May 4, 2025

Starbase Residents Vote to Incorporate as a Municipality (Sources: Houston Chronicle, KUT News)
The small community that surrounds a SpaceX facility in South Texas headed to the polls Saturday and voted to become the city of Starbase. Voters cast ballots to decide on incorporation and who will run the new city. Unofficial results later in the night showed the election was a landslide: 212 voted in favor; 6 opposed.

Nearly 500 people live within the city’s proposed boundaries. Most lease homes from SpaceX or its employees, which together own all but 10 of the proposed municipality’s 247 lots with residential dwellings, according to documents filed with Cameron County. (5/3)

SpaceX Launches Largest Batch of Starlink V2 Mini Satellites on Sunday Morning Florida Flight (Source: Spaceflight Now)
SpaceX launched its largest batch of Starlink V2 Mini satellites to date in a predawn Falcon 9 flight on Sunday. Onboard the Starlink 6-84 mission are 29 of what the company calls Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites, which were first publicly mentioned in the company’s 2024 Progress Report. These satellites are about 225 kg lighter than the previous versions of the Starlink V2 Mini. (5/4)

Now is the Time for NASA to Blast Into a New Future — After Slowing to a Crawl (Source: New York Post)
To ensure the future of spaceflight, NASA must stop building rockets. That counterintuitive notion is borne out by the agency’s sad post-Apollo history. For the past 50 years, America’s dreams of space exploration have been stymied by NASA’s failure to build an affordable, reliable launch system. Today, the private sector builds rockets faster, cheaper, and better. Ending the agency’s sclerotic rocket-building program will be the first of many challenges facing Jared Isaacman, President Trump’s nominee to be NASA administrator, who is expected to be confirmed.

NASA’s biggest obstacle to progress is its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and conjoined Orion capsule. This huge, Apollo-style program was intended to carry US astronauts back to the moon. Unfortunately, the SLS rocket is years behind schedule and billions over budget. Unlike the reusable rockets being pioneered by SpaceX and other private-sector companies, the SLS is entirely expendable, meaning all the rocket’s components must be discarded during each flight, at enormous expense. NASA’s inspector general estimates each SLS/Orion mission will cost over $4 billion. (5/3)

NASA Balloon Circumnavigates World in 16 Days (Source: NASA)
More than 16 days after lifting off from Wānaka, New Zealand, NASA’s football-stadium-sized super pressure balloon has completed its first full circumnavigation of the globe — a significant milestone for the test flight around the Southern Hemisphere’s mid-latitudes. The balloon crossed the 169.24 east longitude line on May 3. While the primary goal of the flight is to further test and qualify the super pressure balloon technology, the balloon is also carrying the High-altitude Interferometer Wind Observation (HIWIND) mission of opportunity.

Teams will continue to closely monitor the health and performance of the balloon as it continues flight, and its ability to safely make it to land for recovery of the balloon and payload. The next land crossing would occur over South America in approximately five days. The super pressure balloon is an 18.8-million-cubic-foot pressurized flight vehicle designed to float at a constant density altitude despite the heating and cooling of the day-night cycle. This positive pressure, along with the stratospheric conditions in the Southern Hemisphere, enables long-duration mid-latitude flights. (5/3)

Firefly’s Rocket Suffers One of the Strangest Launch Failures We’ve Ever Seen (Source: Ars Technica)
Everything appeared to go well with the rocket's first-stage booster, powered by four kerosene-fueled Reaver engines, as the launcher ascended through fog and arced on a southerly trajectory over the Pacific Ocean. The booster stage jettisoned from Alpha's upper stage two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, and that's when things went awry.

A bright cloud of white vapor appeared high in the sky, indicating an explosion, or something close to it. A moment later, the upper stage's single Lightning engine ignited for a six-minute burn to accelerate into orbit. A ground-based infrared camera caught a glimpse of debris in the wake of the upper stage, and then Firefly's live video stream switched to a camera onboard the rocket. The rear-facing view showed the Lightning engine stripped of its exhaust nozzle but still firing.

While Firefly's live video of the launch lacked a clear, stable view of first-stage separation, the appearance of white vapor is a sign that the rocket was likely emitting propellant. It wasn't immediately obvious whether the first stage recontacted the upper stage after separation or if the booster exploded and harmed the upper stage engine. (4/29)

UK's Pulsar Fusion Developing Fusion Drive Engine (Source: New Atlas)
UK-based Pulsar Fusion has revealed its new Sunbird self-contained nuclear rocket tug that uses a fusion propulsion engine that could reduce a trip to Mars to under four months and Pluto to under four years. On the one hand, Pulsar seemed to be a very serious company producing a solid line of electric space propulsion systems as well as a hybrid liquid/solid rocket engine and space-based nuclear fission reactors, along with getting some serious development money from the British government.

On the other hand, it was also making noises about a nuclear engine project that sounded so crazy that it seemed like it had to be vaporware put out for publicity. Called Sunbird, we now have more details on the nuclear fusion rocket project that is so far along that the company expects to demonstrate it later this year and begin orbital tests in 2027. Sunbird uses a completely different kind of fusion to what you find in a tokamak reactor – one with a completely different purpose in a completely different environment where weaknesses become strengths.

Its fusion reactor works on the Dual Direct Fusion Drive (DDFD) principle, which harkens back to an early fusion reactor design that's been long abandoned except for laboratory research. Basically, it's a linear reactor where, instead of going around in circles, there's a straight chamber with a pinched bit. It involves pulsed magnetic fields that accelerate plasma into the chamber, where the particles collide, producing fusion. It works, but it was rejected early on because it tends to leak at the ends. However, what a power engineer would regard as a flaw, a rocket engineer sees as a feature. (5/3)

Port Canaveral Plans Self-Financed Improvements for Cruise and Cargo Operations (Source: Florida Today)
A half billion dollars and larger ships are on course for Port Canaveral. In its largest one-time investment in decades, the port announced Thursday that it plans to invest more than $500 million of its revenues over the next five years to expand and upgrade its facilities. The port plans to improve terminals and other infrastructure to enable new cruise ship arrivals and more cargo. Their plan includes improving recreational facilities such as Jetty Park, too.

The port will pay for the work from its own revenue, not taxpayer dollars. The port's operating budget last year was $192 million. It is projected to be $211 million this year. Editor's Note: No mention in this article of expanded accommodations for space industry vessels. Port Canaveral had been sharply criticized recently for ignoring space industry needs in its expansion plans. Perhaps the self-financing is a clue, and maybe some deal was struck during the now-finished Florida legislative session. (5/1)

Planet Discovered Orbiting a Star Speeding Out of the Galaxy at 1.2 Million MPH (Source: SciTech Daily)
Astronomers have observed hypervelocity stars before, but NASA scientists may have just identified a truly extraordinary system. They’ve found what appears to be the first known case of a super-Neptune exoplanet orbiting a hypervelocity star, a star hurtling through space at extraordinary speed. However this system formed, it’s astonishing that the planet has managed to stay in orbit through such a tumultuous journey. (5/3)