in low Earth orbit, including Ariel 1. The spacecraft began exhibiting erratic behavior in July 1962, which was strongly suspected to have arisen from radiation damage [8, p. 94]. As stated by Robert Baumann, the Ariel 1 US Project Manager: “Ariel started to malfunction on July 12, 1962. We on the project feel that this is not completely unrelated to the July 9, 1962 high altitude nuclear explosion.” Ironically, one of the Ariel components that apparently suffered damage from Starfish Prime radiation was the kill switch that was designed to deactivate the spacecraft transmitter after 1.0 ± 0.1 years [3, p. 90]. This switch was intended to prevent the downlink frequency from being monopolized after the end of the useful mission; it is indicated by “one-year clock” on the upper right of the cutaway diagram below, taken from [9]. Without this timer acting Ariel 1 ended up operating (sporadically after September 1962) until November 1964, a total duration of 2.5 years [3, p. 90]. Ariel Ariel 1 cutaway view. (credit: K.W. Gatland) One further mission that was indirectly affected by Starfish Prime was the Mercury-Atlas 8 flight of astronaut Wally Schirra. This mission took place on October 3, 1962, by which time sounding rocket data showed that the radiation levels had decayed significantly. Even though it was felt that the flight was almost certainly safe, just in case the Mercury project installed [10, p. 432] one dosimeter on the hatch, attached four to the pilot’s pressure suit, and provided him with a handheld meter that provided real-time readings. Fortunately, no radiation issues were identified during the six-orbit flight. Alouette 1, the second international satellite On September 29, 1962, five months after Ariel 1, the second international spacecraft was launched, this time from Vandenberg Air Force Base. This was Alouette 1, part of a joint Canadian/US project—again prompted by the US launch offer to COSPAR—to study the upper regions of the ionosphere of the Earth. The launch vehicle in this case was the Thor-Agena B, with a larger upper stage than that of the Thor-Delta. Alouette could consequently be somewhat more massive than Ariel, weighing 145.6 kilograms. The spacecraft was designed and constructed in Canada, led by the Defense Research Telecommunications Establishment (DRTE), with NASA providing launch and tracking; Goddard was responsible for NASA management. Alouette 2 was subsequently built from backup components, incorporating some improvements, and launched on November 29, 1965. Ariel Alouette 1 Thor-Agena B launch vehicle. (credit: CRC Canada) The main instrument on each of these spacecraft was a “topside sounder” [11, pp. 49-51], designed to study the upper regions of the ionosphere by transmitting radio signals along the nadir direction. This allowed ionospheric parameters such as electron density, plasma temperature, and more to be measured at altitudes above that of the peak electron density, which typically occurs at 250 to 300 kilometers. This upper region contains the response of the ionosphere to disturbances such as geomagnetic storms, an understanding of which is important in applications such as communications and navigation. Alouette 1 was the first topside sounder: with its orbit of 996 by 1,032 kilometers at an inclination of 80.48 degrees, it could observe most of the ionosphere in the altitude range of 250 to 1,000 kilometers. An emphasis of Alouette design was simplicity, in order to encourage reliability. An emphasis of Alouette design was simplicity, in order to encourage reliability. One example of this was that the spacecraft were not equipped for on-board data storage, which at that time typically used failure-prone tape recorders. Instead, the satellite transmitted direct to a ground station when one was in view. In order to allow extensive data collection, a large network of stations (22 of these) was therefore required. The goal of spacecraft reliability was indeed achieved: in an era when a spacecraft lifetime of a year was notable, both Alouettes operated for ten years before intentionally being deactivated. One unavoidable source of complexity was that, as a result of the radio frequencies needed to sound the ionosphere (1–12 megahertz [11, p. 50]), the spacecraft required the longest antennas that had yet been flown on any satellite: two had lengths of 150 feet (45.7 meters), and two were 75 feet (22.9 meters). These were made of slightly curved thin metal similar to a tape measure, initially wound around a drum, and deployed by the spin of the spacecraft once a brake on the drum was released. This design, known as a storable tubular extendible member (STEM), was developed by the SPAR Division of de Havilland Aircraft of Canada; derivatives have been widely used on many subsequent spacecraft. SPAR later became Spar Aerospace and is now part of MDA. In a further example of international cooperation, it developed Canadarm for the Space Shuttle, Canadarm2 for the International Space Station, and Canadarm3 for the Lunar Gateway. Alouette 1 was intended to remain spin stabilized throughout its mission. However, since its antennas were not perfectly rigid, as the satellite spun they flexed as first one side, then the other, was heated by the Sun. Solar radiation pressure acting on these deflected antennas produced a torque on the satellite in a mechanism that became known as “solar motoring.” [12, pp. 411-412] This caused the spin rate of Alouette 1 to gradually decrease from the original rate of about 1.5 rpm to essentially zero after three years. (Adding small plates perpendicular to the ends of the antennas on Alouette 2 reduced this despin effect considerably.) Once the spin rate became too low, the spacecraft ceased to be spin stabilized, instead taking up a “gravity gradient” orientation with the long antennas aligned with the local vertical. Fortunately, this attitude still allowed good science observations to be made. Ariel Alouette 1 central body; long horizontal antennas not shown. (credit: NASM) Alouette 1 was not the first spacecraft to behave quite differently to expectations once in space as a result of flexible elements, even though these were so light as to seem “obviously” negligible. In fact, this also occurred with the first US satellite, Explorer 1, although the mechanism was very different from solar motoring. This spacecraft had four short whip antennas protruding from its sides and was launched spinning about its long axis, with the expectation that this spin would persist. Instead, within one orbit the spacecraft entered a flat spin, end over end. This was initially a mystery but was subsequently shown by R.N. Bracewell and O.K. Garriott, in a paper [13] published less than eight months after the launch, to be caused by flexing of the wire booms as the satellite spins. This flexing leads to internal heating in the wires, dissipating energy as damping, and so driving the spacecraft towards its minimum energy state. For a slender (prolate) body like Explorer 1, this state can be shown to be an end-over-end tumble. This realization had a major effect on design choices for subsequent satellites: since any real spacecraft will exhibit some amount of damping somewhere within it, prolate spinners were to be avoided. Ariel Explorer 1. (credit: NASA) One of the authors of this paper, Owen Garriott, later became a scientist-astronaut and flew on the Skylab 3 mission in 1973. While on Skylab, Garriott conducted a demonstration of the Explorer 1 mechanism by spinning a juice bottle about its long axis and observing it gradually transition into an end-over-end tumble [14, pp. 58-59]. In this case there were no antennas, but sloshing of the liquid in the bottle produced damping that was analogous, and had the same destabilizing effect. A bottle similar to the one used in this demonstration is visible at lower right in the photograph below. (During the mission Garriott was once videoed by Pilot Jack Lousma giving Commander Alan Bean a haircut. In his commentary, Lousma said: “…here is the distinguished professor Owen Garriott trimming his hair… You might wonder why we chose Owen to do this job… Well, we figured you could always trust a barber with a mustache.” [14, pp. 29, 31].) Ariel Astronaut Owen Garriott having breakfast in the Skylab wardroom. (credit: NASA) As well as being the first international satellites, Ariel 1 and Aloutte 1 were among the first of many GSFC-related spacecraft to study the ionosphere and magnetosphere, including the series of Orbiting Geophysical Observatories (OGOs) and Interplanetary Monitoring Platforms (IMPs). This has proved to be a very active area for space research and remains so today: it represents one of NASA Goddard’s many lasting contributions to space science. References History of British Space Science, H.S.W. Massey and M.O. Robins, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986. Venture into Space: Early Years of Goddard Space Flight Center, A. Rosenthal, NASA Center History Series, 1968. Ariel 1: The First International Satellite – Experimental Results, NASA SP-119, 1966. Achieving Ariel II Design Compatibility, A.L. Franta and A.C. Davidson, NASA Technical Note D-3085, Apr. 1966. “Isle of Wight Aerospace: Flying Boats, Rocket Interceptors, Hovercraft and Launch Vehicles (All Briefly) – Part 2”, T. Williams, The Space Review, Sept. 30, 2024. “The STARFISH Exo-Atmospheric, High-Altitude Nuclear Weapons Test”, E.G. Stassinopoulos, Hardened Electronics and Radiation Technology Conference, Chantilly, VA, Apr. 22, 2015. “Did High-Altitude EMP Cause the Hawaiian Streetlight Incident?”, C.N. Vittitoe, Sandia National Laboratories, June 1989. The Ariel 1 Satellite, R.C. Baumann, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Apr. 1963. Spacecraft and Boosters 2, K.W. Gatland, Iliffe Books, London, 1965. This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury, L.S. Swenson, J.M. Grimwood and C.C. Alexander, NASA SP-4201, The NASA Historical Series, 1966. Observation of the Earth and its Environment: Survey of Missions and Sensors, H.J. Kramer, 4th edition, Springer, Berlin, 2002. Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics, P.C. Hughes, Dover Publications, ***, 2004. “Rotation of Artificial Earth Satellites”, R.N. Bracewell and O.K. Garriott, Nature, Vol. 182, pp. 760-762, Sept. 20, 1958. A House in Space, H.S.F. Cooper, Jr., Angus & Robertson, London, 1977. Trevor Williams in an orbital dynamicist who grew up avidly following the Apollo missions, and has long been fascinated by space history. He is proud to have worked at NASA Goddard.

The Long Arm Of European Space Law

Kubilius Andrius Kubilius, the EU commissioner for defense and space, unveiled the draft EU Space Act in June. (credit: EC Audiovisual Service) The long arm of a European space law by Jeff Foust Monday, December 8, 2025 Relations between the United States and the European Union aren’t exactly at a high point right now. Last week, the White House released its National Security Strategy that criticized unspecified activities of the EU “and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty,” and warned of the “stark prospect of civilizational erasure.” That came out around the same time as EU regulators issued a €120 million fine to X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, for failing to meet transparency obligations under EU law. The response from X’s owner, Elon Musk: a post stating that the “EU should be abolished.” “It targets the most important problems and growing dangers that can endanger our future in space, namely, that space is increasingly congested and contested,” said Kubilius. The friction between the US and EU exists, at a lower level (and lower temperature) when it comes to space. Central to that is a proposed EU law that its advocates say will make it easier for space companies to operate within the EU while addressing concerns about space safety and sustainability. Opponents, particularly but not exclusively in the United States, see the legislation as adding an unnecessary regulatory burden on companies in both Europe and the US, driving up their costs and reducing their competitiveness. The EU Space Act had been discussed for a couple years, with little insight into its contents, before the European Commission released a draft of the act in June, kicking off a long process of reviews and votes. “It targets the most important problems and growing dangers that can endanger our future in space, namely, that space is increasingly congested and contested,” said Andrius Kubilius, the EU commissioner for defense and space, in a speech announcing the act. The law would set requirements on issues such as collision avoidance procedures and debris mitigation as well as cybersecurity of space systems. It would also establish a single regulatory system across EU member states, superseding a patchwork of national laws and regulations. “This fragmentation is bad for business, bad for competitiveness, bad for our future in space,” he said. The act would apply to companies in the EU’s 27 countries, but also to any company seeking to do business in the EU. This is not unusual: in the US, the FCC applies many of its rules both to American companies and those seeking access to the US market. This included the FCC’s decision in 2022 to reduce the time licensees would have to deorbit their satellites after the end of their missions from 25 years to 5. This meant that the EU Space Act was scrutinized not just by European companies but also by those elsewhere, including the US. For example, satellite megaconstellation operators noticed that the act required satellites to be no brighter than magnitude 7 when seen from the ground, to minimize their impact on astronomy. This is similar, but not identical, to recommendations astronomers working with the International Astronomical Union made. The difference is that the IAU recommendation includes a factor to reduce the magnitude for satellites in orbits above 550 kilometers, requiring satellites to be dimmer at higher altitudes because they are visible for longer. The lack of an altitude factor in the EU act would favor satellites operating at higher orbits—like Eutelsat’s OneWeb—over those at lower altitudes, like Starlink and Project Kuiper (now Amazon Leo). The European Commission held a formal comment period from mid-July until early November, requesting public feedback on the draft EU Space Act. The commission received more than 100 submissions, including many from American companies and organizations. Among those commenting was the US State Department on behalf of the federal government. “As a general matter, the United States expresses deep concern regarding measures in the proposed Act that would impose unacceptable regulatory burdens on U.S. providers of space services to European customers,” the State Department stated. “We hear concerns from both US and European firms that certain proposed regulations stifle innovation, exclude US participation and place financial burdens on US companies,” said Woodard. It argued that the act’s provisions would create “non-tariff barriers” to cooperation between the US and EU in civil, commercial and security aspects of space that could extend to intergovernmental cooperation between US agencies and both ESA and Eumetsat, which operates weather satellites. “That is not acceptable, and we expect many EU member states will share our concerns about application of the Act to national sovereign activities.” The 13-page submission from the State Department, which it said involved input from more than 70 companies as well as trade associations, went into details about various issues it had with the proposed act, from how it might affect launches by American companies of European satellites to questioning the rationale for the act to define “giga constellation”, a term not used in industry, for constellations of 1,000 or more satellites. Such systems are being developed primarily by American, not European, companies, and under the act “giga constellations” would face different regulatory burdens than smaller systems. Others from the US weighed in on the EU Space Act as well, such as SpaceX, by far the world’s largest satellite operator and whose Starlink constellation offers services throughout Europe. “While SpaceX supports many of the goals of the Space Act, the proposed draft goes too far in imposing requirements that are incorrect, inflexible, or infeasible,” the company stated in its submission. It outlined its “significant concerns” with the act that included the “giga constellation” definition as well as the magnitude 7 brightness limit. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce criticized the “excessive compliance costs” the act would impose on non-European companies, arguing that could “inadvertently slow investment and service deployment within Europe and to European customers.” Not every American company commenting on the EU Space Act was strongly opposed to it. “The EU Space Act is a timely and necessary initiative to protect orbital and spectral capacity,” noted satellite operator Viasat in its comments, largely supporting the proposed legislation. However, in large part American companies and organizations have objects to various aspects of the act as currently written. The State Department outlined its objections on European soil last month when Scott Woodard, consul general at the U.S. Consulate in Hamburg, spoke at the Space Tech Expo Europe conference in Bremen, Germany. “We hear concerns from both US and European firms that certain proposed regulations stifle innovation, exclude US participation and place financial burdens on US companies,” he said, a reference to the act. “Our view here is simple: No one can regulate their way to a technological lead,” he added, calling instead for an approach like that in the US, where an executive order in August outlined plans to streamline commercial space regulations. “We hope the final EU Space Act will take a similarly forward-leaning approach.” It’s not just the United States expressing concerns about the act. Others outside the EU whose space companies do business there see similar issues about the proposed act and its burden on companies. One example is the United Kingdom. Naomi Pryde, partner and global co-chair for space exploration and innovation at law firm DLA Piper in the UK, said during a later panel discussion at Space Tech Expo Europe about the act that companies have asked her what it would cost to comply. “Everyone is going to have reasonably significant costs at the outset in order to comply,” she said, but that companies in the UK and elsewhere outside the EU might have “significantly more” costs that she did not quantify. As assessment prepared by the European Commission along with the draft act attempted to estimate those additional costs. The commission projected that the act would increase the cost of manufacturing a satellite in Europe by 2% and a launch vehicle by 1%. Those cost estimates were the starting point for an assessment performed recently by London-based European Economics, commissioned by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI). That study, released last week, assessed the full economic impact of the regulations on companies in the United States and Europe. The study found that American companies doing business in Europe would lose 85 million euros in annual revenue and 7 million euros in profits. That came from the assumption that companies would pass on costs associated with the act to customers through higher prices, depressing sales depending on the level of price elasticity in individual markets. “The EU Space Act burdens Europe’s own companies, hits American firms too, and leaves China with a free pass. That is not a formula for competitiveness or security,” Guenther said. The impact on European companies would be far worse, though: 245 million euros in revenue and 100 million euros in profit would be lost each year, the study concluded. The study also found that the higher costs would depress investment in European space companies by up to 3.45 billion euros over the long term. “This approach harms both sides of the transatlantic partnership just as China is successfully moving toward dominance in space, which has far-reaching implications for broad swaths of modern society,” Mary Guenther, head of space policy at PPI, said in a statement. “The EU Space Act burdens Europe’s own companies, hits American firms too, and leaves China with a free pass. That is not a formula for competitiveness or security.” (China is largely unaffected by the EU Space Act because Chinese companies export very little in space products or services to EU nations.) Catherine Doldirina, general counsel at D-Orbit, an Italian space transportation company, said on the Space Tech Expo Europe panel that her company was watching both the EU Space Act as well as an Italian space act passed just in June. “For Italy, it would be extremely important to streamline the development and adoption of its national legislation in parallel and in alignment with the EU framework,” she said, to avoid adopting rules only to change them to match the EU act. “The ideal outcome would be this one-stop shop where operators will not need to go to different authorities” in different EU nations, she said. “That will enable industry growth.” But, she added, “the devil is in the details.” Next steps The European Commission is examining the comments as it works on a new version of the act. Denmark, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, aims to produce a revised draft before its term concludes at the end of the year, said Rodolphe Muñoz, team leader for space situational awareness and space traffic management in the European Commission’s directorate responsible for space, at the Space Tech Expo Europe panel. He was the main defender of the EU Space Act on the panel. Regarding American criticism of the act, he noted there was a “very open, very transparent” discussion about the legislation in September during the 13th EU-US Space Dialogue. “The US is entitled to have the position they want, and we respect it,” he said. While the US government’s formal comment submitted by the State Department was very critical of the act, he noted that most of the submission dealt with specific issues with the act that he felt could be addressed: “a piece of cake,” he said. “I prefer a position where the first page is rather negative and 12 others are manageable than the contrary: a very good idea but not feasible,” he said. Two days later at the conference, a member of the European Parliament expressed his support for the act. Christophe Grudler, a member of Parliament from France, said discussions among the various political groups there were underway about the act with widespread support. “We have a shared view today with all the political groups,” he said, “that everybody understands that space is becoming dangerously close to a ‘far west’ scenario,” an apparent reference to concerns about a “Wild West” environment in orbit. “You launch thousands of satellites and never mind what the others think. It’s clear we can’t continue like that,” he said. “I prefer a position where the first page is rather negative and 12 others are manageable than the contrary: a very good idea but not feasible,” Muñoz said. He lumped objections to the EU Space Act into two categories. One was from those who opposed changes to thew status quo, he said, despite those concerns about the orbital environment. A second came from European governments, trying to defend their own national rules that might conflict with those in the proposed act. He didn’t identify the countries involved or the rules they were trying to protect, but argued such efforts conflicted with the act’s goal of harmonizing rules across the EU. “Fragmentation is the enemy of competitiveness,” he said. “Most of the member states agree with the principles of the Space Act.” However, Grudler said there was room for improvement for the act. “There are some redundancies in the text. We’ll find a better way,” he said, but didn’t discuss what he considered to be redundancies. The current path for the act, assuming an updated version is released in the coming weeks or months, would set up an initial vote by the European Parliament by May or June, he said. Final passage would follow some time in 2027, kicking off a transition period that would last a couple years. “The idea is to be ready at the end of the decade for the application of this regulation,” Grudler said. “If companies start feeling the impact by the end of this decade, that would be great.” Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

Beyond Launch-: Commercial Spece Functions

Falcon 9 launch While the space industry has focused on addressing the cost and frequency of launch, in-space propulsion remains a major obstacle to growth. (credit: SpaceX) Beyond launch: How in-space propulsion markets will determine winners in the $1 trillion space economy by Malik Farkhadov Monday, December 8, 2025 When SpaceX achieved a cost breakthrough of $2,700 per kilogram to low Earth orbit while competitors remained above $10,000 per kilogram, it didn’t merely create a pricing advantage. It fundamentally restructured the orbital infrastructure value chain. This dramatic cost reduction exposed a deeper economic paradox: while launch costs plummeted by 95% over three decades, the propulsion systems that determine satellite utility and longevity in space remained locked in suboptimal economic equilibria. The global space economy, valued at $613 billion in 2024 with 78% commercial participation, now faces a strategic inflection point where in-space propulsion economics, not launch capability, will determine which players capture value in the projected $1.8 trillion market by 2035. The orbital infrastructure investment gap represents the most critical barrier to space economy growth. The stakes extend far beyond technical performance metrics. Electric propulsion systems, despite offering five times the efficiency of chemical alternatives, capture only a fraction of the $11.05 billion annual propulsion market. Chemical systems, with unit costs of $2–20 million compared to electric systems at $50–500 thousand, continue to dominate mission architectures despite inferior fuel efficiency. This technology-market misalignment reveals systemic market failures: coordination problems in orbital infrastructure investment, unpriced externalities in space debris generation, and information asymmetries that lock satellite operators into economically suboptimal propulsion choices. The orbital infrastructure investment gap represents the most critical barrier to space economy growth. Profitable services like orbital refueling and satellite servicing require $500 million to $2 billion in upfront capital but face a classic chicken-and-egg problem: no customers without proven service, no service without customer commitments. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program offers a proven solution model. Anchor tenancy contracts solved similar market failures, enabling SpaceX to capture $4.2 billion in revenue by 2024. The propulsion market’s future winners will be those who crack the economic code of orbital infrastructure, not just the technical challenges of thrust and specific impulse. The business model architecture The economic reality The space propulsion value chain reveals stark concentration dynamics that shape competitive outcomes. In satellite propulsion manufacturing, Northrop Grumman, Aerojet Rocketdyne, and L3Harris dominate with combined market shares exceeding 60%. Launch services show even greater concentration. SpaceX controls over 60% market share through 134 Falcon missions in 2024, generating $4.2 billion in revenue. This market power stems from SpaceX’s unique vertical integration model, producing 80% of components in-house compared to competitors like ULA, which relies on more than 1,200 suppliers. The cost structure differences are profound. SpaceX’s manufacturing approach has reduced component costs by orders of magnitude. Onboard radios cost $5,000 versus the industry standard $100,000, while Raptor engines cost $1 million compared to competitors’ engines at $20 million or more. This vertical integration enables rapid design iterations and quality control, achieving a 99% launch success rate across 315 missions while competitors struggle with supply chain complexity and slower innovation cycles. Cost Structure Comparison: Propulsion Systems System Type Unit Cost Specific Impulse Market Share Chemical $2M-20M ~300 seconds 70%+ Electric $50K-500K 1,600+ seconds 25% Nuclear-Thermal $20M-50M 900+ seconds <5% The market power dynamics Barriers to entry in orbital propulsion extend beyond technical complexity to systemic market structure issues. Capital requirements for propulsion development range from $10 million for electric systems to $100 million or more for chemical systems, and regulatory approval timelines extend from two to five years. Customer switching costs create additional lock-in effects. Satellite operators invest $50–200 million in mission-specific integration, making propulsion changes prohibitively expensive mid-program. Network effects compound these barriers. SpaceX’s Starlink constellation demonstrates how vertical integration creates winner-take-most dynamics. The company uses its own launches for 66% of missions (89 Starlink-dedicated flights in 2024) and internalizes $2 billion to $3 billion in launch value while competitors pay market rates. This self-reinforcing flywheel, where launch revenue funds constellation expansion, which generates subscriber revenue of $7.7 billion in 2024, explains SpaceX’s 40–50% margins on launches versus the industry average of 15–20%. Platform economics in propulsion markets favor integrated players. Electric propulsion systems require specialized power management, thermal control, and mission planning capabilities that create complementary service opportunities. Companies like Northrop Grumman leverage this integration and offer end-to-end satellite servicing through Mission Extension Vehicles (MEV) which provide 5 to 15 years of additional satellite life for $500 million replacement cost deferral. The emerging actor challenge Emerging space nations face structural disadvantages in propulsion markets despite ambitious growth targets. India projects its space economy will reach $44 billion by 2033, growing from $8.4 billion in 2022. The UAE has invested $12 billion in space development, while Luxembourg committed €200 million to space resources initiatives. However, these nations confront the fundamental challenge of building propulsion capabilities in markets dominated by established players with decades of accumulated technological and manufacturing advantages. The fundamental economic challenge in orbital propulsion stems from the tragedy of the commons in low Earth orbit. Individual satellite operators optimize for private profit maximization while externalizing systemic costs. Strategic positioning options for emerging actors reveal three distinct pathways. First, specialization in niche propulsion technologies such as green propellants, advanced ion drives, or nuclear-electric systems. Incumbents have limited advantages there. Second, government partnership models that leverage anchor tenancy for demand aggregation, such as India’s approach with ISRO’s technology transfer program and IN-SPACe’s $1 billion venture fund. Third, coalition strategies where multiple emerging nations pool demand to achieve scale economies in propulsion procurement. The economic logic favors coalition approaches. Brazil, UAE, Indonesia, and India collectively represent more than $200 billion in projected space economy potential by 2040 and offer sufficient scale to negotiate favorable propulsion terms and justify dedicated supply chains. This mirrors successful precedents in terrestrial industries: airline alliances that aggregate purchasing power, semiconductor consortia like SEMATECH that shared R&D costs, and renewable energy cooperatives that achieved scale economies in procurement. The orbital economics paradox The orbital commons problem The fundamental economic challenge in orbital propulsion stems from the tragedy of the commons in low Earth orbit. Individual satellite operators optimize for private profit maximization while externalizing systemic costs: orbital congestion, collision risk, and debris generation. This market failure becomes acute when analyzing the disconnect between private incentives and social costs in propulsion choice. Economic research on orbital-use fees projects that optimal pricing of $235,000 per satellite-year could quadruple industry value from $600 billion to $3 trillion by 2040. The mechanism works through incentive alignment. Higher orbital fees reward efficient propulsion systems with precision deorbit capability and collision avoidance features. Current zero-price orbital access rewards disposable architectures and suboptimal propulsion selection. The propulsion economics reveal this distortion clearly. Electric propulsion systems offer superior orbital maneuvering capability, enabling satellites to actively avoid collisions and perform controlled deorbits. Chemical propulsion systems, while providing higher thrust, often lack the precision and fuel efficiency for active debris mitigation. Yet market prices don’t reflect these externality differences, resulting in systematic underinvestment in debris-reducing propulsion technologies. Satellite constellation economics compound this problem. Starlink’s nearly 9,000 satellites in LEO operate on five-year replacement cycles, optimizing for capital turnover rather than orbital sustainability. OneWeb’s 648 satellites at higher altitude (1,200 versus 550 kilometers) face different orbital decay dynamics but similar economic pressures to minimize propulsion costs rather than optimize for space environment protection. The infrastructure investment gap The orbital servicing market was valued at $2.71 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $4.99–11.56 billion by 2032. Actual deployment remains limited to a handful of demonstration missions. Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle program provides the clearest economic analysis of infrastructure investment challenges. MEV-1 and MEV-2, each providing 5 to 15 years of satellite life extension, defer $500 million in satellite replacement costs for customers. The business model appears compelling. Customers save hundreds of millions in capital expenditure while paying significantly less for servicing. Yet only two MEV missions have launched, serving just two satellites in a market with thousands of potential customers. The investment gap stems from coordination failures rather than technical barriers. Orbital servicing requires $500 million to $2 billion in upfront capital for spacecraft development, launch, and operational infrastructure. This investment must be made before customer commitments are secured, creating classic chicken-and-egg dynamics. Satellite operators won’t commit to unproven services, while investors won’t fund services without guaranteed customers. Orbital Infrastructure Investment Analysis Service Type Capital Required Payback Period Coordination Barrier Refueling $500M-2B 8-12 years Customer commitments Debris Removal $100M-500M 15+ years Public goods problem Satellite Repair $1B-3B 10-15 years Technical standards Orbital Manufacturing $2B-5B 20+ years Demand uncertainty The propulsion technology-market fit mismatch The electric versus chemical propulsion decision shows how market structure locks in economically suboptimal technologies. Electric propulsion offers five times the efficiency (1,600 seconds or more of specific impulse versus abpt 300 seconds for chemical) and dramatically lower unit costs ($50,000–500,000 versus $2–20 million). Yet 25% market share suggests market failures beyond simple technical trade-offs. Mission economics explain this apparent paradox. Electric propulsion’s higher efficiency comes with orbital transfer times that are up to ten times longer. For geostationary communications satellites with 15-year asset lives, this trade-off favors electric propulsion. The efficiency gains compound over the satellite’s operational life. For LEO constellations with five-year replacement cycles, however, the time-to-revenue consideration dominates economic analysis. The market structure reinforces these distortions through several mechanisms. Launch vehicle integration costs favor chemical propulsion because launch providers have standardized interfaces for chemical systems. Insurance markets penalize electric propulsion missions due to longer exposure periods during orbital transfer, despite superior on-station reliability. Regulatory frameworks often require chemical backup systems for critical maneuvers, which negates electric propulsion’s mass advantages. The unpriced externalities Stranded asset risk in orbital congestion The space industry’s rapid expansion has created a stranded asset problem valued at more than $100 billion that remains largely invisible in current market pricing. As of 2024, more than 8,000 active satellites operate in LEO, with planned constellations targeting 100,000 or more satellites by 2030. This exponential growth in orbital density creates collision risks that could render entire orbital regions unusable, stranding investments in satellites, ground infrastructure, and frequency licenses. SpaceX’s market dominance raises critical questions about monopoly rents versus genuine efficiency gains. Economic analysis of orbital congestion reveals how private costs diverge from social costs in propulsion decision-making. Individual satellite operators face direct collision probabilities of 0.0002-0.0004 annually for large debris encounters. These seemingly low risks translate to insurance costs of 5–15% of satellite value, which operators internalize in their economic calculations. However, the systemic risk—cascade failures that could deny access to key orbital regions—doesn’t appear in individual operator cost-benefit analyses. The insurance market’s response illustrates the growing recognition of these risks. Satellite insurance rates have increased 200–300% since 2020, and some orbital regions are now uninsurable at profitable rates. Insurers require detailed propulsion specifications, collision avoidance capabilities, and deorbit plans as underwriting criteria. Monopoly rent extraction in launch services SpaceX’s market dominance raises critical questions about monopoly rents versus genuine efficiency gains. The company’s 60% market share in launch services, combined with $7.7 billion in annual Starlink revenue, creates unprecedented market power in space infrastructure. Economic analysis suggests that SpaceX’s launch pricing extracts significant monopoly rents beyond operational cost savings. Financial evidence supports this analysis. SpaceX’s estimated launch costs range from $857 to $1,600 per kilogram, while customer prices reach $3,543 per kilogram, a 120–300% markup. Industry analysis suggests 40–50% margins on launch services versus the traditional aerospace average of 15–20%. The vertical integration strategy compounds monopoly effects by foreclosing market opportunities for competitors. SpaceX’s use of its own launch services for 66% of missions (89 Starlink flights in 2024) internalizes $2 billion to $3 billion in launch value that would otherwise be available to competing providers. Public subsidy, private gain dynamics The space industry benefits from massive public subsidies that don’t appear in private sector return calculations. NASA has invested over $50 billion in space transportation technology development since 1960; much of this now benefits commercial providers. The Commercial Crew Program alone provided $6.8 billion in development funding to SpaceX and Boeing, enabling capabilities that generate ongoing commercial revenue. SpaceX’s development trajectory illustrates this public-private value transfer. The company received $396 million in Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) funding, $1.6 billion in Commercial Crew Development funding, and $2.6 billion in Commercial Crew Transportation contracts. These government investments de-risked SpaceX’s technology development and provided anchor tenancy that enabled private sector expansion. Nuclear thermal propulsion development offers a current example. NASA and DARPA have committed over $100 million annually to nuclear propulsion research, with private contractors like X-energy and Lockheed Martin receiving substantial development contracts. Business model innovation pathways Orbital infrastructure investment vehicles The orbital infrastructure investment gap requires innovative financing mechanisms that address coordination failures while providing appropriate risk-adjusted returns. The terrestrial infrastructure Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) model offers a proven framework for patient capital deployment in long-payback infrastructure assets. Infrastructure REITs manage over $3 trillion globally with 5–8% annual returns, showing that utility-like assets attract institutional capital when properly structured. Revenue projections suggest orbital slot auctions could generate $2–5 billion annually for space traffic management infrastructure. An orbital infrastructure REIT would pool investor capital to fund satellite servicing platforms, orbital refueling depots, and debris removal capabilities. The economic logic mirrors terrestrial infrastructure. High upfront capital requirements, predictable operational cash flows once deployed, and essential service characteristics support stable demand. Government anchor tenancy contracts could offer initial cash flow stability for infrastructure investors, like the model public-private partnerships use in terrestrial infrastructure. Financial modeling suggests orbital infrastructure REITs could achieve 6–10% annual returns through a combination of service fees, capacity payments, and asset appreciation. The Mission Extension Vehicle program demonstrates the unit economics: $500 million in customer cost savings from five-year satellite life extension supports service fees of $50–100 million annually. Scaling this model across hundreds of satellites could generate billions in annual revenue. Propulsion performance bonds Market failures in debris mitigation require financial mechanisms that internalize orbital commons costs. A propulsion performance bond system would require satellite operators to post financial guarantees covering deorbit costs, with premiums inversely related to propulsion system efficiency and debris mitigation capabilities. Bond sizing would reflect the economic cost of debris cleanup and collision risk. NASA’s cost-benefit analysis estimates $500 million to $2 billion per major debris-generating event, depending on orbital region and fragment distribution. Performance bonds would scale with satellite mass, orbital parameters, and propulsion system characteristics. Electric propulsion systems with precision deorbit capability would require bonds 60–80% smaller than chemical systems without active debris mitigation. Orbital slot auction mechanisms The current first-come, first-served orbital slot allocation system creates inefficient resource allocation and foregone government revenue. Economic theory demonstrates that auction mechanisms reveal highest value uses while generating funds for space traffic management infrastructure. The Federal Communications Commission’s spectrum auctions offer a proven model and generate $121 billion in government revenue while improving spectrum allocation efficiency. Orbital slot auctions would replace administrative allocation with market-based mechanisms that price orbital access according to economic value. High-value geostationary slots above major population centers would command premium prices, while less valuable orbits would remain accessible to smaller operators. The price discovery mechanism would reveal true orbital access values, enabling more efficient satellite deployment and constellation planning. Revenue projections suggest orbital slot auctions could generate $2–5 billion annually for space traffic management infrastructure. These funds would support enhanced space situational awareness, collision avoidance systems, and debris removal capabilities that benefit all orbital users. Propulsion technology development consortia The high cost and risk of advanced propulsion development results in market failures that prevent optimal innovation investment. Nuclear thermal propulsion, fusion rockets, and advanced ion drive development require $100 million to $1 billion in investment with uncertain commercial applications. Individual companies face appropriability problems, such as first-mover disadvantages where competitors benefit from innovation spillovers without shouldering development costs. Industry consortia modeled on SEMATECH’s semiconductor innovation success could address these coordination failures. SEMATECH pooled R&D investment from competing firms and shared development costs while enabling all participants to benefit from technological advances. The model worked because fundamental technology development benefits all industry participants, while commercial applications remain proprietary. A propulsion technology consortium would focus on pre-commercial research: advanced materials, nuclear fuel systems, power generation, and fundamental propulsion physics. Participating companies would contribute funding proportional to their market size, with intellectual property shared among consortium members under agreed licensing terms. Emerging actor partnership platforms The fragmented demand from emerging space nations creates inefficient procurement and limits negotiating power with established suppliers. A multilateral partnership platform could aggregate demand from India, Brazil, UAE, Indonesia, and other emerging actors. This would achieve scale economies in propulsion procurement while fostering technology transfer and industrial cooperation. Current market trajectories suggest that without intervention, the space economy will face more than $100 billion in stranded assets from orbital congestion, perpetuation of debris-generating propulsion architectures, and systematic underinvestment in orbital infrastructure. The economic logic mirrors airline alliance strategies. Individual carriers gain negotiating power, route coordination, and cost sharing benefits through collective action. The International Space Consortium would aggregate propulsion requirements across member nations, negotiate volume discounts with suppliers, and coordinate technology transfer programs that build indigenous capabilities. Financial analysis suggests the platform could achieve 20% to 40% cost savings through volume aggregation. Combined propulsion requirements from consortium members would total $2billion to $5 billion annually, sufficient to negotiate favorable terms with major suppliers while justifying dedicated production lines for member-specific requirements. Conclusion The orbital infrastructure market confronts a fundamental economic paradox. While space access costs have plummeted 95% over three decades, the propulsion systems that determine satellite utility remain trapped in suboptimal market equilibria. Electric propulsion systems offer five times the efficiency at dramatically lower unit costs, yet capture only 25% market share due to coordination failures, unpriced externalities, and technology lock-in effects. Current market trajectories suggest that without intervention, the space economy will face more than $100 billion in stranded assets from orbital congestion, perpetuation of debris-generating propulsion architectures, and systematic underinvestment in orbital infrastructure that could support the projected $1.8 trillion space economy by 2035. The winners in space commerce will not be determined by launch capability alone. Victory will come to those who solve the economic puzzles of orbital infrastructure investment and propulsion market design. The proposed solutions—orbital infrastructure REITs, performance bond mechanisms, auction-based orbital slot allocation, technology consortia, and emerging actor partnerships—provide economically viable pathways that align private incentives with collective value creation. These mechanisms address market failures through proven financial instruments, creating business opportunities while solving systemic problems. The strategic imperative for business and policy leaders is clear. The next five years will determine whether the space economy develops efficient market structures that support sustainable growth or whether market failures constrain the industry far below its trillion-dollar potential. The first movers in orbital infrastructure finance and propulsion market design will not merely capture extraordinary returns. They will architect the economic foundations of humanity’s expansion into space. Malik Farkhadov analyzes the business economics of orbital infrastructure and propulsion markets, with particular focus on how emerging actors and market structure dynamics shape competitive outcomes in the global space economy.

In Defense Of Mark Kelly

ministerial Mark Kelly speaks at his 2023 induction ceremony into the Astronaut Hall of Fame. (credit: NASA/Chris Chamberland) In defense of Mark Kelly by Steve Lindsey and Garrett Reisman Monday, December 8, 2025 We’re astronauts. Both of us have flown with Senator Mark Kelly aboard the Space Shuttle and entrusted him with our lives. He is beyond reproach as an American patriot, and we never expected to hear him called a traitor or investigated and threatened with a court martial. While at NASA, we did not bring politics into the cockpit. Service to the country always comes before politics. Comparing notes now, we realize that we have voted on opposite ends of the political spectrum. But this moment transcends politics and goes directly at the heart of our shared American values. We joined NASA because it represents the pinnacle of American possibility and achievement: using science, ingenuity, and team work to explore the heavens and change the world. We both wore the American flag on our uniforms with pride because it represented the noble founding values and principles of our great nation including liberty, equality, freedom of speech, due process, and the rule of law. Both of us have spent time in Russia and in other countries where there was no rule of law, only the rule of an autocratic leader. We are deeply concerned that America is hurtling in that direction, and the attack on Senator Kelly is further evidence. Both of us have flown with Senator Mark Kelly aboard the Space Shuttle and entrusted him with our lives. He is beyond reproach as an American patriot. Senator Kelly and the other five members of Congress who have served in the armed forces or with the CIA are being persecuted because they simply stated a legal fact: under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, American service members are required to follow only lawful orders. This speech is protected by the First Amendment and is factually correct. We find it bewildering and shameful that President Trump would describe the statements of Senator Kelly and other members of Congress as seditious and “punishable by DEATH,” followed by Secretary of Defense Hegseth announcing that an investigation has been opened into Senator Kelly. This kind of autocratic behavior has no place in America. If we do not stop this now, any American who dares to disagree with a political position or question the government elected to serve them may be next. We both took oaths, in the Armed Forces and at NASA, to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The Constitution holds the Government accountable to the people—not the other way around. Adherence to and defense of this document has kept our republic intact for nearly 250 years. Patrick Henry, one of our founding fathers, said, “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests”. Everyone who chooses to serve in our armed forces or straps into a rocket wonders how they will react when tested. Will they rise to the occasion when faced with a moment of truth? Or will they falter and wilt in the face of fear. We all hope and pray that we will be our best selves at that moment, and that our colleagues will have our backs. America is in such a moment now. We ask our fellow Americans to defend the Constitution as we have: to look any evil in the eye, stand up for our democracy, and defend all Americans’ rights—and hold accountable those who would take them away. Col. Steve Lindsey spent 24 years in the Air Force and received among other medals the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Legion of Merit. He spent 16 years at NASA, piloting or commanding five Space Shuttle missions and served as Chief of the Astronaut Office. Dr. Garrett Reisman has a PhD from Caltech, spent 95 days on the International Space Station, performed three spacewalks, flew on all three Space Shuttles and worked as Director of Space Operations at SpaceX. Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submitted comments will be posted.

Review: The Pale Blue Point

book cover Review: The Pale Blue Data Point by Jeff Foust Monday, December 8, 2025 The Pale Blue Data Point: An Earth-Based Perspective on the Search for Alien Life by Jon Willis Univ. of Chicago Press, 2025 hardcover, 256 pp., illus. ISBN 978-0-226-82240-2 US$26.00 Astronomers study stars, galaxies, and other astronomical phenomena. Planetary scientists study planets and their moons as well as asteroids and comets. Heliophysicists study the Sun and its interaction with the Earth’s magnetic field. Astrobiologists study life beyond Earth. Well, not exactly. While scientists know that stars, planets, and galaxies exist, astrobiology is centered on something that scientists only hypothesize—and often hope—exists. Despite decades of efforts, including some tantalizing hints and a few false alarms, scientists have yet to find definitive proof of past or present life anywhere beyond Earth. As he puts it, “whether we like it or not, planet Earth provides us with a solitary data point, pale blue in color, that represents—at least for today—our single example of life, wondrous in all its diverse forms.” That challenge—looking for something beyond Earth that we so far only know to exist on Earth—is at the heart of The Pale Blue Data Point by Jon Willis, a professor of astronomy at the University of Victoria in Canada. The title takes its name from the famous “pale blue dot” image of Earth taken by Voyager 1 35 years ago on its way out of the solar system. The image, he writes, “appears to show life on Earth existing in stark contrast to the dark void of space.” But, he asks, is Earth really a “lonely outpost of life in a bleak cosmos” or one of many worlds home to life? That is the central question of astrobiology, but one that is based on what we know about the evolution of life here on Earth: that pale blue data point. As he puts it, “whether we like it or not, planet Earth provides us with a solitary data point, pale blue in color, that represents—at least for today—our single example of life, wondrous in all its diverse forms.” The book is primarily a globetrotting adventure for Willis, as he goes from Australia to Chile to Morocco, as well as at sea, for the various ways astrobiologists try to study life on Earth to better understand how it might exist beyond Earth, as well as searching for more direct evidence of extraterrestrial life. That ranges from the almost obligatory journey to a mountaintop observatory where astronomers study exoplanets to being on a ship in the Pacific monitoring a robotic submersible exploring vents on the ocean floor that harbor life, possible analogs for habitable environments deep within Europa and Enceladus. That travelogue can be entertaining at times. In one chapter, he travels to a town in the Australian outback that advertises itself at the hottest in the region in a quest to find fossilized stromatolites, remains of perhaps the oldest life on Earth. As he drinks a beer in a hotel where the barkeep is busy bottle-feeding baby kangaroos, he notes he was wise enough to visit in late winter, when the temperatures peaked about 35 degrees Celsius. “Had I traveled to this part of Australia in the summer, the temperature would be in the high 40s, and I would be in a body bag.” But these adventures also seem a bit empty. He goes to Australia to see the fossilized stromatolites (as well as living ones on the coast) but he is not there to study them or observe others studying them. Most of the chapter is about other research into the fossils and their relevance to looking for evidence of past life on Mars, work that could be done without leaving his home office. Similarly, his trip to the Chilean mountaintop observatory offers a bit of perspective on what it’s like to conduct observations there, but most of the chapter is about the history of the search for exoplanets in general and potentially habitable ones in particular. That's largely unrelated to that visit to the observatory; we don't even know what objects the astronomers are studying in the description he offers to open the chapter. The underlying theme of the book rings true: to search for life beyond Earth, we have to understand life on Earth and what lessons it can offer for what to look for elsewhere, from fossils on Mars to biosignatures of telltale gases in the atmospheres of exoplanets. We may—in a year or a decade or longer—finally find that firm evidence that we are not alone. For now, we are that solitary pale blue dot in a bleak cosmos. Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone. Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submitted comments will be posted.

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A Big Win For European Space

ministerial Ministers from ESA’s member states gather in Bremen, Germany, November 26 to debate agency funding levels for the next three years. (credit: ESA/Ph. Servent) A big win for European space by Jeff Foust Monday, December 1, 2025 It turns out there can be a little too much European unity in space. During last week’s European Space Agency ministerial conference in Bremen, Germany, ESA officials passed out a book titled Elevation highlighting the agency’s long-term strategy and various programs intended to implement that strategy—programs that ESA was seeking funding for at the ministerial. Rather than just distribute a PDF or other electronic document, Elevation was a hardcover book lavishly illustrated with images of those programs. Thumbing through one copy of the book left in the media room at the ministerial showed a problem. A production error—apparently limited to that one copy—meant that the pages in that copy were not properly trimmed and bound. Some pages, as a result, were effectively stuck together. While other nations scale up space investments, one official said, “Europe risks falling behind, not because of lack of expertise but because of insufficient and fragmented investment.” The production of the book showed the lengths ESA was going to make its case for a larger budget. Every three years, the ministers representing ESA’s 23 full member states, along with several associate and cooperating nations, meet to decide on funding levels for agency programs. At the previous ministerial, in Paris in November 2022, ESA sought €18.5 billion and got its members to agree to €16.9 billion (see “For ESA, a good enough budget”, The Space Review, November 28, 2022). At that 2022 ministerial, ESA was already seeing the effects of geopolitical forces, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier that year ended cooperation between the agencies except for the International Space Station. Europe lost access to Russia’s Soyuz rocket that was launching from French Guiana, a precursor to the “launcher crisis” that, for a time, deprived Europe of independent access to space. It also upended the Rosalind Franklin rover mission to Mars, which was to launch on a Russian rocket using a Russian landing platform. Those forces only grew since the Paris ministerial. In the last year, uncertainty about the relationship with the United States under the Trump administration, including proposed major cuts to NASA that would affect cooperation with Europe in science and exploration programs, led ESA to enhance cooperation with other countries while seeking to build up its own capabilities. “We have a paradigm shift,” said Alberto Maulu, manager for technologies at the Luxembourg Space Agency, during a panel at Space Tech Expo Europe, a conference held a week before the ministerial in the same convention center in Bremen. “Resilience, security, European independence is now what’s driving at the institutional level and also at the commercial level.” “Europe seems to be losing ground,” with its share of the global space economy shrinking, said Craig Brown, investment director at the UK Space Agency, during the same panel. The ministerial, he argued, “is perhaps an opportunity for us to think about how we do things differently.” There was the perception that Europe was falling behind the United States, China, and others in space. ESA officials and others would routinely compare the much larger amount of government space spending in the US versus Europe, using that as an argument that Europe should up its game. “Other global actors, such as the United States, China and India, but also Japan and Russia, are scaling up their investments, including in dual-use space capabilities,” one official, speaking on background, said a couple weeks before the ministerial. “Meanwhile, Europe risks falling behind, not because of lack of expertise but because of insufficient and fragmented investment.” The ministerial, that official concluded, was a “decision point” for Europe’s future in space. ESA spent the better part of two years developing its package of programs for the ministerial. About 20% of its budget is for “mandatory” activities, primarily science, where members contribute based on the sizes of their economies. But the rest consists of optional programs that countries can choose to fund, or not fund, with the expectation that their contributions would result in a proportional share of contracts to their nations’ companies—the “georeturn” principle. “When Europe unites, Europe succeeds,” Aschbacher concluded. ESA director general Josef Aschbacher formally presented the agency’s proposal, with a total value of €22.254 billion ($25.8 billion), as the ministerial formally started last Wednesday. It was time for Europe to come together on space and increase investment on ESA programs rather than just increase spending on national-level programs, as some countries have done. “We face a perfect storm, a perfect storm that demands courageous decisions,” he said. “Do we truly believe that these crises are only temporary disruptions, and do we really want to retreat to narrow, exclusively national solutions that may feel simpler but leave us all weaker?” “When Europe unites, Europe succeeds,” he concluded. ministerial Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s director general, presents his proposed budget at the ministerial conference November 26. (credit: ESA/S. Corvaja) Security focus Much of the package involved funding of ongoing programs in space transportation, navigation, Earth observation, and more. But there were some new efforts, like programs in ESA’s human and robotic exploration department to develop a lunar cargo lander, Argonaut, that could support later Artemis missions while giving ESA an opportunity to barter those services for seats on Artemis landing missions. ESA also requested funding for the European Launcher Challenge, a program to promote the development of new launch vehicles. In a break with its traditional georeturn approach, ESA “preselected” five companies in the summer—Isar Aerospace, MaiaSpace, Orbex, PLD Space, and Rocket Factory Augsburg—earlier in the year, allowing countries to decide which companies to support. But perhaps the biggest change in ESA’s proposal was the addition of a new effort called European Resilience from Space (ERS), which marked the civil agency’s move into defense and security. ESA announced earlier this year that its member states asked the agency to develop a proposal for ERS to develop space capabilities that could serve civil and defense needs. The heart of ERS is starting work on a constellation of optical and radar imaging satellites for surveillance. The goal is a constellation that can provide a revisit time of about 30 minutes, far better than existing European national systems can provide. Production of the constellation would come in a second phase, funded by ESA and the European Commission starting in 2028, but the request for the 2025 ESA ministerial would support development of prototypes that could launch by 2028. “The ministerial should be about strategic autonomy,” Wachowicz said. “It should be more security driven.” ERS would also include funding to advance a low Earth orbit navigation satellite constellation intended to augment the existing Galileo system in medium Earth orbit. It would also support IRIS², the European secure connectivity constellation. ERS stemmed from European concerns about Russia as well as a desire to reduce reliance on American systems. “Poland will advocate for a European approach to space security that treats satellites, launch capabilities and ground systems as critical assets,” said Marta Wachowicz, president of the Polish space agency POLSA, during the Space Tech Expo Europe panel. “The ministerial should be about strategic autonomy,” she said. “It should be more security driven.” ERS raised some issues within Europe about the role ESA, a civil space agency, should be playing in defense programs. The ESA Convention, the 50-year-old document that forms the foundation of the agency, states that ESA will work on space programs for “exclusively peaceful purposes.” “We are a space agency, and space, as you know, is dual use by nature,” Aschbacher told reporters the day before the ministerial. He noted that many ESA programs, from launch vehicles to navigation satellites, have applications for defense as well as civil and commercial uses. “We had a very deep discussion with our member states,” he said, “to clarify exactly the role of ESA and how much ESA can or cannot work in the defense domain. This was a very profound discussion and a very profound deliberation.” Renato Krpoun, chair of the ESA Council, confirmed that ESA members concluded that the agency could be involved in defense activities, but “nothing aggressive.” Whatever ESA develops, he said, will be operated by someone else, either the European Commission or national governments. “ESA is not the agency that will operate these systems. We can prepare it, but we should not operate it.” ministerial Aschbacher (center) discusses the outcome of the ministerial November 27 with Italian minister Adolfo Urso (left) and German minister Dorothee Bär. (credit: ESA/Ph. Servent) “Outstanding” outcome After Aschbacher gave his speech about the agency’s proposal at the ministerial Wednesday, the ministers representing ESA’s members got to give brief opening statements. Most stated their intent to support the package, at least broadly, and back up those words euros. Spain’s science minister, Diana Morant, said her country would increase its 2022 contribution by 50% in 2025, citing “how strategically important space is and the importance of our work through ESA.” “We have to evolve. Europe has to undergo significant reform,” said Baptiste. “It has to give up its pipe dreams, starting with georeturn.” Canada—not a full ESA member but instead a “cooperating state” that has worked on ESA programs for decades—offered an even bigger increase. Lisa Campbell, president of the Canadian Space Agency, confirmed comments a week earlier from the country’s industry minister, Mélanie Joly, that the country would make a massive increase in spending on ESA programs. Canada, which provided €98 million in 2022, was now committing €407.7 million. “This investment will enable our country to contribute to important ESA missions directly benefiting Canadian industry and allowing it to grow and diversify,” Campbell said. A couple countries, though, said they wanted to increase their spending but could not fully commit to it at the ministerial. The Dutch minister of economic affairs, Vincent Karremans, said the Netherlands planned to increase its ESA spending by 25%, or €110 million, but since the country currently has a “caretaker government” it could not formally commit to that increase until as late as the end of January. Belgium also asked for an extension for its contribution. “Belgium has decided to make a particular and an exceptional budget effort in the context of this ministerial council. However, I do require a bit more time to make that additional contribution official,” said Vanessa Matz, minister of modernization of the public administration. The closest thing to criticism came from France. “We have to evolve. Europe has to undergo significant reform,” said Philippe Baptiste, the country’s minister of higher education, research, and space. “It has to give up its pipe dreams, starting with georeturn.” Once all the countries, and several observers like the European Commission, completed their opening statements, the ministerial went into closed-door negotiations. That featured several rounds where member states could subscribe to the various optional programs, with negotiations between the rounds, Aschbacher, talking to reporters at the end of the day Wednesday, offered few specifics about the negotiations but sounded upbeat. “There are some countries who are putting a little more in the beginning, and some others a bit less at the beginning,” he said of the ongoing subscriptions. “The mood is very positive,” he added. “There is a very good spirit, and I think we are on a very good track. But I don’t want to speculate on what comes out tomorrow.” Those discussions continued until early Thursday afternoon, when ESA discussed the results. Out of a request of €22.254 billion, ESA members provided €22.067 billion. Aschbacher, who told reporters just before the ministerial that anything “above 20 billion will be considered a good success,” declared victory. “This is quite outstanding,” he said at a press conference where ESA announced the results. “It’s the first time, according to my recollection of years in ESA, that we have reached almost the level that the director general has proposed to the member states. This has never happened before.” “I think this message of Europe needing to catch up and to step up and literally elevate the future of Europe through space has been taken by our ministers very seriously,” Aschbacher said. While ESA got 99% of its topline budget request, the results varied among various programs. Some, such as in space transportation and navigation, were oversubscribed, getting more money than requested. That include the European Launcher Challenge, where ESA had requested less than €500 million but ended up securing more than €900 million. All five companies would get significant funding in the form of launch contracts or awards to fund development of larger vehicles. Science, a mandatory program, also got an increase that will exceed the rate of inflation for the first time in several years. “We are leveling up with the science program,” Aschbacher said, saying it would support missions in development as well as new concepts, like a lander mission to Saturn’s moon Enceladus—an icy world with a subsurface ocean—that requires preparatory work now even though the mission will not launch until the 2040s. However, human and robotic exploration, which includes programs ranging from the International Space Station to Mars Sample Return, fell short of its goal by about 20%, with just under €3 billion committed. It wasn’t clear why member states did not support exploration as enthusiastically as it did other programs, and Aschbacher said it was too early to say what specific programs might be affected. ESA said later that programs like Argonaut and an initiative to develop European cargo spacecraft were funded. Just before the press conference, Aschbacher stood outside the main meeting room for the ministerial with the ministers representing France, Germany, and Italy. He announced that astronauts from those three countries would get ESA’s three current seats on Artemis missions to the lunar Gateway, with a German astronaut going first. One question mark at the end of the ministerial was the funding for ERS. In the budget proposal released Wednesday, ESA said it was seeking €1.35 billion for ERS, but the funding results it released at the press conference did not mention how much funding the agency secured for ERS. Aschbacher said that the numbers presented had folded ERS funding into ESA’s existing budget lines for Earth observation, navigation, and communications. However, he and other officials said members had provided significant funding for ERS, including an oversubscription for initial phases of the work on the imaging constellation. Despite the uncertainties on some programs, Aschbacher said he was pleased with what came out of the ministerial, as ESA members delivered on the call for unity in space. “I think this message of Europe needing to catch up and to step up and literally elevate the future of Europe through space has been taken by our ministers very seriously.” Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

The Death Of A Russian AST Plane

Falcon Echelon On the night of November 24, Ukraine launched an attack on a Russian airfield, damaging aircraft maintenance facilities and destroying two aircraft, including the A-60 aircraft equipped with an experimental laser ASAT system. The plane is identifiable by the structure atop the fuselage aft of the wing. (credit: Russian internet) Burning Falcon: the death of a Russian laser ASAT plane by Dwayne A. Day Monday, December 1, 2025 In the darkness of the early morning of November 25, Ukrainian drones and missiles hit the Russian Taganrog airbase. Russian social media soon lit up with videos of the attack, including an intriguing one showing a missile exploding above a large, oddly-shaped airplane. By early in the day on November 25, commercial satellite photos of the airbase became available, showing what many observers already suspected—that one of the airplanes destroyed at the base was a retired laser testbed, apparently for developing systems for attacking American satellites. Named “Falcon Echelon,” it is now a pile of rubble. But its mysteries remain. Falcon Echelon The night of the attack, the NASA FIRMS infrared sensor showed infrared events at the Taganrog airfield, later confirmed by satellite images. (credit: NASA) Popping balloons In the very early 1980s, CIA analysts at the agency’s headquarters outside of Washington received an odd bit of intelligence. According to a former analyst, a Russian who emigrated to Israel had reported on a new aircraft that the Soviet Union was developing. It was a modified Il-76 transport aircraft equipped with a laser to shoot down American “spy balloons”. The Russians had an active laser weapon development program, as did the United States. What surprised the analysts was that they were unaware of any American “spy balloons” for the Soviets to shoot at. The aircraft, which was designated the Beriev A-60, was an awkward-looking bird featuring a bulbous nose and several other large bulges to the fuselage. It is possible that the information was compartmented and the CIA analysts didn’t have the need to know about it. The United States had certainly flown reconnaissance balloons over the Soviet Union in the 1950s and apparently had a program to disguise signals intelligence receivers as weather balloon equipment during the 1960s. But the émigré’s story did not make sense in the early 1980s, long after the programs were supposedly discontinued (see “The truth is up there: American spy balloons during the Cold War,” The Space Review, April 17, 2023.) A few years later, the CIA, checking periodic imagery of the airfield where the aircraft was based, saw that it had burned up. Analysts reviewing the evidence concluded that there had probably been an accident involving the reactive chemicals used in the gas-dynamic laser. It would be many years before they learned the truth. A second aircraft was converted, but it was not finished until the early 1990s and was placed in storage without starting test flights. Falcon Echelon The badge for the SOKOL-ESHELON project, which shows a lightning bolt striking what looks like the Hubble Space Telescope, symbolizing an American reconnaissance satellite, and making it go dark over Russian territory. (credit: Russian internet) Misshapen Falcon By the 2000s, the Russians began flight testing a converted Il-76 transport aircraft equipped with an onboard laser. Painted on the side of the aircraft were the words “SOKOL-ESHELON,” which translate to “Falcon Echelon”, and an image of the Hubble Space Telescope being zapped by a lightning bolt and going dark over Russian territory. The aircraft, which was designated the Beriev A-60, was an awkward-looking bird featuring a bulbous nose and several other large bulges to the fuselage. Although some reports stated that the nose housed a tracking laser in a turret, like the US Air Force’s 747-based Airborne Laser, close up photographs of the nose revealed no openings or indications that it rotated to expose a laser emitter. A December 2010 Russian article indicated that this was a “Ladoga-3” radar for detecting aerial targets. Two bulges on either side of the lower fuselage reportedly housed auxiliary power unit generators for the laser. A large bulge on the upper back of the aircraft, which was not easily visible in photos from the ground, was apparently a sliding port for a one-megawatt laser turret. The laser was clearly intended to fire upwards, at something above the plane, rather than to the sides or down, to engage ground targets or other aircraft. It apparently had an effective range of 300 to 600 kilometers. It was that distinctive bulge on the upper side of the plane that quickly led observers to believe that it was this aircraft that was blown up in the Ukrainian attack. Falcon Echelon The A-60 was equipped with a tracking radar in the nose. The plane was parked for a long time before it was destroyed. (source) The first Russian airborne laser aircraft, the one spotted by the CIA and later destroyed by fire in the 1980s and designated LL1A, had a somewhat stereotypically Russian demise. Although a Russian artist chose to paint the Hubble on the plane, it was clearly meant to symbolize an American reconnaissance satellite. The satellite’s path indicated a polar orbit that goes black over Russian territory—the obvious implication being that the laser was intended to blind or otherwise disable American surveillance satellites over Russia. It is likely that this was somewhat fanciful and that Falcon Echelon was a test program and not an operational laser system. Falcon Echelon Internal cutaway of the modified Il-76 aircraft. This depicts the first laser test system, which was destroyed in a fire in the late 1980s. Another airplane was converted in the late 1980s and was the one destroyed in 2025. (credit: Russian internet) Cold War origins The original airborne laser program was started in 1977 and used a modified IL-76(MD) aircraft renamed the Beriev A-60 for the Beriev aircraft company that modified the airframe. The first aircraft was designated 1A and first took flight on August 19, 1981. The second aircraft, designated 1A2, did not fly until August 29, 1991. According to Pavel Podvig, a researcher on Russian strategic weapons systems, the project was originally called Dreif (“Drift”). The first aircraft began laser tests against airborne targets in late 1983–1984 and fired against high-altitude balloons at 30 to 40 kilometers altitude. The plane later was used to attack an airborne La-17 drone aircraft. Falcon Echelon The A-60 was a modified Il-76 transport plane. (source) The first Russian airborne laser aircraft, the one spotted by the CIA and later destroyed by fire in the 1980s and designated LL1A, had a somewhat stereotypically Russian demise. No James Bond snuck onto a military installation late at night and planted plastic explosives to destroy a Soviet superweapon. Instead, it was a story that is all too Russian. According to one account, the aircraft was being prepped for flight. Early one morning two technicians snuck out to the aircraft to siphon alcohol out of its de-icing system so that they could party. This is not exactly news—MiG pilot defector Viktor Belenchko discussed this practice in the 1980 book MiG Pilot and noted how it was common for enlisted personnel to suffer alcohol poisoning from drinking the nearly toxic brew that was used in aircraft de-icing systems. But the system was pressurized, and while the men were in the plane they somehow started a fire. They jumped out, closed the hatch, and ran away. When a fire crew finally showed up, the firemen did not have permission to open the hatch on the secret aircraft to get inside with their fire hoses. Unfortunately, the aircraft apparently exploded on the ground, killing one person. The airplane was lost, and later photographed by American reconnaissance satellites. A second aircraft, designated LL1A2, was built and first flew in 1991, but the program was ended by 1993. The aircraft was preserved for another decade before being called into service. Falcon Echelon The modifications to the aircraft included a hump behind the wing for the laser aperture. (source) Laser sword The Russian military started the SOKOL-ESHELON program in 2002. NPO Almaz was the prime contractor. The Chemical Automatics Design Bureau (KBKhA) in Voronezh started development of the laser system. Russian language articles about SOKOL-ESHELON referred to it as being in the “OKR” or “Experimental Design Work” stage, a well-established R&D category that follows “NIR”, “Scientific Research Work.” One of the subcontracts let under SOKOL-ESHELON is for a precision system for imaging “exoatmospheric objects”, which tends to support the ASAT application theory that was confirmed by the satellite on the aircraft’s emblem. Falcon Echelon The logo on the aircraft indicating that its intended target was an American satellite. (source) Test flights of the LL1A2 aircraft started in the second half of the decade. On August 28, 2009, the aircraft fired a laser at Ajisaj, a Japanese geodetic satellite equipped with reflectors, making it a good target for a test. By 2011, a new Il-76 aircraft was ordered to continue tests. It was built in 2014 and delivered to the Ministry of Defense in 2015. According to Russian space analyst and historian Bart Hendrickx, who kept track of the program by searching for obscure Russian military procurement documents, SOKOL-ESHELON continued throughout the 2010s, but remained an experimental test program during this time, not transitioning into an operational weapon system. The older LL1A2 aircraft was to be a test aircraft, with the newer modified Il-76 intended to carry an operational laser. One illustration emerged allegedly of this third aircraft modified with a bulbous structure mounted behind the cockpit, apparently the aperture for the upward-shooting laser. This was different than the rear-mounted laser aperture on the LL1A2 aircraft. Rather than destroy satellites, it was intended to “dazzle” or blind them. Dazzling means obstructing their optical sensors, like somebody shining a flashlight in your eyes at night. Blinding involves permanently destroying the optical sensor. Significant information on the LL1A2 aircraft, including an internal cutaway of what was apparently the preliminary design, is on a Russian website. The program gathered a lot of media attention in Russia, but not all of it positive. One article referred to it as “pointless and not so ruthless.” Although the Beriev A-60 was photographed in flight and the Russian media reported on several test successes, by 2011 it was photographed by amateur military buffs, looking slightly weather-beaten. It was parked at an unguarded location. Falcon Echelon The A-60 parked at the location where it was destroyed in November 2025. (source) By 2015, the aircraft was parked at a location at Taganrog near the end of an apron and outside of a large maintenance building. According to Google Earth photos, it sat there for the next ten years, occasionally moved to another spot before moving back, but apparently never leaving the airport or the ground. The last flight was apparently in 2016. There it sat, until Ukraine blew it up last week. By 2020, SOKOL-ESHELON was apparently canceled. As Hendrickx noted in 2022, the decision to terminate the program was made in 2017, but it took another three years to actually terminate it, with some minor experiments still taking place. There were plans to remove equipment from the LL1A2 aircraft, but no indications that this ever occurred. Falcon Echelon TThe A-60 was tested in the later 2000s. Its last flight was apparently in 2016. It is unclear why Ukraine targeted it. (credit: Russian internet) Russia has long had ground-based laser programs. During the Cold War they were based at a sprawling missile test complex at Sary Shagan, in Kazakhstan. Even by the mid-1970s the CIA undertook a project called LAZY CAT to put a telescope with a laser detection sensor on an Iranian mountaintop to detect the reflection of lasers fired at satellites over Sary Shagan (see “Lazy Cat on a mountaintop,” The Space Review, April 29, 2024.) The attack on the A-60 is puzzling. The aircraft was no longer in use. Even if the laser equipment was stripped out, it is unlikely the plane would have had much military value as a transport. Russia was also pursuing development of a ground-based laser ASAT system. Peresvet and Kalina are ground-based laser dazzling systems, with Peresvet apparently now operational (see “Peresvet: a Russian mobile laser system to dazzle enemy satellites,” The Space Review, June 15, 2020, and “Kalina: a Russian ground-based laser to dazzle imaging satellites,” The Space Review, July 5, 2022.) Falcon Echelon Falcon Echelon Planet satellite photos showing the airfield before and after the attack. The A-60 and an Il-76 modified as a radar plane were destroyed. Surprisingly, the Tu-95 Bear bomber was not attacked. (credit: Planet, via Intelligentia Geosptialis) A mysterious target The Ukrainian attack destroyed the A-60 and another aircraft nearby designated A-100. The A-100 was an experimental airborne warning and control aircraft that had apparently not achieved much success. Nearby a Tu-95 Bear bomber remained unscathed. Additional Ukrainian missiles hit part of an aircraft maintenance building. According to a Ukrainian report, an important target inside that building was hit. The attack on the A-60, and to lesser extent, the A-100, is puzzling. The aircraft was no longer in use. Even if the laser equipment was stripped out, it is unlikely the plane would have had much military value as a transport, because it would have required substantial structural modification. The Bear would have been a more significant target because that type of aircraft is involved in launching missiles at Ukraine, and Ukraine destroyed several of them in a daring raid in June. Perhaps another aircraft was parked nearby earlier in the day and moved before the nighttime attack. Perhaps at some point the Ukrainian military will reveal why the plane was targeted. Special thanks to Bart Hendrickx. Dwayne Day can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.