@starbase.bsky.social
Future astronaut, Unistellar ambassador, exoplanet explorer, KBO co-discoverer, wannabe rocket scientist, occasional palaeontologist – boldly fighting entropy
Liftoff of the first Ariane 64 rocket.
12.02.2026 19:03 — 👍 20 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0Had another look at this, the vehicle roll-rate and gimballing is crazy !
I'm half surprised it held together and hats off to the design team to be able to deal with this !
Now I understand the ULA quote that said "Signification performance issue"
Source: CarstensPete on the other site
#USSF87
Launch of Arianespace #Ariane64 rocket with 32 #AmazonLeo satellites imminent. Watch live! #Ariane6 #VA267 #LE01
12.02.2026 16:32 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Curious if that will work
12.02.2026 14:30 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0🌊🚀 A truly spectacular video recap of every key moment of the Mengzhou in-flight abort test and Long March 10A first stage recovery test.
12.02.2026 13:22 — 👍 7 🔁 6 💬 1 📌 0
The first Ariane 6 with four boosters inside the mobile gantry on the launch pad.
The first Ariane 6 with four boosters after mobile gantry retraction, standing tall on the launch pad.
The first Ariane 6 with four boosters stands tall on the launch pad 👑
With the 20-metre version of the fairing, the height of the rocket is 62 metres!
Teams at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana are doing the final checks before liftoff, set for today at 17:45–18:13 CET (13:45–14:13 local time).
You are right. ULA got even more lucky then.
12.02.2026 12:05 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0I guess safety margins have become too tight with the GEM63XL, so it's basically a gamble if one will fail or not. NG was also struggling with the solid motors for their proposed OmegA launcher IIRC.
12.02.2026 11:40 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0They were lucky again. If the burn-through would have been in the direction of the engine bay it could have resulted in a total failure.
12.02.2026 10:59 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
The USSF-87 mission in flight as one of the GEM-63XL nozzles breaks apart.
United Launch Alliance’s 2026 has gotten off to a bad start.
Another nozzle failure on a GEM-63XL is likely to ground the Vulcan rocket for months, as Northrop Grumman will need to redesign and replace the assembly.
A similar anomaly occurred during the Cert-2 mission in 2024.
Looks like ULA's Vulcan had another observation on it's SRBs...
However staging and the rest of the flight seemed nominal...
#USSF87
Uh oh, another SRB anomaly...? 🤔
12.02.2026 09:38 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Launch of United Launch Alliance #Vulcan VC4S rocket on #USSF87 mission imminent. Watch live! #V005
12.02.2026 09:03 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Earlier today, a Jielong-3 launched a remote sensing satellite for Pakistan and a DeepSeek-running spacecraft from Hong Kong, alongside a few others
Details -> www.china-in-space.com/p/pakistani-...
Skyrora has announced plans to buy what remains of Orbex.
"Skyrora is exploring an asset acquisition which would see the established operator invest up to £10m, subject to discussions with the appointed administrators and completion of the necessary due diligence and legal processes."
Launch of Roskosmos #ProtonM rocket with #ElektroL5 weather satellite imminent. Watch live!
12.02.2026 08:47 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
An image of the Sun is surrounded by 12 smaller Sun images. Each surrounding image has some spots on it, but the large central image has the most dark spots. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.
🔭 A Year of Sunspots
Image Credit: NASA, SDO; Processing & Copyright: Şenol Şanli & Uğur İkizler; Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)
apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap26021...
Mango Mussolini 😂
11.02.2026 22:33 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Other sungrazers such as Ikeya-Seki (1965) and W3 Lovejoy (2011) have wow’ed us us in the past. Could A1 MAPS join their ranks?
Here’s our post on the discovery and prospects for A1 MAPS for @universetoday.com - www.universetoday.com/articles/new...
Incredible drone footage of the Long March 10A first stage splashdown! 🌊🚀 The recovery ship can be seen standing by very close. The soft landing went so smoothly, we are highly likely to see a 'Wire Capture' attempt next time out.
11.02.2026 20:34 — 👍 6 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0🚀 The moment of Long March 10 (test vehicle) liftoff
11.02.2026 20:32 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 1🚀🌕 China on Wednesday successfully conducted a low-altitude demonstration and verification flight of its Long March-10 rocket, along with a maximum dynamic pressure abort test of its new-generation crewed spacecraft, Mengzhou, marking a major step toward future crewed lunar landing missions.
11.02.2026 11:44 — 👍 122 🔁 34 💬 5 📌 2This is a real timelapse video of the Moon transiting in front of the Earth.
It was captured by the Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft in November 2022 while flying at it's furthest point from the Earth.
The video covers about 3.75 hours of real time. 🔭🧪
Looks realistic. Well done!
11.02.2026 18:24 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Launch of SpaceX #Falcon9 Block 5 rocket with #Starlink Group 17-34 satellites & 1st stage droneship landing imminent. Watch live!
11.02.2026 17:08 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Full speed ahead to Apophis! 🚀🪨
ESA has awarded two contracts for the development of its Ramses mission, which will rendezvous with the asteroid Apophis ahead of its once-in-a-millennium flyby of Earth in 2029.
www.esa.int/Space_Safety...
Replacement to the collapsed service platform, that disabled the only launch pad for piloted Soyuz rockets, was now installed at Site 31, according to rumors from Baikonur, marking a major milestone in the repairs of the facility: russianspaceweb.com/baikonur-r7-...
10.02.2026 13:02 — 👍 14 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
A telescopic photo of a red nebula. There's a bright star in its center and a thin, irregular dark cloud of dust cuts across it horizontally.
Here's a nebula known as Rodgers-Campbell-Whiteoak 2, but it's better known as the head of the Seagull Nebula, which is huge and pretty much out of this image. 🔭
09.02.2026 01:18 — 👍 38 🔁 7 💬 0 📌 0
A graphic showing science results for Supernova ZTF25ackyfnb taken on the night of Feb 7-8, 2026. A graph shows brightness measurements over time and a circle shows an image with an arrow pointing to the supernova.
Last night my @unistellar.bsky.social telescope was on the @skymapper.bsky.social network studying supernovae while I was sleeping. 🔭
09.02.2026 03:19 — 👍 24 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
