It is a troublesome wait-a-minute moment in space. Satellite watcher Marco Langbroek in Leiden, the Netherlands, reports that there are worrisome approach maneuvers by Russia’s Cosmos 2612 and a US registered, radar satellite ICEYE-X36. “This RPO (Rendezvous and Proximity Operation) is completely non-consensual,” explains Langbroek. Another maneuver by the Russian spacecraft took place on October […]

Reflect Orbital continues to make progress on placing giant mirrors in Earth orbit to produce and sell sunlight after dark. On October 10, the space startup set up spotlights near Lone Pine, California to simulate the illumination its proposed satellites could provide. The plan by Reflect Orbital is to build and operate orbital mirrors that […]

Russia’s Cosmos-2612 satellite has made a series of maneuvers that have made it almost perfectly co-planar with the radar satellite ICEYE-X36. ICEYE is natively European, founded in Finland. Bart Hendrickx, a longtime observer of the Russian space program, reports that, in the past two days or so, the Russian spacecraft has made a further orbit […]

There is need to redefine the edge of the solar system. That’s the outcome of new work by two leading space scientists. They present a theory that the Milky Way’s gravity, including its dark matter, redraws the Sun’s frontier. Moreover, it allows the Solar Lagrange points L1 and L2 to form “portals” that funnel interstellar visitors […]

Work has reached an accelerated mode in readying three Ingenuity-class helicopters for deployment at Mars by NASA’s Space Reactor‑1 Freedom spacecraft. Slated for launch in 2028, SR-1 Freedom is the first fission nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft and is assigned the duty of dropping off the SkyFall entry capsule loaded with the trio of reconnoitering aerial vehicles […]

The suborbital Virgin Galactic’s next generation spaceship is on tap to evaluate sensor systems to collect space weather data during flights. Under a new Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, Virgin Galactic has joined research interests with the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Space Warfare Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. Under the 24-month […]

Late last week NASA launched its request for proposals via its “Commercial Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Destination Contract (CLDC).” The October 9 RFP’s principal purpose is for NASA to acquire services from a commercially owned and operated LEO Destination that can provide safe, reliable, and cost-effective end-to-end services to succeed the International Space Station (ISS). […]

China is planning to open the country’s space station to other countries, intended to transform the orbital facility into a global research platform. Yang Liwei, China’s first astronaut and deputy chief designer of the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), discussed the plan during the now underway 77th International Astronautical Congress in Türkiye’s Mediterranean city of […]

More than 800 gigabytes of Artemis II lunar science data – some of it previously unreleased – was released today, posted to NASA’s Planetary Data System. Most of the images from the mission were previously made public – although this Oct. 7 release is the official data archive with high resolution imagery and robust metadata. […]

Hear from the Artemis II crew about impact flashes — bursts of light caused by pieces of space debris hitting the ground — that they saw while they were on the other side of the Moon, during a planned loss of comms. Here’s what it was like at two key points in the story: when […]

Earth’s Moon is a historical landmark – a celestial body continually peppered with robotic landers shot from our home planet as well as being an in-your-face world dotted with human footprints planted there by a dozen visiting moonwalkers from 1969 to 1972. A recent gathering in Italy of the International Scientific Committee on Aerospace Heritage […]

Could Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon be pushing the United States to a “Sputnik Moment” – the Cold War ‘heebie-jeebies’ stirred up when the former Soviet Union lofted Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to circle Earth in 1957? Blake Burman, host of NewsNation’s “The Hill” broadcast aired on September 25, sat down with NASA Administrator Jared […]

Back on May 20, 2023, an asteroid plowed into Earth’s atmosphere over northwest Queensland, Australia. It produced 1 of the 20 most energetic bolide events reported by NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) since 1988. It also was the most energetic fireball observed over Australia since satellite reporting began in 1988. The Queensland superbolide […]

Earth’s orbital environment is a finite resource. That being the case, some Earth orbits are so crowded and carry deadly, high-velocity pieces of defunct satellite litter and rocket stages they jeopardize humanity’s future in space. Today’s scenery in space is not a pretty picture. And that’s the output from experts at the European Space Agency […]

As posted by SpaceX, here’s a summary of Starship’s 14th flight from launch to orbit and return to Earth: On Monday, September 28 at 7:48 a.m. CT, Starship lifted off from Starbase, Texas on its 14th flight and first attempt to go to orbit. This was the first orbital Starship flight and the first to […]

The SpaceX Starship Flight 14 onboard camera imaged an interesting, very high altitude “cloud-like” feature. Is it associated with the launch…or? Any ideas from readers, please advise. Video replay at: https://x.com/SpaceX  

This is a wait-a-minute collection of discussion regarding finding life on Mars. A program from William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia took on the questions: Is there life outside of the Earth? This is a fundamental question that will impact all areas of human knowledge and human understanding. Two NASA Viking landers launched in 1975 successfully […]

Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX fame and fortune advises that stronger coordination between the United States and China could avoid potential satellite collisions, one area for bilateral space cooperation. Musk was interviewed last week by the China Media Group (CMG) in Silicon Valley, California. “In space I think the most important thing to achieve […]

Commercial biotech research in microgravity got another boost by the expansion of an agreement between Exobiosphere and Voyager Technologies. Two additional research campaigns will be carried out aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Exobiosphere’s Orbital High-Throughput Screening in Microgravity (OHTS) platform is a mid-deck-locker-class system for automated drug screening. The OHTS is scheduled for installation […]

No need for a quick spray of Windex to get a clear view of this situation. There’s a growing need for windows for rubbernecking space travelers, be it from suborbital hops, stays in Earth orbit and far-flung sojourns to the moon and beyond. Retrofire back decades ago when the first Mercury space capsule offered a […]