u/snoo-boop

Quotes:

> Under the agreement, JAXA will provide solar arrays and a thermal infrared imager instrument for Ramses. It will also launch the mission on an H3 rocket in April 2028.

> ESA and JAXA announced in November 2024 their intent to collaborate on Ramses, working first to identify potential Japanese contributions to the mission. The agreement came after both agencies secured funding for the mission, including formal adoption of Ramses at ESA’s November 2025 ministerial council meeting.

A recent post on r/nasa has an intriguing comment:

> And it’s unclear if the BE4 power fade issue is/will be solved enough for this plan to work. (Current real payload is 75% of advertised; that’s after the “upgrades” on the most recent flight)

I also note that Tory said a while ago that Vulcan would carry 45 Kuipers (now called Amazon Leo), but the Vulcan manifest on Wikipedia says 40.

Now, most of Vulcan's takeoff thrust for the VC6 is the SRBs, but then the BE4s are used as a sustainer, firing for 299 seconds as compared to New Glenn, with no SRBs, firing BE4 for 190 seconds.

Is this a 10% reduction in performance (for now)? If it's real, I'm kinda surprised I haven't already seen an article about this in the space press.

A large increase in flights for Blorigin, ULA, and SX.