Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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January 10th, 2026
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China reports progress in performing scientific data simulations for the soon-to-launch Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST).
The space station-tended facility is also known as the Xuntian Space Telescope. Its launch by a Long March 5B rocket from China’s Wenchang center was last reported to have slipped to the end of this year.
Xuntian will co-orbit with China’s Tiangong space station. Doing so, that would permit docking to the space station where repairs and upgrades could be performed by astronauts, thereby extending the telescopes operational lifespan potentially for decades.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Overall performance
CSST reportedly offers a field of view 300 to 350 times larger than the NASA Hubble Space Telescope.
It is expected to facilitate major scientific discoveries across various astrophysical fields, including cosmology, the study of galaxies, the Milky Way, stars and planets, according to the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), which led the comprehensive evaluation of the telescope’s overall performance.
According to papers just published in the journal Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, the CSST simulation work marks a crucial step in preparing for the country’s flagship space astronomy facility.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The collection of papers spotlight mock observations for the Chinese Space Station Survey Telescope.
Flagship space-based observatory
The CSST is considered a flagship space-based observatory. Its main survey camera is designed to conduct high spatial resolution near-ultraviolet to near-infrared imaging and low-resolution spectroscopic surveys.
CSST is a two-meter aperture astronomical space telescope, equipped with multiple back-end scientific instruments.
To maximize the scientific output of CSST, Chinese researchers have developed a comprehensive, high-fidelity simulation pipeline for reproducing both imaging and spectroscopic observations.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Exoplanet research
As noted in one paper, the Cool Planet Imaging Coronagraph (CPI-C) aboard the CSST “represents a major advancement in exoplanet research” and is set to make “significant contributions to our understanding of exoplanets in the Milky Way.”
To gain access to the research papers, go to “Special Issue: Mock Observations for the Chinese Space Station Survey Telescope” at:
https://www.raa-journal.org/issues/all/2026/v26n2/
Also, go to this newly released China Central Television (CCTV) video focused on the Chinese Space Station Telescope at:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1470954067930276
Image credit: China Media Group
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Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Moon boots and Mars boots. Anyway you look at it there are a lot of NASA shoes still to drop.
One of those in perpetual déjà vu status is flinging off Mars select specimens from that distant orb, an endeavor viewed as a U.S. high priority.
However, there’s also been a recurrent whirlwind of fall out about the Mars Sample Return (MSR) endeavor. Is it too costly, too far in the future, too debatable?
Image credit: NASA
In a nutshell, here’s the extraterrestrial angst.
“The Chinese may well beat the U.S. with a grab sample,” explains one Mars expert.
For details, go to my new Space.com story – “Winning the Red Planet race: Returning Mars samples before China should be a top US priority, experts say” – at:
Mars Sample Return program artwork depicts rocketing collected off the Red Planet specimens for eventual return to Earth.
Image credit: NASA
The existing NASA/European Space Agency effort to establish a Mars Sample Return program is slated to be discontinued.
That’s the word according to the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026. It calls for an overall NASA budget figure of $24.44 billion and change.
As noted in a section on Mars Future Missions: “As proposed in the budget, the agreement does not support the existing Mars Sample Return (MSR) program.”
However, the technological capabilities being developed in the MSR program, the Act explains, “are not only critical to the success of future science missions but also to human exploration of the Moon and Mars.”
NASA codes to play nice with each other?
The agreement does request $110 million for NASA’s Mars Future Missions program.
Image credit: NASA
That program is to include existing MSR efforts, supports radar, spectroscopy, entry, descent, and landing systems, and “translational precursor technologies that will enable science missions for the next decade, including lunar and Mars missions.”
The Act explains that NASA shall coordinate efforts between the space agency’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) and its Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD).
NASA’s ESDMD defines and manages systems development for programs critical to NASA’s Artemis program and planning for the space agency’s Moon to Mars exploration approach.
For a look at the Act, go to:
Also, go to this review at:
https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fy26_cjs_conference_bill_summarypdf.pdf
Depiction of Chang’e-7 lunar mission.
Image credit: China Media Group
China’s next exploratory probe of the Moon is to depart this year. It is a mission that begins to set the stage for that country’s multi-phased lunar outpost.
The Chang’e-7 mission is on tap to reconnoiter the Moon’s south pole, making use of an orbiter, lander, rover, and a water-seeking, well-instrumented lunar hopper.
“The Chinese will be ahead of everyone else by at least one year, but probably several years,” explains one space scientist.
Candidate landing region of China’s Chang’e-7 lunar lander.
Image credit: Yang Liu/Wang C. et al.
Research station
This upcoming Moon trek will set in motion work on a China/Russia collaboration in establishing a multi-phased International Lunar Research Station (ILRS).
For details about what’s ahead, go to my new Space.com story – “China’s next Moonshot: Chang’e 7 could search the lunar south pole for water this year” – at:
Image credit: NASA
“How do you get to Mars when the launch vehicle is not necessarily going to Mars?”
There is a loop de loop space saga underway. It is a celestial long and winding road that may also have consequences for future settlers firmly planted on the Red Planet.
The Mars-bound ESCAPADE twins were lofted November 13 by the Blue Origin New Glenn 2 launcher from Cape Canaveral, Florida. But the dual craft weren’t placed on your standard operating procedure of a route to reach the Red Planet.
The long and winding road to the Red Planet by the twin ESCAPDE spacecraft.
Image credit: Advanced Space
Space loitering, kidney bean paths, gravity assists, hyperbolic orbits and wide-open windows.
Enter the world of Jeffrey Parker, Chief Technology Officer at Advanced Space in Westminster, Colorado, the chief architect behind the ESCAPADE mission’s roundabout road trip to Mars.
Go to my new Space.com story – “Live long and loiter: Why NASA’s ESCAPADE probes will wait a year in space before heading to Mars” – at:
Image credit: PBS/Inside Outer Space screengrab
PBS science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports on the spunky space start-up in New Zealand that’s catching some attention of its own.
The private space economy is growing significantly and 2026 could be a big one.
Image credit: PBS/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Also highlighted is the evolution of the competitive commercial space market, from SpaceX, Virgin Galactic to Blue Origin.
To view this informative PBS offering, go to:
The Green Bank Telescope is the largest moving structure on land, and the largest fully-steerable telescope in the world. It was completed in 2000 and remains the most accurate and versatile large single-dish telescope in use today.
Image credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF
Mum’s the word from 3I/ATLAS!
That interstellar object oddity made its closest approach to Earth on December 19.
On December 18, a Breakthrough Listen-funded program carried out a “technosignature” search of the celestial intruder for evidence of it being a probe dispatched by extraterrestrial intelligence.
Tasked for the “listen up” was the 100 meter Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope at 1–12 Gigahertz (GHz) frequency.
Results
The results are detailed in a preprint – “Breakthrough Listen Observations of 3I/ATLAS with the Green Bank Telescope at 1–12 GHz” – posted on the arXiv server.
Lead author, Ben Jacobson-Bell of the Department of Astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, reports “we find no credible detections of narrowband radio technosignatures originating from 3I/ATLAS.”
The paper notes that there is currently no evidence to suggest that interstellar objects (ISOs) are anything other than natural astrophysical objects.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope reobserved interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS Nov. 30, with its Wide Field Camera 3 instrument.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, D. Jewitt (UCLA), M.-T. Hui (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory). Image Processing: J. DePasquale (STScI)
However, given the small number of ISOs known (only three observed to date), and the plausibility of interstellar probes as a technosignature, a thorough study was warranted.
Narrowband
“Putative nonanthropogenic interstellar probes are likely to communicate via narrowband radio signals for transmission efficiency and for the low extinction of such signals across interstellar space,” Jacobson-Bell and colleagues explain.
The Breakthrough Listen (BL) funding was provided by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation.
For details, go to the research paper findings at:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.19763
China’s Shenzhou-21 astronauts, the 42nd Antarctic scientific expedition team, and sailors on the aircraft carrier Fujian transmit New Year wishes for 2026 through China Media Group’s New Year Gala that aired on December 31.
Go to:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/869625462594559
Left to Right: Wu Fei, Zhang Lu, Shenzhou-21 mission commander, and Zhang Hongzhang.
Image credit: CMG/CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
As it has repeatedly done throughout 2025, the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) issued yet another advisory on spent rocket parts from China falling into drop zones within the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
The December 31 PhilSA posting stems from China’s Long March 7A liftoff that day from the country’s Wenchang Space Launch Site in Wenchang, Hainan.
Falling debris
“Unburned debris from rockets, such as the booster and fairing, are designed to be discarded as the rocket enters outer space. While not projected to fall on land features or inhabited areas, falling debris poses danger and potential risk to ships, aircraft, fishing boats, and other vessels that will pass through the drop zone,” explains the PhilSA.
“There is also a possibility for the debris to float around the area and wash toward nearby coasts,” notes the PhilSA advisory.
Estimated drop zones of the Long March 7A launch on December 31, 2025.
Image credit: Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA)
Pair of new satellites
China’s pair of new satellites, Shijian-29A and Shijian-29B, marked a new mission dedicated to “testing advanced technologies for space object detection,” reported China Central Television (CCTV).
These experimental satellites have been used in the past to showcase space capabilities, such as on-orbit refueling.
Recently, in-space imagery of the Shijian-26 satellite was taken by the WorldView Legion satellite and released by Maxar, showing details of the spacecraft.
Image credit: MAXAR Intelligence
Drop zones
PhilSA confirmed the launch of the Long March 7A. Expected debris from the rocket launch was projected to have fallen within the identified drop zones: approximately 45 nautical miles away from Burgos, Ilocos Norte, and 67 nautical miles away from Dalupiri Island, Cagayan; and 64 nautical miles away from Santa Ana, Cagayan, and 76 nautical miles away from Camiguin Norte.
Advice for public
Details of the rocket drop zone were disclosed through a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) warning of an “aerospace flight activity.” PhilSA disseminated a pre-launch report to relevant government agencies and authorities prior to the launch.
Additionally, PhilSA reports, “the possibility of an uncontrolled re-entry to the atmosphere of the rocket’s upper stages returning from outer space cannot be ruled out at this time.”
As it has done in the past, PhilSA reiterated its advice for the public to inform local authorities if suspected debris is sighted. “PhilSA also cautions against retrieving or coming in close contact with these materials that may contain remnants of toxic substances such as rocket fuel.”
Go to this CCTV video of the launch at:
Photo illustration by Thomas Gaulkin for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ January 2022 issue (used with permission)
Earth is encircled by human-made rubbish and the problem is worsening every year.
Space debris experts say nearly 130 million pieces of orbital flotsam are zipping around our planet, high-speed leftovers from rocket stage explosions, abandoned satellites, as well as bits and pieces of junk from space hardware deployments.
Toss into this meandering mess the remains of deliberate demolition of spacecraft by way of anti-satellite weapons testing.
Clutter in the cosmos.
Credit: Used with permission: Melrae Pictures/Space Junk 3D
Cascading effect
All this space clutter means increased risk of collisions that generate more debris – better known as the Kessler syndrome.
That cascading effect was detailed back in 1978 by NASA scientists, Donald Kessler and Burton Cour-Palais in the seminal space physics paper “Collision frequency of artificial satellites: The creation of a debris belt.”
But fast forward some 47 years later to this year.
Go to my new Space.com story – “Space debris led to an orbital emergency in 2025. Will anything change?”—at:
