Argentina's Aircraft Carrier from Space

aircraft carriers Throughout the Cold War, the United States monitored the activities of friend and foe alike. American reconnaissance satellites regularly overflew the naval bases of nations around the world and photographed them. In February 1981, a HEXAGON satellite photographed Argentina's aircraft carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo and the light cruiser ARA General Belgrano. A little over a year later, the Belgrano was sunk by a British nuclear submarine. (credit: Harry Stranger and Mariano Sciaroni) Argentina’s flattop: The aircraft carrier Veinticinco de Mayo spotted from space by Dwayne A. Day, Harry Stranger, and Mariano P. Sciaroni Monday, November 9, 2026 In May 1982, a cat-and-mouse game played out in the South Atlantic between a Royal Navy nuclear-powered submarine and an Argentine aircraft carrier. At times both came close to shooting at each other before they separated and escaped unscathed. Another game had much more deadly consequences when HMS Conqueror fired two torpedoes and sank the Argentine light cruiser ARA General Belgrano, with substantial loss of life. Now, newly declassified satellite photos demonstrate that the United States intelligence community kept tabs on the disposition of the Argentine Navy over many years. But it was nothing personal—the United States watched all the navies of the world, including Argentina’s regional rival, Brazil. There is an old joke among members of the US intelligence community: in God we trust, all others we monitor. aircraft carriers aircraft carriers ARA Veinticinco de Mayo moored at Puerto Belgrano, the Argentine Navy’s main naval base (November 1972 by a HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite). The carriers’ berth was known as “Battleship Pier”: it had been home to the Navy’s huge dreadnoughts, ARA Rivadavia and ARA Moreno, whose draft of more than ten meters demanded deep water. The first Argentine carrier, ARA Independencia, took their place there in 1958. The two ships in line are the Brooklyn-class cruisers ARA General Belgrano and ARA 9 de Julio, and the ship furthest to the left is possibly the ARA Cándido de Lasala (Q-43), an Ashland-class dock landing ship. (credit: via Harry Stranger) Naval rivals in the South Atlantic For years, there was a naval rivalry in the South Atlantic between two roughly equally matched opponents, Argentina and Brazil. In 1972, Argentina operated an aircraft carrier named ARA Veinticinco de Mayo, three light cruisers (soon reduced to two), eight destroyers, three frigates, and two corvettes. In November of that year, an American HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite overflew Argentina’s Puerto Belgrano and photographed the carrier, two cruisers, and other ships in port. To Argentina’s north, Brazil also had a substantial navy at the time, including a carrier nearly identical to Veinticinco de Mayo, two World War II-era former US Navy light cruisers, eleven destroyers, five frigates, and ten corvettes. Both navies' destroyers were mostly upgraded US Navy World War II-era Fletcher, Gearing, and Sumner-class vessels—excellent ships in their day, by now all showing their age. The two navies were thus roughly matched, with one important exception: Argentina’s carrier would soon operate Douglas A-4 Skyhawk attack jets, whereas Brazil’s carrier only operated the Grumman S-2A Tracker, flown by the Brazilian Air Force rather than the Navy. Both ships also operated helicopters (see “Carriers from space (part 2): Contemporary use of satellite imagery for open source intelligence,” The Space Review, August 12, 2024.) The British Colossus-class light aircraft carrier HMS Warrior was sold to Argentina in 1958, becoming ARA Independencia (V-1). The ship operated until 1970 when she was placed in reserve and scrapped a year later. She was replaced by that country’s second carrier, ARA Veinticinco de Mayo (V-2), which had first served in the Royal Navy as HMS Venerable and then the Royal Netherlands Navy as HNLMS Karel Doorman. The ship was transferred to Argentina in 1968. Brazil´s Minas Gerais had been modernized at a Dutch shipyard in the late 1950s, so by 1970 both Argentina and Brazil were operating sister ships with very similar capabilities, both modernized by the Dutch. aircraft carriers The Argentine aircraft carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo. The ship started life serving in Britain's Royal Navy as HMS Venerable, then in the Royal Netherlands Navy as HNLMS Karel Doorman. She was transferred to Argentina in 1968 and entered service in 1971. (credit: Wikimedia Commons) Veinticinco de Mayo’s air wing initially consisted of North American T-28P Fennec and Grumman S-2A Tracker ASW aircraft. But in the 1970s they were replaced with A-4Q Skyhawks, S-2E Tracker anti-submarine warfare aircraft, Sikorsky Sea King and Sud-Aviation SA.316 Alouette III helicopters. This gave Argentina the ability to attack other ships and submarines at distance, whereas Brazil only had an anti-submarine capability with its carrier. In February 1981, a HEXAGON satellite again overflew Puerto Belgrano. By this time, one of Argentina’s two cruisers had been retired, but the satellite photographed many ships in port, including the carrier and the ARA General Belgrano astern. aircraft carriers aircraft carriers Veinticinco de Mayo photographed in February 1981 by an American HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite. ARA General Belgrano is astern of the carrier. She would be sunk in May 1982 by a Royal Navy submarine. (credit: via Harry Stranger) The 1982 war When Argentina moved to seize the Malvinas (Falkland Islands) in April 1982, the aircraft carrier was the centerpiece of its navy. During Operation Rosario on April 2, she sailed with the covering force of Task Force 20, supporting the amphibious landing near Stanley. Her air group was built around three units: the A-4Q Skyhawks of the 3ª Escuadrilla Aeronaval de Caza y Ataque, S-2E Trackers for anti-submarine work and reconnaissance, and Sea King helicopters. The newly acquired Super Étendards had not yet been integrated for carrier operations. aircraft carriers Excerpt from a Top Secret CIA report on the Falklands War, assessing the deployment of Argentina's fleet. (credit: CIA) Her decisive moment came in the first days of May. Rear Admiral Gualter Allara’s Task Group 79.1 was deployed north of the islands, while the cruiser General Belgrano group (TG 79.3) operated to the south, threatening the British Task Force from two directions. On May 1, after the first British attacks on the islands, the carrier’s S-2 Trackers located elements of the British fleet, and a Skyhawk strike was prepared for dawn on May 2. Nature intervened. A near-total calm, combined with the carrier’s limited speed, meant she could not generate enough wind over the deck to launch the Skyhawks with a useful bomb load, and the strike was called off. Later that day, submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Belgrano, and the nuclear submarine threat became the overriding factor in Argentine naval planning. aircraft carriers The ARA Veinticinco de Mayo at dock in 1979 with the ARA General Belgrano moored astern. (credit: Mariano Sciaroni) The carrier’s own war became an anti-submarine one. On May 5, two Trackers and two Sea Kings from ARA Veinticinco de Mayo detected a submerged contact near the carrier, held it, and attacked it. It was not a British submarine. With the surface fleet ordered back to shallow coastal waters, where British nuclear submarines could not operate freely, the carrier entered port on May 10 and took no further part in operations at sea. Her Skyhawks still flew extensively in combat, operating from the naval air base at Río Grande (see “Satellite reconnaissance and the Falklands War,” The Space Review, November 4, 2024.) aircraft carriers aircraft carriers Veinticinco de Mayo photographed by an American HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite in September 1984. By this time the ship had been modified to carry Super Étendard attack planes, which had proved to be highly capable during the 1982 Falklands War. But by 1986, the ship was no longer operable. (credit: via Harry Stranger) In recent years, newly-declassified information from British archives indicates that British forces evaluated a long-range aircraft strike against the ship while she was in port. However, the war ended before such an operation entered advanced planning stages (see: “Buccaneers of the high frontier: Program 989 SIGINT satellites from the ABM hunt to the Falklands War to the space shuttle,” The Space Review, November 7, 2022.) In 1984, another HEXAGON satellite—the last one to ever fly—overflew Puerto Belgrano and photographed the carrier in port. In place of the cruiser Belgrano were two destroyers moored astern. aircraft carriers The naval base in 1996. The Veinticinco de Mayo is still there, but no longer operable. She was soon stricken and towed to India for scrapping. (credit: via Mariano Sciaroni) The end of an era In the 1940s and 1950s, the United Kingdom had sold off its smaller, so-called light carriers to countries like Australia, Canada, India, and the Netherlands. By the 1980s, many of those carriers were worn out and being retired. As those World War II-era carriers were decommissioned and scrapped, the number of aircraft carriers around the world rapidly diminished. Veinticinco de Mayo was mostly confined to port by 1986. Plans to modernize her stalled due to lack of funds, and by 1996 she had been stripped of many parts, some of which were used to service Brazil’s aircraft carrier, Minas Gerais. In 2000, she was towed to Alang, India, for scrapping. aircraft carriers A Carrier at Risk is Mariano Sciaroni's account of the cat and mouse game between the ARA Veinticinco de Mayo and a Royal Navy submarine in 1982. (credit: Helion Press) Mariano Sciaroni holds a master’s degree in Strategy and Geopolitics as well as a postgraduate diploma in Contemporary Military History, both earned at the Argentine Army’s Military Academy. He is also an active member of the Argentine Institute of Military History and serves as a sub-lieutenant in the Argentine Army Reserve (Army Aviation Reserve Squadron. He is the author of several books on the 1982 war, including A Carrier at Risk, about the cat and mouse chase between the Veinticinco de Mayo and the Royal Navy; Go Find Him and Bring Me Back His Hat, about Argentine anti-submarine operations; and Handbrake!: Dassault Super Étendard Fighter-Bombers in the Falklands/Malvinas War 1982. His upcoming book Wings Against Warships in the South Atlantic: Argentine Naval Aviation Tactics in the Falklands Conflict, is based upon new archival research and interviews with participants in the war and will be published in spring 2027. Harry Stranger’s website is https://spacefromspace.com/. Dwayne Day can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.

Remastering Apollo with Andy Saunder

Apollo Remastered A new exhibit of Apollo-era photographs in Ohio reveals more than has been seen before. (credit: Dwayne Day) Is there in truth no beauty? Remastering Apollo with Andy Saunders by Dwayne A. Day Monday, November 9, 2026 A photograph can reveal all, or it can tell a lie, and neither message may be intentional. Does a photo taken when somebody blinks show them sleeping? Does a photo of someone frowning mean they are sad, or could the shutter have captured them tasting something sour? A fraction of a second in time is more than enough for a shutter to place something in context or take it entirely out of it. That contradiction is inherent in photography. Professional photographers may seek to capture truth in their images, but they know that the lens can lie, even without intention. And yet, a photo can be both two dimensional and yet infinitely deep. For several years now, Andy Saunders has been selecting photos from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions and remastering them, and in the process, he has sometimes found the truth that was there all along. A new exhibit at a small museum in the middle of Ohio now shows us some of that truth. Apollo Remastered There have been millions of photos taken of the early American space program, official government photos and media photographers and of course amateurs using their store-bought Nikons and Polaroid Instamatics taking grainy and blurry photos of rocket launches from Florida beaches. There were far fewer photographs taken by the astronauts themselves during the missions, and the media published a small fraction of these, taking the best photo out of a sequence of shots and using that to illustrate much of the mission. There was an inherent bias in this effort. Photo editors selected the images that looked best to them, ignoring the rest. Apollo Remastered Photos in the bin But what has been little known or understood is that many photos were rejected even before editors ever looked at them. NASA technicians developed the original film, made copies of the useable images, and then retired the originals to deep cold storage. By selecting the “useable” images to share with the media, somebody was making a judgment call that would last for decades. What nobody understood at the time was that some images that looked terrible or even completely unusable could be saved. There was still truth to be found in the originals, buried in the chemical emulsion of the film, but that truth was out of reach, preserved in a cold vault. It used to be that one of the arguments that silly people employed to prove that the Moon landings were fake was that the photographs were too good, always well-framed and in focus, as if master photographer Stanley Kubrick (who also sometimes directed movies) had taken them himself. This was balderdash, and most of those silly people moved on to other silly arguments. The Apollo astronauts took plenty of photographs that were out of focus or poorly exposed, but few people saw them, and nobody cared. Apollo Remastered In late September, Andy Saunders gave a talk at the Neil A. Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Ohio about his work remastering Apollo-era photographs, now on exhibit at the museum. (credit: Dwayne Day) Decades after the original photos were sequestered away, they were removed from storage, thawed, and scanned at very high resolution before being sent back to the cold and the dark. The scanned files were made publicly available, and some people took advantage of that to publish much better looking versions of the photos that had been seen for decades. Andy Saunders started looking at photos that nobody had paid any attention to, the ones that did not even look like photographs, the ones that were out of focus, or almost completely black. And sometimes he found something astounding in them. Apollo Remastered Light from darkness In the late 1990s, Michael Light produced Full Moon, a book and museum exhibition of Apollo photos. Light was interested in what he called “landscape representation,” and the beauty of the very large format prints that he produced and exhibited in museums was that they made the viewer begin to experience the lunar surface. One could see the dust on an astronaut’s spacesuit and practically taste it. I remember looking at one photo of moonwalker Alan Bean’s leg covered in dust and feeling an oncoming urge to sneeze. What Saunders realized was that many of the Apollo photographs were underexposed, meaning that they were too dark. That included even some of the most famous and most published photos, such as a photograph of Neil Armstrong in the Lunar Module smiling after returning from his moonwalk. The photo that has been published in countless books and articles has an orange hue, as if Armstrong was sitting by a fireplace, giving it an emotional warmth. Armstrong looks happy, friendly, almost as if he’s sipping bourbon at a party. That underexposure conceals some of the truth, however. Saunders took the high-res scan and adjusted the exposure, revealing the lines in Armstrong’s face and the redness of his eyes. The image changes subtly. Rather than joyfully happy, Armstrong looks more relieved, and exhausted, less like a man who has just accomplished something great, than someone happy he is still alive. He has survived—for now. Apollo Remastered One of the main reasons that Saunders can do this is because, especially for the Apollo program, the astronauts were equipped with the best cameras, the best lenses, and the best film that technology could provide. During the Mercury program, cameras were barely an afterthought, let alone a priority. Test pilots wouldn’t carry a camera into the cockpit of a high-performance aircraft. The first handheld camera on an American space mission was personally purchased by John Glenn at a drugstore, not provided by NASA. During the Gemini program, NASA began including cameras as part of the regular equipment and putting photography onto the mission agendas. Saunders has worked with both Mercury and Gemini photographs, achieving some stunning results. Saunders has also taken some of the movie film from various missions and used a photographic technique known as stacking to produce higher quality still photos. Stacking essentially involves layering multiple frames on top of each other to improve the signal to noise ratio of a photo. Parts of an image can be laid on top of missing parts of an image. Still photographers do this regularly, particularly for subjects like astronomical photography, where so little light has been gathered in each shot that the photographers layer the captured photons on top of each other. The digital tools for doing it are powerful and did not exist a few decades ago, but still photographers are helped by the fact that their camera is in a fixed position. Saunders has taken movie frames where the camera, the subject, or both are moving, and rotated or moved the frames to layer the images, achieving a clarity impossible until now. Apollo Remastered Saunders has remastered this famous photograph of Neil Armstrong in the Lunar Module. The new image reveals stress lines in his face, and bloodshot eyes. Previous versions of this photo had more warmth. Now, Armstrong looks like a man exhausted and relieved after a strenuous ordeal. (credit: Dwayne Day) Anybody who has looked at badly enhanced photos using AI techniques has seen how AI turns surfaces, including human features, into plastic. AI also hallucinates, adding things to the photo that were never there in the original: for instance, morphing blurry and indistinct letters and words on a sign so that it says something nonsensical, or even produces gobbledygook. Saunders does not use AI. He is not adding anything to an image that is not already there; he is drawing out the information—the truth?—that is there but may be obscured. Saunders has published two books with photographs. One is from the Mercury and Gemini missions, and the other is Apollo photographs. He produced a video show narrated by Tom Hanks that has appeared in cities such as London and Washington, DC. The collection of large print photographs has also appeared in several cities and is now on display at the Neil A. Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio. Apollo Remastered Another famous Apollo 11 photograph. The Apollo program used the best quality cameras, lenses, and film, recording far more data than can be easily conveyed in a book or a computer screen. A large format print reveals details you cannot otherwise see. (credit: Dwayne Day) When the Apollo 11 astronauts first began walking around the Moon, Neil Armstrong remarked, “Magnificent sight out here,” prompting Buzz Aldrin to respond with “magnificent desolation,” a description so poetic he later used it as the title of a book. In most photos of the lunar surface taken either from above it or on the ground it looks grey, dull. But the reality is that there is color in the Moon: not only a million shades of grays and blacks but also browns and tans. Most photographic reproduction techniques have eliminated the subtleties. Saunders has gone looking for them. The dozen or so photos Saunders has included in the show are mostly from Apollo 11. But during a recent talk about the exhibit, he showed many other photos from his books and talked about his techniques. One of the photos is of astronaut Rusty Schweikart on his spacewalk during the Apollo 9 mission. The photo, taken from inside the spacecraft, reveals most of Schweikart’s full body and it looks as if he is standing on the spacecraft, like a wingwalker atop an airplane. Although Apollo 9 has received less attention than the lunar landing missions, this photo has been published before. But Saunders has improved the exposure, enhancing the colors, turning Schweikart into a Greek hero challenging the universe. Apollo Remastered Andy Saunders has produced two books of remastered photographs from the early years of the space program. (credit: apolloremastered.com) Probably the most striking example of what Saunders has done is a photo that is on the cover of his Apollo Remastered book. It shows astronaut Jim McDivitt looking out a small window on the top of the Lunar Module during Apollo 9, staring up as if towards some great revelation. What is amazing is that the original photo was almost completely black except for a spot of light coming through the window. Saunders realized that the data—the very existence of McDivitt in the frame—was there in the blackness, it just had to be revealed. One of my personal favorites is not in the show. It is a photo of Pete Conrad exiting the Apollo 12 Lunar Module. In the original photo, taken by Alan Bean, Conrad is dark against a brighter background, almost invisible. Saunders has lightened up the photo, revealing the details and the color. It almost looks fake, but it’s the truth that was waiting decades for somebody to find it. It belongs in the Pete Conrad and Alan Bean Museum, when somebody finally builds it. Apollo Remastered One of the author's personal favorites is this Apollo 12 photograph of astronaut Pete Conrad taken by Alan Bean and remastered by Andy Saunders. The original was very dark and Conrad was a shadow. The remastered version shows the Moon explorer. (credit: apolloremastered.com) The photography exhibit is at the Neil A. Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio until spring 2027. Go see it, before this brief moment in time is gone.

We Chose To Go T The Moon-A PBS Presentation

We CHose to Go to the Moon “We Chose to Go to the Moon,” performed life at Carnegie Hall in April, is part documentary and part musical. (credit: American History Unbound) Review: We Chose to Go to the Moon by Jeff Foust Monday, November 9, 2026 As the 60th anniversaries of the Apollo program start to appear on the horizon, it is increasingly difficult to find something new to say about that effort to send humans to the Moon, or new ways to tell that story. Most of those involved have long since told their stories about their roles in Apollo, if they chose to do so; many are no longer with us. The historical records have been scoured, although even old photos can tell new stories (see “Is there in truth no beauty? Remastering Apollo with Andy Saunders”, The Space Review, this issue.) “We Chose to Go to the Moon” is part documentary, part musical, and part multimedia show. There is still creativity, though, in storytelling. “What you’re about to see is unlike any telling about mankind’s journey to the Moon that I have ever experienced,” Ron Howard, the director of Apollo 13, says at the beginning of “We Chose to Go to the Moon,” which will premiere on PBS November 10 and also be available on the network’s website and app. PBS, in its publicity materials for the show, calls it a “‘living documentary’ and immersive theatrical experience.” It is not clear what a “living documentary” is, but immersive theatrical experience is an apt description for the two-hour performance that was recorded live at Carnegie Hall in April. “We Chose to Go to the Moon” is part documentary, part musical, and part multimedia show. John Monsky, a writer and historian, serves as the narrator on stage, taking the audience on a guided tour through the history of the early Space Age, frequently interspersed with performances, both spoken word and singing, by a small cast of actors. There are no costumes and no props, other than a handful of artifacts that Monsky shows off during the performance, like a small swatch of material that had been cut off in the production of the flag that would go to the Moon on Apollo 11 or a felt-tip pen, made in Brooklyn, that Buzz Aldrin would use to fix a broken ignition switch in the lunar module on that mission so they could lift off from the surface. (“Never count out Brooklyn!” Monsky declares to cheers from the audience.) It sticks to the straight and narrow in historical interpretations of the race to the Moon; a celebration as much as a documentary. There is, though, extensive use of images and video, projected on screens behind the performers, as well as an orchestra on stage. That orchestra supports the musical aspect of the performance, with the cast singing pop songs from the era, from “Space Oddity” to “Age f Aquarius.” There is also a cameo near the end with Neil Armstrong’s son Mark and graddaughter Kali; she sings a song he wrote about Neil’s love of flying gliders. “We Chose to Go to the Moon” is a whirlwind review of the early space program up through Apollo (a coda fast-forwards even faster up to the present day and Artemis 2.) It never lingers on any single event or person; Armstrong is the closest to a central historical figure in the performance. It sticks to the straight and narrow in historical interpretations of the race to the Moon; a celebration as much as a documentary. It’s unlikely you will learn anything new from the performance, but it is entertaining and, as Howard says, novel. It is also enlightening to see how the events of more than a half-century ago are reinterpreted for new generations and new audiences. In an era of short-form video on smartphones, the stage still offers a sense of grandeur and gravitas. It also makes one wonder if, six decades hence, we will see something similar for Artemis. 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.

Is The Lunar South Pole The Right Place For A Lunar Base?

Moon Base An illustration of NASA’s proposed lunar base at the south pole of the Moon. Some argue that the south pole is the wrong place for humans to go, at least for initial Artemis missions. (credit: NASA) Is the south pole the right place for a lunar base? by Jeff Foust Monday, November 2, 2026 This weekend, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center will host the Max Power (or, as the agency capitalizes it, MAX POWER) air show. Besides being an unintentional homage to an episode of “The Simpsons,” Max Power is, as NASA describes it, “America’s newest and most exciting aerospace technology expo and air show.” It will include flight demonstrations and static displays of aircraft and space technology. However, even as NASA intensifies its focus on the Moon’s south pole, there are those who argue that emphasis is unwise. NASA will also use the event to provide an update on Moon Base, its plans announced at Ignition to establish a lunar base near the south pole of the Moon. In late May, when NASA announced contracts for lunar rovers and landers, it promised monthly updates. But the agency has not done a major update since a briefing at the end of June when it announced additional lander contracts. Some expect NASA to use the Max Power briefing to make new awards of lander contracts, including the companies selected for the new Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) 2.0 contract that will cover future robotic landers needed to develop the base. NASA has yet to announce where it will build the base beyond somewhere in the vicinity of the south pole. The agency has long emphasized the importance of going there, citing the likely presence of water ice and competition with China for the handful of locations that it considers optimal for a base. That interest in the lunar south pole long predates the announcement of Moon Base, when NASA was instead focusing a series of sortie landings in the south polar region that might eventually lead to a lunar base. However, even as NASA intensifies its focus on the Moon’s south pole, there are those who argue that emphasis is unwise. Those people, ranging from astronauts to scientists, say the risks of going to the south polar region on the first Artemis landings far outweigh the rewards. Glover Artemis 2 pilot Victor Glover observes the Moon during the April mission.. (credit: NASA) “Go fast, go familiar” One person who wants NASA to look elsewhere for the first Artemis landing is someone who flew around the Moon earlier this year. Victor Glover, pilot of Artemis 2, was a surprise speaker in July at the NASA Exploration Science Forum at the Ames Research Center in California. He eschewed a traditional presentation about the mission and instead spent most of the hour in an extended question-and-answer session with the scientists in the room. They asked him questions about the mission and his career and more. “On behalf of all the geologists here, what is your favorite rock?” one asked. (“Can I just say Earth?” he responded.) Another attendee asked him where the first Artemis mission should land. That prompted a lengthy response from Glover that pushed against NASA’s longstanding plans to immediately go to the south polar region of the Moon. “If you’ve ever seen me speak, you’ve probably heard me say, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’ There’s another thing I say all the time too: if you want to go fast, go familiar,” he said. “We want to get to the surface. If we want to land soon: familiar, daylight, equator.” Part of his concerns revolved around NASA’s plans at the time to stage the lunar landing from a near-rectilinear halo orbit. Once the lander touched down, it would have to stay for about a week before Orion would be in position again for the lander to dock with it. “If an appendix ruptures, the current plan we have right now, if it ruptures on landing day, you’re stuck for a week. That’s a big deal to me,” he said. “So, the equator gives me opportunity to save that person.” Another issue he had with a polar landing is that he felt it took too much risk on a single mission. “We’ve got to work our way towards the south pole, of course, but it doesn’t have to be first, right?” he said, calling upon his test pilot experience of gradually building up in speed and altitude. “You have a process for accepting risk more and more, but also retiring it right.” “We’ve got to work our way towards the south pole, of course, but it doesn’t have to be first, right?” Glover said. There are several reasons why the south polar region is such a challenging place to land, including rugged terrain and low sun elevation angles. “You think driving home into the sunset is challenging? Imagine being on another celestial body and going from this room to low sun angle in a suit,” he said. One of the scientists in the room for Glover’s talk was Pascal Lee, a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute. He shares those concerns about going immediately to the south pole of the Moon, not just because of the risks of operating there but also uncertainty about water ice thought to be there. “The south polar regions is really very hard to work in. You are setting yourself up for some unnecessary challenges,” he said at the Space Economy Summit last week in Orlando. “There is water at the south pole, but we don’t know how much exactly or where it is exactly.” He reiterated concerns about low sun angles. “The vast majority of the terrain doesn’t see much sun,” he said, beyond a few locations that are nearly permanently in sunlight. Similarly, the Earth is out of view for extended periods for many regions. “This is not great for human operations at all.” One issue that raises is low temperatures. While the lunar surface can get quite warm in equatorial regions during the two-week lunar day, it remains cold in the polar regions. In the day, temperatures range from 40 to 90 kelvins, well below even nighttime temperatures in equatorial regions. “Forty to 50 kelvin, that’s the temperature of the surface of Pluto,” he said. “We do not have robotic systems that operate at those temperatures.” As for the water ice, he noted that there is an estimated 600 billion kilograms of water at the south pole, which would fill 240,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. “That sounds like an attractive number, but the area over which this is spread out is huge,” he said. The best estimate is that regolith with the highest concentrations of water contains only 0.5% of water by mass. That means one metric ton of regolith would contain only five liters of water. “This is not screaming ‘resource’ to me. This is screaming ‘scientific curiosity,’” he concluded. “It is not clear to me to all at this minute that we should be rushing to the south pole.” Clavius Clavius crater was the site of the lunar base in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and might be an ideal location for an actual lunar base. (credit: MGM) Where else to go? If the south pole isn’t the first place for humans to go when they return to the Moon, what are the alternatives? Last month, the National Academies released a report commissioned by NASA titled “Human Exploration Across the Moon.” The study examined potential sites beyond the lunar poles that could host individual sortie Artemis missions, complementing landings at the polar regions. “A broader exploration strategy that includes visiting sites globally distributed across the Moon offers access to enormous diversity of scientific and potential economic opportunities, including access to geology, resources, geographical and site characteristics not found at the poles,” said James Day, a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of California San Diego who co-chaired the study. “It will be highly beneficial to space exploration and complementary to a sustained polar presence on the lunar surface.” The report identified four specific regions the committee who worked on the study concluded were the most important locations for crewed visits. Topping that list was Bhabha Crater, located on the lunar farside in the middle of the sprawling South Pole-Aitken Basin. “It’s an amazing location to do all kinds of science,” he said, from lunar geology to determine the age of the basin to setting up radio telescopes shielded from terrestrial emissions. Water ice concentrations at the south pole of the Moon are no greater than 0.5%. “This is not screaming ‘resource’ to me. This is screaming ‘scientific curiosity,’” Lee concluded. Second on the list was Mons Hadley, which was visited by Apollo 15 in 1971. The report specifically recommended visiting the landing site by touching down two kilometers away from it, close enough for astronauts to walk to the site. (The report did not assume the sortie missions would have access to a rover but added that a simple unpressurized one “enhances and amplifies” what each mission could do.) A mission to Mons Hadley would not only allow astronauts to continue lunar science started by the Apollo 15 mission but also to study the landing site itself, from the lander’s descent stage to even the bags of human waste left behind by the astronauts before they left. “This is a fantastic opportunity to be able to go there and have the astronauts review and assess the rover, descent stage, instrumentation packages and energy systems” left behind, said Dan Dumbacher, a professor of engineering practice in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue University who was the other co-chair of the study. “It would be foundational information for how we need to engineer the systems for lunar bases.” Third on the list was Orientale Basin, a multi-ring impact basin on the limb of the lunar near side. Day called this a “pristine Moon and pristine solar system mission” that would be visited just once by astronauts, studying lunar geology and setting up a gravitational wave observatory. The latter, he said, would be a long-term experiment that needed to avoid disruption by frequent landings. The fourth and final site was Aristarchus Plateau. It offers a wide diversity of terrain for study, said Dumbacher. “There is much to learn from the diversity of volcanism on this plateau,” he said, and added the site could also be used for a space weather observatory. The study emphasizes that the four regions recommended for sortie missions were not meant to replace missions at the south pole but complement them by visiting regions of scientific interest beyond what’s accessible at the poles. “It will be highly beneficial to space exploration and complementary to a sustained polar presence on the lunar surface,” said Day. How these fit into NASA’s current strategy that emphasizes a south pole lunar base is not clear. NASA commissioned the study a year and a half ago, long before new Moon Base program emerged at Ignition. “We have provided them and the community what we believe is a solid case of science objectives and locations that NASA can factor into their planning,” Dumbacher said. It is up to NASA, he added, to determine “where do they go and when do they do it.” NASA has said little about the report since its October 21 release. Lee, speaking at the Space Economy Summit, had his own idea. He proposed setting up a lunar base at Clavius crater, at about 60 degrees south latitude on the near side of the Moon. It would allow astronauts to drive to the south pole “relatively easily,” drawing parallels to Antarctic exploration that started with bases on the coast that support expeditions towards the pole. Clavius itself, he said, is an interesting place for exploration, with features ranging from caves and volcanic mounds to small permanently shadowed regions that could serve as training for visiting larger such regions at the poles. From Clavius, it is about a 900-kilometer traverse to the south pole, something he argued is feasible with future pressurized rovers. “We have provided them and the community what we believe is a solid case of science objectives and locations that NASA can factor into their planning,” Dumbacher said. It is up to NASA, he added, to determine “where do they go and when do they do it.” If Clavius sounds familiar, it may be because it was the site of the lunar base in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Lee said his selection of the crater was not influenced by the film but is fortuitous nonetheless. “As it turns out, I think if we actually did this, it would drum up a huge amount of public support,” he said. “It would be a case of reality meeting fiction.” For now, though, NASA appears focused on its Moon Base program for the south pole, something that appeared to frustrate Glover. “I would go where we know. That’s just me, and nobody’s asking me those questions. I’ve tried to force that conversation,” he said in July. “So, if Jared listens to this recording,” he said later, referring to NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, “I had this conversation with your predecessor, and we should talk.” Some of Glover’s concerns have been addressed by recent changes to the Artemis architecture. At an October 23 briefing, agency officials said they were no longer planning to use a near-rectilinear halo orbit for Artemis landings. For missions using SpaceX’s Starship lander, Starship will dock with Orion in Earth orbit and push Orion out to a low lunar orbit. For Blue Origin’s Blue Moon, Orion and the lander will dock in an elliptical polar orbit around Moon that would be closer than the halo orbit, although NASA did not reveal specifics about the orbit. NASA added that with the use of a stretched Centaur upper stage on the Space Launch System along with a kick stage—details of which the agency did not disclose at the briefing—Orion could travel directly to a low lunar orbit, helping resolve some of the landing site accessibility concerns Glover raised. However, the south pole of the Moon still has the rugged terrain and challenging lighting conditions that make landings difficult. At some point, NASA may need to weigh those technical risks with the political risks of seeing a Chinese crew land first. 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 submitt

How China Uses Culture To Build Its Soft Space Power

launch A Long March 5 rocket, carrying the Chang’e-6 spacecraft, blasts off from its launchpad at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in South China’s Hainan Province on May 3, 2024. (credit: VCG) The space code: How China uses culture to build its space soft power by Krzysztof Karwowski Monday, November 2, 2026 The Chinese Space Program (CSP) developed from a secret, military-oriented project into a multi-domain venture in which the Communist Party leadership sees a new engine for the slowing economy. At the same time, the Chinese space nomenclature has pivoted away from narrow socialist rhetoric toward indigenous cosmology, myths, and local history of science. Today, the space missions bear their names of deities and ancient astronomers, instead of revolutionary slogans. Space programs are neither purely technological nor military domains. They offer a specific opportunity as vehicles of soft power projection. Beijing leverages the nomenclature of its space missions to legitimize the vision of the “great rejuvenation of the nation“ (Fùxīng) and cultivates the image of civilization-state of inventors and astronomers. While Western space exploration relied for decades on Greco-Roman traditions, China’s cultural codification offered an alternative pole in astropolitics, trying to export its original vision across the Global South especially. Space programs are neither purely technological nor military domains. They offer a specific opportunity as vehicles of soft power projection. Their functions as science diplomacy brands calibrated to generate domestic pride, influence the rising astropolitical order. Throughout the Cold War space race, both the United States and the Soviet Union drew from a shared Mediterranean heritage despite fundamental ideological division. Both superpowers utilized Greek and Roman mythology (Gemini, Apollo, Helios in the American case, Luna and Venera on the Soviet side). When the People’s Republic of China launched its first satellite in 1970, it was named Dong Fang Hong (“The East Is Red,” the title of the patriotic communist anthem), while its launch vehicles were named the Cháng Zhēng (the Long March, an important event of the history of Chinese communism and foundation of Mao Zedong’s path to power). This was classic, austere revolutionary language of space narrative. The death of Mao was a turning point. The zealous party campaigns were gradually withdrawn, and the fight against the legacy of the past was abandoned. Over the past decades, Beijing’s public diplomacy and visual statecraft have undergone a structural evolution. An examination of the nomenclature of Chinese space missions reveals an obvious departure from communist symbolism. Across the space endeavors, strictly political motifs comprise only a small fraction, whereas designations rooted in mythology and philosophy of nature predominate. Communism remained only in the matter of launching capabilities, where most of the payloads were still carried out by the Long March rocket family. In traditional Chinese religious thought, the Heavens (Tiān) served as the primary source of moral order, harmony, and political legitimacy. The sovereign derived the “Mandate of Heaven” (Tiānxia) as the Son of Heavens (Tiānzǐ). The modern Chinese authority undertakes a pragmatic secular transfer of these archetypes: technological milestones are applied to legitimize state competence and one-party rule, transposing traditional attributes of divinity into modern developmental statecraft. launch The family of Long March rockets on display at an exhibition at Beihang Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. (credit: author) Mythological pantheon on the Moon Within the CSP, the selection of names is neither accidental nor a technical shorthand. It constitutes a cohesive framework of cultural narrative. The most prominent example is lunar exploration project known as the Cháng’é Program. This lunar research effort bears the name of the mythical goddess of harvest, friendship, and longing. According to legend, beautiful Cháng’é, after consuming the elixir of immortality, ascended to reside on the Moon. Her name was given to the space probes exploring the Moon, while she herself became a broader patroness of the entire Chinese space program. The surface rovers deployed by the Cháng’é landers, were designated Yùtù (Jade Rabbit), the loyal companion of the goddess. In turn, the relay satellites enabling communication with the lunar far side were named Quèqiáo (Magpie Bridge), drawing on the folklore tale of separated lovers for whom a flock of magpies forms an annual celestial bridge across the Milky Way. Gods, poems and stars The China interplanetary program takes its name from Qu Yuan’s classical poem from the fourth century BCE titled Tiānwèn (“Questions to Heaven”), which contemplates the origins of the universe and the search for truth. Tiānwèn 1 was the flagship mission sent to orbit Mars in 2020 and land on its surface. The accompanying rover was named Zhùróng, after the mythical god of fire and war, mirroring the traditional Chinese designation for Red Planet. It is worth recalling that prior to the Tiānwèn launch, China attempted to send another Martian probe in cooperation with Russia. The failed Fobos-Grunt mission was intended to deliver the Chinese orbiter Yínghuǒ (“Firefly”) as part of the broader scientific project called Huǒxīng (Fire Star or Fire Planet). Why the Chinese decided to incorporate its ancient culture into a cutting-edge strategic research and technology effort? The identity and international perception, in line with soft-hard power conceptualization popularized by Joseph Nye, are not fixed. Another important example is China’s orbital infrastructure and its crown jewel, the space station. The literal meaning of Tiāngōng is the “Heavenly Palace”. Its science laboratory modules are named Wèntiān (Quest for the Heavens) and Mèngtiān (Dreaming of the Heavens), uniting ancient poetics with technological pragmatism. The core module, Tiānhé (Celestial Harmony), also received its sky-inspired connotation. Moreover, Chinese crews reach their orbital outpost aboard Shénzhōu (Divine Vessel) spacecrafts. The designation of these crewed vehicles carries a profound, layered cultural resonance readily understood across Chinese society. Beyond its literal meaning, Shénzhōu (神舟) is a homophone word for Shénzhōu (神州), the “Divine Land” or “Celestial Realm”, one of the historic honorifics for imperial China. Above the Middle Kingdom shines yet another symbol. It is the Běidǒu satellite system. China’s indigenous alternative to GPS takes its name from the Little Bear (Ursa Minor) constellation utilized by Chinese sailors for navigation. The function was the same, the name was completely different but domestically renowned. Other examples of the culture-rooted names for the space missions (alphabetic). Source: author’s individual research. Mission name Source Translation Mission description Gān Dé Astronomy Ancient Chinese official and astronomer born in the State of Qi Planned Tiānwèn 3 name to the Jupiter and its moon system Fēng Yún Meteorology Wind and Clouds Weather-forcasting satellite series Lóng Jiāng Geography Dragon River, Chinese name of Amur (Heilongjiang River), North China Lunar extreme wavelength satellite Mengzhōu Space inspiration Dream Boat, vessel from the dreams Designed crewed capsule Nüwa Mythology Goddess and creator of humankind Satellite measuring the anthropocentric CO2 emissions Tiānyǎn Space inspiration Sky Eye FAST; China 500-meter radiotelescope Wukōng Ming era novel “Journey to the West” Understanding the Void; referring to the elusive nature of dark matter; the name of the novel’s main character – Monkey King DAMPE – “Dark Matter Particle Explorer” orbital observatory Xī hé Tang era poem “Suffering from the Shortness of Days” Goddess of the Sun Chinese Hα Solar Explorer – sunwind monitoring mission Crucially, Beijing has institutionalized public engagement in the naming process. Since 2021, designations for aerospace hardware (landers, rovers, and spacesuits) have frequently been selected through nationwide public polls coordinated by the China National Space Administration. The celestial symbolism in this manner, became actively internalized by society, serving as a pillar of national cohesion and great-power identity. Mobilizing culture for geopolitics Why the Chinese decided to incorporate its ancient culture into a cutting-edge strategic research and technology effort? The identity and international perception, in line with soft-hard power conceptualization popularized by Joseph Nye, are not fixed. They are negotiated and constructed through social interactions and narrated symbolism. China has operationalized this dynamic that can be characterized as an achievement-branding loop. First, the technological achievements take place, when the CSP performs the pioneering missions (e.g., soft-landing on the far side of the Moon or the space station assembly). Next, the propaganda services run a carefully deliberated media branding. The discourse frames these breakthroughs within a civilizational narrative that spans millennia, casting China as a distinct technological civilization with its own epistemological paradigm. This is the main goal of leaving the socialist slogans and avoid image of a socialist imitator of the West. The Chinese nomenclature, culturally distinct to Western audiences, projects its own aura of technological autonomy and also an independent civilizational agency. Even the diplomatic efforts act to transform the space program into a political capital. Space missions elevated to the role of international prestige source, fueled by aerospace experts and vivid graphic messaging, incentivize international partners to join Chinese multilateral astronautic initiatives such as the launching campaign advertised by the China Great Wall Industry Corporation, or the format of the International Lunar Research Station, or ILRS. This trajectory mirrors the strategic directives set in state documents: “China’s Space Program: A 2021 Perspective“ and the White Paper on Diplomacy: “(2023) Global Community of Shared Future“. Both emphasize that external messaging must anchor itself in “deep cultural heritage interconnected with the unique experience of Chinese modernization.” The connection of ancient and new, cultural and technological, takes place. Strategic takeaways and implications For generations, the dominant narrative of space exploration relied almost exclusively on Western legends and historic milestones: the Artemis program named after the twin sister of Apollo is not an exception here. Beijing’s space expansion introduces an alternative symbolic lexicon. The Chinese nomenclature, culturally distinct to Western audiences, projects its own aura of technological autonomy and also an independent civilizational agency. The CSP became a bridge connecting millennial traditions with technological development in the information age. China systematically and globally communicates its concept of a “community with a shared future for mankind,” presenting itself as an inclusive architect of an alternative institutional architecture in counterpoint to American dominance. Promoting critical assets such as the BeiDou navigation network across the Global South, China reinforces long-term technological interoperability and geopolitical alignment. Western policymakers cannot afford to assess the Chinese space machine only through rocket payloads and number of launches. The competitive trajectory of CSP is driven as much by narrative diplomacy, carefully engineered strategic culture, and identity formation. Neglecting the civilizational dimensions of China’s space strategy risks underestimating both its appeal across emerging markets (Africa, Southeastern and Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans) and its mobilizational capacity at home. Krzysztof Karwowski is a PhD Candidate at SGH Warsaw School of Economics. Editor of the “Technological Race” column in Polish “Układ Sił” magazine. He conducted research in China (SCUT), Korea (KAIST), and Italy (University of Salerno). Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

A Reuseable Rocket Alone Is Not a Resilient Launch System

launch A Falcon 9 lifted off April 21 carrying a GPS 3 satellite, weeks after the Space Force reassigned the launch from ULA’s Vulcan. (credit: U.S. Space Force photo by Gwendolyn Kurzen) A reusable rocket alone is not a resilient launch system by Burak Oktenli Monday, November 2, 2026 SpaceX wants to attempt something extraordinary on Starship’s next flight: recover both the Super Heavy booster and the orbital spacecraft. Elon Musk said on October 20 that the company would try catching both stages on a flight planned for November. A successful demonstration would be a historic step toward fully reusable orbital transportation. It would not, by itself, establish how cheaply the system can turn around or how reliably a customer can reach orbit when it cannot fly. Months earlier, the US Space Force had answered a different launch question by moving a GPS satellite from one provider’s rocket to another and successfully launching it within seven weeks of the switch. One development advanced vehicle recovery; the other demonstrated access recovery. Reuse reduces the number of replacement vehicles a factory needs to build. That saves hardware, but it can also slow production learning and leave a specialized workforce dependent on a smaller annual build. Inna Galinger recently argued in The Space Review that Starship’s impact will depend on the economic activity enabled by its capacity, not simply on the advertised launch price (see “Starship’s real test may begin after launch,” The Space Review, October 12, 2026). That is right. The next layer of analysis concerns going from a promising vehicle to a dependable transportation service: refurbishment, manufacturing, launch pads, mission integration, spare capacity, and the ability to switch when a preferred rocket is unavailable. Reuse starts between flights A returning booster and a returning orbital stage face very different engineering burdens. The first stage separates well below orbital speed; an upper stage must endure the much greater thermal and structural demands of reentry from orbit. Recovery hardware and propellant also consume mass that could otherwise contribute to payload. These are familiar tradeoffs, not arguments that upper-stage reuse is impossible. The business case depends on what happens after landing. How many labor hours are spent inspecting thermal protection? How many components need replacement? How often does an engine or structural finding force an extended standdown? How many launches can the pad and its ground crews support while repairs and vehicle production proceed? A beautiful catch is a milestone in recovery, but alone is not proof of affordable reuse. Cadence matters for another reason. The development, manufacturing, and fixed costs of a reusable fleet must be spread across its completed missions. High demand can make those fixed costs easier to absorb, while frequent refurbishment can eat away at the advantage. A rocket flown ten times a year belongs to a different economic proposition from one flown many times that often, even with the same hardware. There is a less obvious manufacturing consequence. Reuse reduces the number of replacement vehicles a factory needs to build. That saves hardware, but it can also slow production learning and leave a specialized workforce dependent on a smaller annual build. There is no universal launch-rate threshold at which reuse becomes economical. The answer changes with the mission, factory economics, recovery approach, maintenance burden and accounting treatment. Cost itself needs precision. The price paid by a satellite customer is not SpaceX’s internal recurring cost; neither is the full program cost after development and infrastructure, or the customer’s cost of delay if a mission misses a narrow operational window. A provider can cut its own costs without passing the full savings to buyers. What a launch swap proved On March 20, the Space Force announced that its GPS 3-8 mission would move from United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 while an anomaly investigation on Vulcan continued. On April 21, the GPS satellite reached orbit. The government reported completing the provider change in under seven weeks. The episode is a more revealing measure of launch resilience than a count of rockets on contract: a mission with a real payload and destination could move between two operational systems in time to preserve its delivery. That result is encouraging, but it should not be romanticized. A GPS satellite is not a shipping container that can be placed on any available rocket. A switch can require new compatibility work on interfaces, loads, environments, mission software, range arrangements, integration schedules, and assurance. Some missions, especially very large or unusual spacecraft, have no near-term replacement vehicle. An alternative matters only if the payload can actually fly on it, the new provider is qualified for the task, and a launch opportunity exists. The episode is a more revealing measure of launch resilience than a count of rockets on contract: a mission with a real payload and destination could move between two operational systems in time to preserve its delivery. The Space Force already recognizes the value of multiple providers. Its National Security Space Launch Phase 3 program uses different lanes for missions with different demands. In July it expanded its Lane 1 pool to seven contract holders. This increases competitive possibilities, but contract eligibility is not equivalent to immediately available flight capacity; some providers still must complete qualifying flights and mission-specific work. Resilience must be counted in actual transfers of payloads among vehicles, not just names on an award list. The practical next step is a recurring launch-substitution exercise. Select a representative satellite and ask how quickly it could shift to a second qualified vehicle if the original vehicle was grounded. Include the engineering effort, available slots, price of the change, approvals that cannot be waived, and the chance of missing the customer’s actual deadline. A 30-day target could be a useful stretch goal for suitable missions, but it should be treated as a goal to test rather than a capability it assumes the industry already possesses. A constellation does not stop aging during a grounding The consequence of dependence grows as satellites become more numerous and less individually expensive. A proliferated constellation can withstand the loss of several satellites, but keeping it healthy requires an ongoing replacement stream. Losing that stream may be less dramatic than a launch failure and more consequential than it first appears. Consider a deliberately simplified 240-satellite constellation whose spacecraft reach the end of their service lives at an even rate over five years. It needs about four replacements per month. If the sole launcher is unavailable for a year, roughly one-fifth of the fleet could age out before replenishment resumes. If a prequalified second provider starts after a one-month delay and can cover three-quarters of normal replacement demand, the remaining fleet would be about 94% of the original size after that year instead of about 80%. These numbers are an illustrative inventory exercise, not a prediction of Starlink or of any real constellation. Actual satellites have different ages, lifetimes, reserves, and failure rates; on-orbit spares and coverage design matter. The example, though, illustrates one fact: recovery time and replacement capacity can dominate the consequences of a launcher grounding. chart Illustrative calculation only. Assumes 240 satellites, four retirements per month, and a backup replacing three per month starting after month one. This is not flight performance or an actual constellation forecast. Graphic by the author. Measure access recovery as carefully as vehicle recovery The next generation of launch services needs two scorecards, not one. The first belongs to the operator: repeated flights of recovered hardware, inspection labor, replaced parts, pad turnaround, mission success, and fully burdened costs for specified missions. The second belongs to the customer: how many days a grounding would delay a critical launch, how fast another provider could accept the payload, what the switch would cost, and whether the mission could still meet its deadline. The more space infrastructure depends on fast, cheap replenishment, the more important a tested recovery path becomes when the system that normally provides it cannot operate. Those measurements serve different markets. A broadband operator with a flexible replacement manifest may prize the lowest sustainable price per satellite. A national security customer replacing an aging asset may pay more for a qualified second path. A lunar program may care most about a sequence of tankers and a propellant-transfer operation succeeding in the correct order. No single dollars-per-kilogram figure can answer all three. SpaceX is right to pursue full reuse aggressively. The effort can increase launch capacity and lower costs that once made entire missions uneconomic. But that success does not remove the need for independent providers, adaptable payload interfaces, and rehearsed alternatives. Indeed, the more space infrastructure depends on fast, cheap replenishment, the more important a tested recovery path becomes when the system that normally provides it cannot operate. The next Starship catch, if successful, will make headlines for good reason. However, the seven-week GPS launch switch deserved more attention than it received. One shows that a vehicle can be recovered and potentially reused; the other shows that a mission need not be lost with its assigned vehicle. The mature launch economy will need both. Burak Oktenli holds an MBA and is pursuing a Master of Professional Studies in Applied Intelligence at Georgetown University, where his research focuses on the governance of autonomous and AI-enabled military systems.

A Long Distance Look At Space Hab

SPACEHAB SPACEHAB concept in the shuttle. (credit: SPACEHAB Inc.) A long-distance look at SPACEHAB by James Behling Monday, November 2, 2026 In the 1990s, I worked in ground operations in the SPACEHAB Payload Processing Facility at Port Canaveral, Florida, for the SPACEHAB program while employed by McDonnell Douglas, SPACEHAB Inc.’s prime contractor. SPACEHAB was a commercial program that provided small, pressurized modules to fly in the Space Shuttle. The idea was to fly the modules in the forward quarter of the payload bay, leaving the remaining volume for other payloads. The modules expanded the pressurized volume available for small crew-tended experiments and other payloads, with accommodations similar to those on the shuttle middeck. The modules had a flat top to allow for astronauts to see over the top of the module to the rest of the payload bay and to allow EVA astronauts to return to the airlock after dealing with various payload-bay door contingencies. They also had flat bulkheads to reduce the length. The entire SPACEHAB module was covered in white multilayer insulation (MLI). As the view panned across the module’s aft bulkhead, I noticed a large gray area near the right-hand edge. Although originally designed to support small-scale experiments, SPACEHAB ultimately found its primary role as a pressurized logistics carrier for space stations. It supported seven logistics flights to Mir, five logistics flights to the International Space Station (ISS), and six dedicated science missions. Overall, SPACEHAB modules flew on 18 shuttle missions, compared with 16 missions for the NASA/European Space Agency's Spacelab modules. In 1990, SPACEHAB received a NASA contract to provide 200 lockers over six missions, while reserving the remaining capacity for commercial customers. Its first mission was STS-57 in June 1993. The second mission, STS-60, focused on science and carried Sergei Krikalev, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard a US spacecraft. In 1995, after SPACEHAB’s third mission carried another cosmonaut and rendezvoused with Mir, the company received a contract to support seven Shuttle-Mir missions. I was hired in 1992 and was responsible for experiment and payload ground operations. I created and managed the plans and schedules for when the experimenter/payload owner was to hand over their hardware and when it would be installed in the module. Additionally, I provided lab space and instruments to the experimenters. Our busiest times were once the shuttle was at the pad, when we loaded experiments and payloads in the module during the countdown. After launch, we had a lull until landing, as the Florida team had little involvement in on-orbit operations. Those were the responsibility of our Huntsville headquarters, which sent personnel to Houston to support each mission. Consequently, the period between launch and landing was our slowest time, and we often used it to perform facility work. On Saturday night, March 23, 1996, Atlantis was on Flight Day 2 of STS-76, SPACEHAB’s first Mir logistics mission. We needed to recoat the surface of the floor in the transporter airlock so that it met cleanroom requirements and was compatible with air bearings. We scheduled the work for the weekend after the launch. Since somebody had to be in the facility with the contractors and I was single at the time, I volunteered for the Saturday night shift and the overtime. It was boring, since it was pre-Internet days and the TV system in the building was set up only to get NASA TV and a few blurry over-the-air broadcast stations. I walked around the building and watched the contractors. I decided to check on the mission and went to turn on NASA TV in the break room. The crew was asleep, so the video downlink was just from the orbiter's payload bay cameras. Typically, the cameras were used for observations of Earth or lightning, or for surveys of the payload bay. In this case, most of the views were of Earth. Mission Control was panning the cameras around. At one point, the view from the aft starboard camera swept across the aft bulkhead of the SPACEHAB module. SPACEHAB The orbiter’s aft starboard payload-bay camera is visible at left. (credit: NASA) I watched with interest because it was our hardware. The entire SPACEHAB module was covered in white multilayer insulation (MLI). As the view panned across the module’s aft bulkhead, I noticed a large gray area near the right-hand edge. “Uh-oh,” I thought. Perhaps one of the MLI blankets had come loose during launch. I wondered whether the exposed area might raise the module’s cabin temperature or create a localized hot spot in the structure. SPACEHAB TView of SPACEHAB module aft bulkhead (credit: NASA) I pondered what to do. We had a call tree for the mission, so I decided to call a counterpart in experiment operations, who was then supporting the mission from Houston. He answered the phone from his console in mission control (in one of the support rooms). I described what I had seen, but there were two problems: the camera view had changed, and their monitors were not tuned to NASA TV. This made it harder to explain what I had seen. He took the information and thanked me for it. I went about trying to relieve my boredom and watched the contractor spread the floor sealant. Half an hour later, I was paged by the security guard. I went to see him, and he gave me a Houston phone number to call. The call reached our SPACEHAB Operations Director in mission control. He told me to get in front of a TV and to call back on another number, which I did. To my surprise, I was talking to the Instrumentation and Communications Officer (INCO) in Mission Control. Soon afterward, the television returned to a payload bay view. The INCO then said if I told him which way to point the camera to find the area I saw, he would move the camera. I proceeded to watch the TV as the camera panned and tilted in response to my directions (with a delay, of course). I got the same view of the module that started the whole thing, and we both saw the gray area. The INCO zoomed the camera in on the gray area. As the image came into focus, the mysterious gray area proved to be an EVA foot restraint that was attached to the payload bay sill, just in front of the aft bulkhead. SPACEHAB Example of an EVA foot restraint. (credit: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum) Here is a still from the aft port camera from a different point in the mission. SPACEHAB Still from STS-76 Flight Day 2 at 3:21 (credit: NASA) There was a collective sigh, and I was then thanked by the INCO for my sharp eye. I returned to my uneventful night shift smiling, knowing that, from a television in Port Canaveral, I had helped direct a camera aboard Atlantis. James Behling is a 40-year retired veteran of military, commercial, and civil space programs. He is currently docent and researcher for the Cape Canaveral Space Force Space Museum and a volunteer at the American Space Museum. Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submitted comments will be posted.