Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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July 15th, 2026
Image credit: SpaceX
The thirteenth flight test of the SpaceX Starship program is preparing to launch as soon as Thursday, July 16.
The 90-minute launch window will open at 5:45 p.m. Central “Texas” Time.
According to SpaceX, the Starship’s primary test objective will be executing a successful launch, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and landing burn at an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America.
Several modifications
“There have been several modifications to hardware and software to address issues seen on the previous flight,” a SpaceX posting notes:
- The Super Heavy booster on this upcoming flight has hardware modifications to improve re-light reliability along with updates to engine alarms and aborts to match the conditions seen in the multi-engine flight environment.
- There have been several modifications to Starship’s propulsion system to address the engine out issue experienced on the previous flight.
- Several hardware and operational modifications have been made to enhance reliability of the Raptor engine.
Suborbital Starlinks
Starship’s upper stage’s primary objectives this flight includes the deployment of 20 Starlink V3 satellites, a relight of a single Raptor engine while in space, and another controlled entry, descent, and splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Image credit: SpaceX
Starship’s deployment of the 20 satellites involves extending satellite solar arrays and antennas, and attempting to connect with the larger Starlink constellation via high-capacity lasers.
Note that this flight has the deployed Starlink satellites flying on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship. They are expected to demise upon reentry approximately 20 minutes after deployment.
Heat shield scanning
Six of the Starlink V3 satellites have been modified with a suite of cameras to scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators. They are to test methods to analyze Starship’s heat shield readiness for return to launch site on future missions.
Several tiles on Starship have been painted white to simulate missing tiles and serve as imaging targets in the test.
A live webcast of the flight test will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff.
Image credit: SpaceX
“As is the case with all developmental testing, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, “explains SpaceX, so be sure to check in and stay tuned into their X account for updates at:
To view this Starship test flight, go to:
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Image credit: NOAA
Hundreds of offshore oil and gas platforms in federally controlled waters are reaching the end of their operational lifecycle.
Enter Project Able Baker to enhance launch cadence and operational flexibility by exploring innovative maritime recovery options.
First of all, traditional decommissioning and full-removal processes are capital-intensive, costing upwards of $1.6 billion per platform, and often cause significant disruption to established marine ecosystems.
Landing pads
Project Able Baker seeks to address these challenges by developing a Sea-Based Recovery Station (SBRS)framework—a modular, resilient, and environmentally conscious solution that repurposes existing offshore infrastructure into landing pads for heavy-lift launch vehicles.
The Department of Defense, through the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, is looking at proposals for Sea-Based Recovery Stations for reusable launch vehicles, such as Falcon 9, Vulcan, and New Glenn class-rockets.
NASA’s DAVINCI Venus lander.
Image credit: NASA GSFC visualization by CI Labs Michael Lentz and others
Last month, Crater Island in Utah was used as a proxy for Venus.
Project officials from NASA’s DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) descent probe used the area to test a prototype camera system destined to deep dive through the hellish atmosphere of Venus.
A helicopter carries a basket of nine instruments during a series of tests (June 23-25, 2026) in Utah to trial-run a prototype camera system that will one day fly aboard NASA’s DAVINCI probe to Venus.
Image credit: NASA/Mike Guinto
During its 60-minute descent at Venus, the DAVINCI probe will capture images, measure the atmospheric chemistry, and explore the environment of that world.
DAVINCI IS due for launch in the early 2030s.
Basket of instruments
A helicopter flying in U.S. Air Force restricted space over Crater Island, Utah, carried a basket of nine instruments during a series of tests June 23-25, 2026.
Brent Bos, a research physicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, does a pre-flight check of a basket of instruments.
Image credit: NASA/Mike Guinto
Crater Island is a complex of mountains in northern Utah doubling for the mountainous region on Venus called Alpha Regio – the target for the DAVINCI descent probe.
On each of 10 flights, the helicopter ascended into the sky and then descended over nearly 40 minutes to the Utah landscape as the camera system snapped optical and infrared images taken as the chopper descended.
Pictured are DAVINCI’s (left to right) Jim Garvin, mission principal investigator; Erika Kohler, acting deputy principal investigator; and Matthew Mullin, space laser engineer. They evaluated the camera system that will one day fly aboard NASA’s DAVINCI mission probe to Venus.
Image credit: NASA/Mike Guinto
Imaging techniques and technology
Inside the tangling basket were nine instruments, including infrared cameras and pressure and temperature sensors that simulated the ones that will fly on the Venus probe, plus GPS units, gyroscopes, and a magnetometer to track the position and motion of the basket.
Scientists were later able to recreate the landscape in detail using only the images acquired. Those reconstructions have given the DAVINCI team confidence that their imaging techniques and technology also will work to reveal the geology of Alpha Regio.
Infrared image taken over Crater Island, Utah, during a June 24, 2026, test of the camera system that will one day fly aboard NASA’s DAVINCI mission to Venus. The images were captured with a Malin Space Science Systems camera tuned to the near-infrared wavelengths that DAVINCI will use to see through Venus’s thick clouds and capture images of the Alpha Regio region as the probe descends toward the planet’s surface.
Imagae credit: Malin Space Science Systems/NASA/Jay Friedlander
A preliminary three-dimensional view of ridges at Crater Island, Utah, as measured by the DAVINCI imaging system test campaign on June 23-25, 2026. The colors were added to distinguish rock types. The inset image in the bottom right is a helicopter view of the area.
Image credit: NASA Goddard/Jim Garvin
Go to descent video at:
https://x.com/NASASolarSystem/status/2077150426730828274/video/1
It is called the International Mars Prospecting Ride-Share System (IMPRESS).
The concept’s primary objective is to survey the Red Planet for extant life, but it also supports geophysical, soil chemistry, resource, and landing site risk assessments.
Funds from the NASA TechLeap Prize helped in blueprinting the IMPRESS prospecting platform, with a field-tested prototype expected to be ready in summer 2026.
Frequent, affordable, bold
Tagged as a “Frequent. Affordable. Bold.” approach to Mars subsurface exploration, IMPRESS is designed to make shallow-subsurface reconnaissance a recurring opportunity and to provide the distributed prospecting needed before later robotic and human missions commit to a landing site.
Image credit IMPRESS Spaceworks
IMPRESS is being led by Jan Špaček, founder, CEO, of the Agnostic Life Finding Association, Inc. “It is a new project to seek life on Mars with a swarm of planetary penetrators,” Špaček told Inside Outer Space.
“The IMPRESS swarms can be delivered to Mars either as a secondary payload on planned missions, such as the 2028 SR-1 Freedom/Skyfall mission, or as a primary payload on dedicated private or government missions,” explains a preprint of a manuscript headed for the journal Astrobiology.
Planetary penetrators
“Instead of relying on soft landers and drilling systems, IMPRESS deploys swarms of planetary penetrators that use descent kinetic energy to emplace instruments 0.2–1 meters below the surface,” explains the preprint.
The space-ready version of IMPRESS could be ready as soon as 2028. It would offer a mass-produced Mars exploration platform that can be deployed for as little as roughly $40,000 per probe.
Image credit IMPRESS Spaceworks
“These platforms are comparatively easy to handle and sterilize prior to launch, relative to larger landed systems, making them suitable for biological exploration,” the preprint adds.
This work was supported in part by NASA’s TechLeap Prize and in part by a grant from the CHiwi Foundation in Switzerland under its Call for Proposals 2025. The CHiwi Foundation supports scientific research, education, and innovation in advanced mathematics, alternative energy, and space exploration.
For more details, go to this informative video at:
https://youtu.be/Rm0GTQO7O4g?si=1h4Nyn34no7nxDC9
Also, go to Impress Spaceworks at:
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The trio of taikonauts that make up China’s current space station crew have spent nearly 50 days on the Tiangong orbital facility.
The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) state that mission commander Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Zhiyuan, and Lai Ka-ying — the first astronaut from China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region – are deep into running a range of scientific experiments.
The Shenzhou-23 crew are conducting tests, biomechanics research and brain function studies on the effects of microgravity on human health and performance.
China’s Tiangong space station as imaged by MAXAR satellite.
Image credit: MAXAR
Extra-long stay in space
As reported by China Central Television (CCTV), the in-orbit biomechanics data will enable ground researchers to map muscle-tendon interactions under microgravity. The brain-function studies are designed to assess how prolonged spaceflight alters human cognitive control and neural performance.
The Shenzhou-23 crewed spacecraft was launched on May 24.
According to the CMSA, the astronauts are set to carry out a one-year in-orbit stay experiment. As previously reported, one of the three space travelers would be selected for that extra-long stay in space.
For a video from CCTV, go to:
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China’s Long March 5 Y14 rocket has safely arrived at the Wenchang Space Launch Site – the booster assigned to launch the country’s Chang’e -7 Moon lander mission.
The rocket will undergo final assembly and testing at the launch site together with the Chang’e-7 lunar probe, which arrived earlier, explains the China Manned Space Engineering Office. “Currently, all participating systems at the launch site are carrying out preparations for the Chang’e-7 mission as planned.”
Candidate landing region of China’s Chang’e-7 lunar lander.
Image credit: Yang Liu/Wang C. et al.
South pole target
China’s next robotic lunar mission is slated for departure later this year. Its target is the Moon’s south pole in a search for and detection of water ice. Liftoff is scheduled for late August, with an attempted landing at the end of 2026, according to sources.
“Scientists around the world believe there’s water on the Moon, but no one has found any yet. Now China is going to look for it,” said Ye Peijian, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). “And we’re using many methods, from searching the surface to exploring inside craters,” Ye told China Central Television (CCTV) earlier this year.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Specially designed hopper
The Chang’e-7 mission is composed of an orbiter, a lander, a rover, a hopper and a relay satellite. The specially designed hopper will approach and explore a Sun-deprived lunar shadow crater.
“The mission will adopt an integrated exploration approach, combining orbiting, landing, roving, and hopping, to survey the environment and resources of the lunar south pole, while also carrying out international cooperation,” added CCTV.
China’s Chang’e-7 lander launches hopper craft to search for lunar ice.
Image credit: CCTV/CNSA/Inside Outer Space screengrab
For an informative video on the upcoming Chang’e-7 Moon mission, go to:
Image credit: Reflect Orbital
Last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted Reflect Orbital a license to launch into Earth orbit its demonstration satellite, Eärendil-1.
Reflect Orbital has manifested Eärendil-1 on a SpaceX rideshare mission, currently scheduled to launch this year.
“Our inaugural mission will be a key moment in our journey, providing the opportunity to validate our technology and the safeguards we have developed, and to collect real-world data to inform our future plans,” explains Reflect Orbital.
Targeted areas
Reflect Orbital is exploring a new way to extend the utility of sunlight: reflecting sunlight from orbit to precise, targeted areas on Earth.
The FCC approval is only for one satellite, dubbed Eärendil-1 – a steerable thin-film reflector measuring some 60 feet by 60 feet.
“Our goal is to deliver light and energy to help make existing solar infrastructure more useful beyond the hours when direct sunlight is available, reduce fossil-fuel dependence, increase energy resilience, and support critical operations,” explains Reflect Orbital.
“We’re grateful to the FCC for recognizing our responsible approach to development and deployment, and we’re so excited to have the opportunity to start demonstrating the significant benefits of our technology to the world,” the space group adds.
Image credit: Reflect Orbital
Long-term vision
The long-term vision of Reflect Orbital is to operate more than 50,000 satellites by 2035.
What’s possible with a spot of light? According to Reflect Orbital:
Response: Illuminate disaster zones and search-and-rescue missions.
Industrial: Extend working hours, improve safety, light remote sites.
Agriculture: Tailor growth cycles, extend seasons, boost yields.
Civilizational: Replace streetlights, reduce light pollution, enhance urban life.
Defense: Uninterrupted solar power and lighting for critical defense operations.
Experience: Unforgettable nighttime experiences for events and public spaces.
Image credit: FCC
Public interest
“After review of the record, we find grant of Reflect Orbital’s application, with conditions, serves the public interest, notes the FCC.
“Earendil-1 is a single satellite and a limited, short-duration technology test exercise designed to evaluate the feasibility of Reflect Orbital’s proposed concept and to identify any challenges associated with future iterations of the technology,” explains the FCC. “The results of this single-satellite mission will inform whether the concept is viable and will assist the company, its prospective customers, and other stakeholders in assessing any future largerscale deployment.”
Go to this FCC document that provides the go-ahead for the test satellite launch at:
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-706A1.pdf
For more information on Reflect Orbital’s plans at:
Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, leader of new UAP Science Advisory Council.
Image credit: Lotem Loeb
Note: There are two new Council members and a new website at:
https://uapsac.com/
The two new UAP Council members are:
Ravi Kopparapu, a NASA Goddard Space Flight Center expert having research interests in extrasolar planet habitability, atmosphere modeling and characterization.
Jacob Haqq Misra of Blue Marble Space, a meteorology and astrobiology specialist.
Also, corrected Council member name is Robin Hanson.
Instrumentation, data analysis, and collection standards
Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has orchestrated a new look at Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), focused on evidence, instrumentation, data analysis, and collection standards.
The UAP Science Advisory Council, Loeb explains, was established by the White House, the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other members of the Intelligence Community.
Amazing A-team
Loeb also leads the Galileo Project, designed to bring the search for extraterrestrial technological signatures of extraterrestrial technological civilizations “from accidental or anecdotal observations and legends to the mainstream of transparent, validated and systematic scientific research.”
Pilots have repeatedly observed UAP – but what are they?
Image credit: Yannick Peings, Marik von Rennenkampff/AIAA
As chair of the just-formed Council, Loeb has built a team of researchers that he describes as “an amazing A-team of exceptional scientists and experts.” Members of the group come from a wide range of disciplines from data science and instrumentation to biology, oceanography, anthropology, and psychology.
“We approach this topic with the same rigor we apply in our respective scientific fields and we hope to provide an unbiased analysis on this topic,” Loeb explains.
Go to my new Space.com story — White House appoints Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb to lead new UFO study group – at:
Today, the Department of War published the fourth release of declassified and historical Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) files as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE).
The fourth release of UAP files are available now on https://www.war.gov/UFO/
Green fireballs
There are a large number of documents released, sure to keep UFO/UAP researchers busy.
For instance, there’s a transcript of a 1949 conference held at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (now Los Alamos National Laboratory), Los Alamos, New Mexico. Attendees included several eminent scientists and physicists, many of whom had contributed to the development of the first nuclear weapons during the Manhattan Project.
Among the attendees was Dr. Edward Teller. He joined others to discuss and gather hypotheses to account for the nature and origin of a phenomenon involving “green fireballs” that had been reported over a period of several months in the vicinity of the laboratory.
“The group did not come to a consensus on a likely attribution for the phenomenon,” the website explains, “though a leading hypothesis was that the observations may have been related to meteors entering the atmosphere at a shallow angle and high altitude.”
During STS-80, between November 19 and December 7, 1996, astronauts aboard Space Shuttle Columbia captured a series of three images of an unidentified object in low-Earth orbit. In the second photograph, the object is visible near the center of the frame, to the right of the limb of the Earth. It appears to have rotated or tumbled about its major axis, which is consistent with the behavior of a free-floating object.
Image credit: NASA
CIA-convened panel warning
Another file contains an initial report from the Air Materiel Command regarding Project Sign – a 1948-1949 U.S. Air Force program to investigate the nature and origin of unidentified flying objects (UFO). The report details 100 UFO sightings from 1947-1948.
Also in the roster of documents, correspondence and reports dated 1952–1953 from the Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, convened by the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence.
“The panel’s primary conclusion was that “flying saucers” did not pose a direct physical threat to the national security of the United States. The panel found no evidence that these phenomena were attributable to hostile foreign artifacts or indicated a need to revise existing scientific concepts,” the website notes.
Rendering of a sighting incident.
Image credit: FBI
Indirect threat
However, the panel identified a significant indirect threat stemming from the public’s fascination with the subject.
“The panel concluded that the high volume of reports, encouraged by a ‘sensationalist press,’ could overwhelm and clog vital intelligence and communication channels, potentially distracting from genuine threats,” it is noted.
Furthermore, the CIA-convened panel warned that a “morbid national psychology” could be exploited by adversaries to incite “hysterical behavior and harmful distrust of duly constituted authority.” The panel recommended an official policy of “debunking” to “strip the UFO subject of its mystery,” alongside a training initiative for military personnel to better recognize and filter out misidentified objects, thereby reducing communication “noise” and allowing the national security apparatus to focus on more “legitimate defense concerns.”
The collection continues to be housed on WAR.GOV/UFO, and the Department will release additional files on a rolling basis.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
A Long March-10B carrier rocket blasted off from the Hainan commercial spacecraft launch site in Wenchang, south China’s Hainan Province on July 10, 2026.
On its maiden flight, the Long March-10B achieved its first-ever controlled recovery of the rocket’s first stage.
Seaborne net-capture system
About six minutes after the separation of the rocket’s first and second stages, that first stage returned and was captured on a seaborne platform via a net-capture system.
The recovery represents China’s first successful controlled recovery of a carrier rocket’s first stage, tagged as a breakthrough in the country’s reusable rocket technology.
Developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the Long March-10B is a large, two-stage liquid-fueled carrier rocket featuring a 5-meter diameter core. Standing approximately 63 meters tall with a takeoff thrust of 890 tons, the rocket utilizes liquid oxygen and kerosene for its first stage and liquid oxygen and methane for its second.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Core technologies
Friday’s mission successfully validated several core technologies:
- Combined configuration optimization
- Methane autogenous pressurization
- Propellant management using baffled tanks
- It demonstrated critical first-stage reuse technologies such as multiple engine restarts, high-altitude ignition, adaptability to complex aerothermal environments, high-precision navigation and control, and a sea-based net-capture recovery system.
China Central Television (CCTV) said that, looking ahead, the development team plans to continuously optimize the rocket’s performance and accelerate the iteration of its reusable technologies, with a targeted first-stage reuse flight scheduled for the end of this year.
Commercial market
“The Long March-10B carrier rocket is mainly designed to serve the commercial market. This time, we’ll carry out precise recovery and ultimately land the rocket’s first stage on this large net,” said Hao Jinjie, a CASC researcher.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
While the world’s mainstream reusable rockets adopt the propulsive vertical landing, the Long March-10B carrier rocket takes a completely different method.
“The recovery of this rocket marks the world’s first adoption of the net-capture system, which mainly uses the net on the seaborne platform to catch and hold the retrieved rocket. Both the two recovery methods have their own advantages. Our adoption of net-capture system ultimately enhances the rocket’s payload capacity,” said Hao told CCTV.
For a video of the flight, go to:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/2610346632701016
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
