Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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October 4th, 2025
Image credit: Austrian Space Forum
This month, there’s a first of its kind Moon/Mars analog mission, one that involves five continents simultaneously.
Africa, America, Asia, Australia, and Europe are joining forces to emulate human presence on the Moon or Mars.
Over 200 scientists from 25 countries are involved in this unique analog undertaking.
Research collaboration
From October 13 to 26, seventeen habitats will enter into a collaboration of research and conduct numerous experiments.
Mission Coordination will be provided by the Austrian Space Forum in Vienna, Austria, a private space research institution.
For the first time, 17 institutions simulating Moon/Mars missions on five continents (Africa, America, Asia, Australia, and Europe) are joining forces to emulate the human presence on the Moon or Mars.
More than 200 scientists from 25 countries are involved.
Image credit: Austrian Space Forum
Countries involved
Africa: Kenya
America: USA (3 institutions) and also Brazil
Asia: Armenia, India, Jordan (2 institutions), Oman and also Australia
Europe: Austria, France, Poland, Portugal, The Netherlands
Analog wish-list
The Austrian Space Forum will host the Mission Coordination Center in Vienna (MICO-VIE) to support the individual habitats with teams from operations, meteorology, remote science support and media.
What this analog undertaking wishes to achieve:
- Raise awareness about analogs.
- Gather information about existing missions and habitats, so that researchers, government agencies and others understand the fidelity and capabilities of each habitat as a research platform.
- Applying research standards makes the data collected more useful to space agencies and researchers.
- Provide a global research platform for the first time.
- Develop protocols and professionalize the industry.
- To assist up and coming habitats/missions, so more countries can be involved.
- To engage and collaborate as a community and push the boundaries of what we can achieve together.
- Open better communication lines between active players.
- Minimize duplicate research.
- Highlight the potential of the habitats and analog missions
Image credit: LunAres Research Station
Mission scope
As for the scope of the venture through MICO-VIE in Vienna is real-time coordination across 12 time zones and parallel research on lunar and Martian analog conditions. International crews will test protocols for future space exploration.
There will so be simulated Mars communication delays between Earth and the Red Planet.
“This isn’t just research – it’s a proof of concept for how humanity will coordinate complex multi-location space operations,” state Austrian Space Forum officials.
Image credit: Austrian Space Forum
Posted in 
Launch of the R-7 rocket with the first artificial Earth satellite from the Tyuratam launch pad.
Image credit: Roscosmos/Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation
The opening shot that kicked off the “Space Race.”
October 4, 1957, now 68 years ago today, the former Soviet Union’s R-7 rocket lifted off from the Tyuratam test site (now the Baikonur Cosmodrome), hurling into space the first artificial Earth satellite.
The R-7 Semyorka intercontinental ballistic missile was modified by Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, known as The Chief Designer. This version of the R-7 rocket to place the first satellite into orbit was designated 8K71PS No. M1-1PS.
Sealed aluminum sphere
Sputnik-1 was a 184-pound sealed aluminum sphere, about half a meter (58 cm) in diameter, with four antennas.
Pre-flight photo of the first artificial satellite with Soviet OKB-1 design bureau technicians Yu.D. Silaev and M.E. Kleymenov.
Image credit: Roscosmos/Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation
Inside the satellite, the bare minimum: a radio station, thermal control system fan, temperature and pressure sensors, and an onboard cable network.
Beeps heard around the world
In 295 seconds after launch of the R-7 booster, Sputnik-1 and the second stage of the rocket were pushed into an elliptical orbit.
At 315 seconds after liftoff, the first satellite separated from the rocket stage.
The transmitters turned on and the whole world heard the now famous “beep-beep-beep” signals of Sputnik-1, transmissions that were the starting point of the Space Age.
Pre-flight photo of the first artificial satellite with Soviet OKB-1 design bureau technicians Yu.D. Silaev and M.E. Kleymenov.
Image credit: Roscosmos/Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation
Artificial star
Over the course of three months, the satellite completed 1,440 orbits around the Earth.
As noted in a Roscosmos posting, “due to its low reflectivity and small size, it was virtually impossible to see the satellite.”
What people saw in the sky as an artificial “star,” notes the Roscosmos posting, was the second stage of the rocket measuring 59-feet (18-meters) long that launched Sputnik-1 into orbit.
Virgin Galactic and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are looking at the feasibility of using the airplane mothership as a carrier platform. (Image credit: Virgin Galactic)
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space group is deep into development of its new Delta Class suborbital space planes, with both research and private astronaut flights expected to commence next year.
The company has also been looking at using its mothership aircraft that releases those newly developed space planes at high altitude as a carrier platform for other customers.
To that end, Virgin Galactic is collaborating with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to fly a specific payload via the carrier aircraft.
Optical payload
“The idea is to fly an optical payload on an airplane that can look up for satellites, look down at the ground/sea, and identify things of interest,” explains Benjamin Bahney, a co-founder and the leader of LLNL’s space program.
“The gimbal allows the optic to look up, down, sideways and to track objects without banking the aircraft all over the place,” Bahney told Inside Outer Space. Having optics that work in multiple bands increases detection and characterization capability, he added.
Image credit: Virgin Galactic
Ongoing work
Earlier this year, Virgin Galactic highlighted ongoing work on Delta Class systems and structures, such as wing assembly to be completed during the fourth quarter of this year, as well as the craft’s novel “feather” assembly. The feathering system is utilized when the suborbital vehicle heads back to Earth, making it more stable during the reentry process.
Construction of the Delta Class SpaceShip fuselage is expected to be completed late this year or early 2026, Virgin Galactic has stated.
Final assembly of Delta Class vehicles will take place at Virgin Galactic’s Delta facility near Phoenix, Arizona.
The Delta Class spaceships are being built to be capable of flying eight space missions per month, with twelve times the monthly payload or customer capacity of their original spaceship, VSS Unity.
Purdue-1
Last month, in a joint announcement between Virgin Galactic and Purdue University, the Purdue-1 mission was unveiled.
That flight is expected to lift off in 2027 and will carry a Purdue engineering professor, a graduate student, as well as a Purdue alumni member.
Designed to seat up to six passengers, Virgin Galactic’s next-generation spaceship is customizable and will have one seat removed for this mission to fly the five crew members and allow space for a payload rack to hold research experiments.
Enigmatic Venus – Cloudy with a scattering of life?
Image credit: NASA
The planet Venus is a hellish, hot under the collar world.
Not only is this enigmatic globe holding tight its secrets under thick clouds saturated with sulfuric acid, it is upwelling a heavenly question mark: Could it be a haven for high-altitude life?
Perhaps Venus is a cozy, comfy home for microbes? That prospect is fostering the first-ever private mission to Venus, an endeavor outfitted with science gear to search for signs of life in its clouds by detecting organic chemistry.
Called the Rocket Lab Mission to Venus, Sara Seager, professor of planetary sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge is a key scientist for a small, nose cone-like probe crafted to sample the Venusian atmosphere with an AutoFluorescence Nephelometer.
For details on the mission, go to my new Nautilus story – “Seeking Signs of Life on Venus- The first private mission to the morning star will sample for traces of biological activity in the planet’s clouds” – at:
Image credit: NASA
A veteran of Earth remote sensing is nearing its destructive reentry though Earth’s atmosphere.
Landsat 4 was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on July 16, 1982 on a Delta 3920 rocket.
Landsat 4 was built for and launched by NASA. The spacecraft was built by contractor GE Astro Space. Despite numerous operations transfers, the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center of the U.S. Geological Survey is the record and data keeping organization of the Landsat program.
Image credit: Joseph Remis/Satellite Reentry Observation Program group
Landsat 4 had a launch mass of 4,279 pounds (1,941 kilograms).
Joseph Remis, a leading satellite reentry expert, posts that Landsat 4 has a current decay prediction date of October 8.
First light
Landsat 4 was launched with the Multispectral Scanner (MSS) and a new advanced imaging sensor, Thematic Mapper (TM), allowing for clearer views of natural disasters from space. This was the first time that the data could be depicted as a natural color image due to the new TM sensor onboard Landsat 4.
Pre-launch photo of Landsat 4.
Image credit: NASA
Landsat 4’s first light image captured eastern Lake Erie and the cities of Toledo, Detroit, and Windsor on July 25, 1982.
The spacecraft’s period of revolution around the Earth was 99 minutes; roughly 14.5 orbits/day, offering repeat coverage of locations on Earth every 16 days.
Landsat 4 early image of Detroit.
Image credit: USGS
Trouble in orbit
But within a year of launch, the spacecraft lost the use of two of its solar panels and both of its direct downlink transmitters. The downlink of data from Landsat 4 was not possible until the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) became operational).
In 1987 the TM instrument was switched off.
The sensors onboard the satellite collected data until late 1993, and the satellite was decommissioned on June 15, 2001.
Image credit: Ironbound Films
Will Judaism survive in space?
That’s the key question probed in Fiddler on the Moon, a film focused on answering this query that scientists, theologians, and comedians have asked.
This intriguing video includes NASA astronauts Jeffrey Hoffman and Jessica Meir, Neil deGrasse Tyson, as well as a quorum of rabbis and researchers.
Image credit: Ironbound Films/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Award-winning film
The production is winning awards at film festivals across the country, also to be shown at the Regal Union Square on October 9, Laemmle Monica Film Center on October 25, and the JCC Manhattan on November 25.
“Yom Kippur on October 2, will be celebrated when we settle outer space,” explains Daniel Miller of Ironbound Films, Inc. that directed this documentary short.
Image credit: Ironbound Films/Inside Outer Space screengrab
“These Earth-centered observances might be a good time to think about the future of our traditions,” Miller told Inside Outer Space.
To view a trailer focused on this thoughtful and informative film, go to:
On patrol – NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
Image credit: NASA/JPL
Close-in observations by Mars orbiters are on tap as that interstellar comet –3I/ATLAS — zips by the Red Planet on October 3rd.
One of those spacecraft to view the object is NASA/s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and its powerful camera system, the High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE).
“MRO/HiRISE will attempt a couple of images,” reports Alfred McEwen, PI emeritus of HiRISE at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Details
3I/ATLAS as captured August 27 by the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on Gemini South at Cerro Pachón in Chile.
Image credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Shadow the Scientist. Image Processing: J. Miller & M. Rodriguez (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab), T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab)
“Note that we cannot achieve a high signal/noise ratio needed to detect faint stuff like the distal coma and tail, and we will not resolve the nucleus,” McEwen told Inside Outer Space.
That said, what 31/ATLAS truly is will surely benefit by the collective observations of Mars-orbiting spacecraft…or add to the mystery of its composition.
Image credit: CNSA via Xinhua
China’ first asteroid sample-return mission, Tianwen-2, was sent into space on May 29.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has released an in-flight image, taken by a camera affixed to the probe’s robotic arm. Also captured in the image is the craft’s white sample return capsule.
This en-route mission is headed for an over decade-long expedition: collecting samples from near-Earth asteroid 2016HO3 and exploring the main-belt comet 311P.
CNSA reports that the Tianwen-2 probe is roughly 43 million kilometers from Earth and 45 million kilometers from the asteroid 2016HO3.
Image credit: SpaceX
The SpaceX Starship’s eleventh flight test is to launch as soon as Monday, October 13. The launch window will open at 6:15 p.m. Central “Texas” Time.
A SpaceX posting provides detail regarding what’s up with this flight test:
- The flight will build on the successful demonstrations from Starship’s tenth flight test with flight experiments gathering data for the next generation Super Heavy booster.
- Stress-testing Starship’s heatshield, and demonstrating maneuvers that will mimic the upper stage’s final approach for a future return to launch site.
“The booster on this flight test previously flew on Flight 8 and will launch with 24 flight-proven Raptor engines,” explains SpaceX.
Image credit: SpaceX
A primary test objective will be demonstrating a unique landing burn engine configuration planned to be used on the next generation Super Heavy.
This objective will be attempted while on a trajectory to an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America and will not return to the launch site for a launch pad catch.
Landing burn
Super Heavy will ignite 13 engines at the start of the landing burn and then transition to a new configuration, using five up and running engines for the divert phase. Doing so will fine-tune the booster’s path, adding additional redundancy for spontaneous engine shutdowns.
Image credit: SpaceX/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The booster then transitions to its three center engines for the end of the landing burn, entering a full hover while still above the ocean surface, followed by shutdown and dropping into the Gulf of America.
In-space objectives
The Starship upper stage is to deploy eight Starlink simulators, similar in size to next-generation Starlink satellites. These items will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and are expected to demise upon entry.
A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned.
Image credit: Spacex/Inside Outer Space screengrab
“The flight test includes several experiments and operational changes focused on enabling Starship’s upper stage to return to the launch site on future flights,” explains SpaceX.
For reentry, tiles have been removed from Starship “to intentionally stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle.”
Several of the missing tiles are in areas where tiles are bonded to the vehicle and do not have a backup ablative layer.
Banking maneuver
To mimic the path a Starship will take on future flights returning to Starbase, the final phase of Starship’s trajectory on Flight 11 includes a dynamic banking maneuver.
Also on the test to-do list is trial-running subsonic guidance algorithms prior to the Starship’s landing burn and its splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Live webcast
A live webcast of the flight test will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, which can be viewed at:
https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-11
The webcast can also be seen on X @SpaceX, and watched on the X TV app.
“As is the case with all developmental testing,” concludes SpaceX, “the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to check in here and stay tuned to our X account for updates.”
Image credit: SpaceX
“…we’re going to see an astronaut death within a few years,” reports a NASA whistleblower.
Safety is a critical part of NASA’s culture, especially following the reforms put in place after the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters.
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. released a report “The Destruction of NASA’s Mission,” prepared by Democratic staff members for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
The report is based on President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Request (PBR).
For full report, go to:
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/B1CC17F2-50CE-4C0B-89C9-B713FE76E146
Also, go to this Cantwell statement:
