Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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August 27th, 2025
Image credit: NordSpace/Inside Outer Space screengrab
A Canadian space startup is taking one small step toward an orbital capability.
NordSpace is launching a pathfinder demonstration flight of its fully Canadian-made suborbital rocket – Taiga.
The launch window is currently August 29, with Taiga’s liftoff from NordSpace’s Atlantic Spaceport Complex (ASX) SLC-02, outside the town of St. Lawrence in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
Making history
The Taiga mission is called “Getting Screeched In” and is billed as the first commercial liquid rocket launch in Canadian history, and the first commercial launch from a commercial Canadian spaceport.
Image credit: NordSpace
In the future, the plan is for the Atlantic Spaceport Complex to support equatorial to polar orbits using multiple launch pads.
Taiga is roughly 17 feet tall and 1 foot in diameter and powered by the group’s proprietary 3D printed liquid rocket engine, called the Hadfield Engine. Taiga’s flight is a partially-fuelled test that will last about 60 seconds.
Orbital rocket
NordSpace is currently working on its orbital rocket, Tundra, which will be a two-staged vehicle powered by multiple of our 3D printed Hadfield engines.
Image credit: NordSpace/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Tundra would be about 75 feet tall and approximately 15 feet in diameter. The group’s goal is to fly Tundra for the first time as early as 2027, according to the NordSpace website at:
A livestream of the Taiga suborbital launch will start approximately one hour prior to launch on Friday August 29, and is available at:
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Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China’s quest to land the country’s astronauts on the moon by 2030 is on full throttle.
That was clearly evident in an August 15 ground test of the first stage propulsion system of the Long March 10 (CZ-10) launch vehicle, China’s in-development rocket to boost a crewed spacecraft and a two-person lunar lander toward the Moon.
The recent static fire test of the Long March-10 follows a progression of other humans-to-the-moon milestones this year by China.
China completed a comprehensive test of its crew-carrying Moon lunar lander Lanyue in north China’s Hebei Province, August 6, 2025. Image credit: CGTN//China Media Group.
There was a successful zero-altitude escape flight test in June of the Mengzhou crewed spacecraft, as well as an August landing and takeoff test of the Lanyue piloted lunar lander.
For more information, go to my new Space.com story – “China is making serious progress in its goal to land astronauts on the moon by 2030” at:
August 26 liftoff of China’s Long March 8A.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Once again, the Philippine Space Agency has issued an advisory regarding the August 26th launch of China’s Long March 8A booster from the Hainan commercial spacecraft launch site in the southern island province of Hainan.
The Long March 8A hurled a new satellite group into space early Tuesday, the tenth of its kind that will constitute an internet constellation.
Expected debris
The Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) reports that expected debris from the rocket launch were projected to have fallen within identified drop zones approximately 130 nautical miles (NM) away from El Nido, Palawan, 55 NM away from Tubbataha Reef Natural Park, and 27 NM away from Hadji Muhtamad, Basilan.
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.
Estimated drop zone of the Long March 8A Launch.
Image credit: Philippine Space Agency
Potential risk
“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 advisory.
“There is also a possibility for the debris to float around the area and wash toward nearby coasts. Additionally, 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,” the advisory adds.
As it has repeatedly done, PhilSA also advises 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.”
Another China launch, another day of picking up the pieces. Photo taken earlier this month on August 14 shows recovery operations.
Image credit: Philippine Coast Guard
For views of the launch via China Central Television (CCTV), go to:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/664171196076224
Go to this earlier Inside Outer Space story at:
https://www.leonarddavid.com/china-rocket-debris-recovered-by-philippine-coast-guard/
Images of 3I/ATLAS taken by the NASA SPHEREx Space Observatory.
Image credit: C.M. Lisse et al, 2025
Launched a few months ago, NASA’s SPHEREx space-based observatory has focused in on that interstellar intruder, object 3I/ATLAS.
The spacecraft has found strong water ice absorption and an extended carbon dioxide coma.
SPHEREx is short-speak for, get ready and steady – Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer.
Sent spaceward on March 11, 2025, SPHEREx is to conduct over a two-year planned mission gathering data on more than 450 million galaxies along with more than 100 million stars in the Milky Way in order to explore the origins of the universe. It will create an all-sky map of the universe.
This artist’s concept shows the spacecraft and its distinctive conical photon shields, which protect SPHEREx’s telescope from infrared light and heat from the Sun and Earth.
Image credit: NASA
Puzzling observation
From August 8 to August 12 the SPHEREx team observed interstellar object 3I/ATLAS.
In a newly released SPHEREx report, they note that the strong reflectance signature of water ice can be explained by the presence of abundant water ice in 3I’s nucleus and coma dust particles.
“The lack of a bright water gas coma is puzzling as 3I was not too far outside the Solar system’s “water ice line” at 2.5 AU during the observations.” Most likely, they add, 3I is so carbon dioxide rich that its evaporative cooling is pinning the solid’s temperature at roughly 120 Kelvin and suppressing the water ice’s vapor pressure.
Future work to observe the object is on tap as 3I/ATLAS will also pass through SPHEREx’s planned survey pattern again in November-December 2025.
Avi Loeb
Image credit: Chris Michel, National Academy of Sciences, 2023)
True nature?
The new findings are of great interest to Avi Loeb, head of the Galileo Project, and founding director of Harvard University’s Black Hole Initiative.
Loeb suggests that 3I/ATLAS may not be a water-rich comet as envisioned by comet experts when it was discovered.
“Alternatively, 3I/ATLAS may have targeted the inner solar system by technological design,” Loeb suggests. “This possibility is consistent with the alignment of its trajectory with the orbital plane of the planets around the Sun.”
Admittedly a controversial view, Loeb adds: “Here’s hoping that as the Sun turns on the heat on 3I/ATLAS in the coming months, it will reveal its true nature.”
X-37B (OTV-8) military space plane being readied for flight, with its service module not shown in photo.
Image credit: U.S. Air Force/U.S. Space Force
That secretive U.S. Space Force X-37B space plane in Earth orbit is under surveillance by amateur satellite trackers.
The Orbital Test Vehicle-8 (OTV-8), also labeled as USSF-36, was lofted on August 21 and has deployed in Earth orbit a payload dubbed Limasat, probably ejected from the space plane’s service module.
That’s the take from sky sleuth Marco Langbroek in the Netherlands.
The craft is in a preliminary orbit of 327 x 334 kilometers, in a 49.5 degree inclined orbit, Langbroek posted on his SatTrackCam Leiden website.
OTV-6 was the first mission to introduce a service module that expanded the capabilities of the spacecraft.
Image credit: Staff Sgt. Adam Shanks
Observables
“This morning (early 24 August 2025) weather finally cooperated and I managed to observe both of the USSF-36 payloads, two days after launch: the X-37B spaceplane OTV-8 (2025-183A) and LIMASAT (2025-183B)” Langbroek explains. “Limasat was about half a minute in front of OTV-8.”
Also posted by Langbroek is footage of both objects taken during the overhead pass. “The footage was obtained from my home in Leiden, the Netherlands, using a WATEC 902H2 Supreme camera with a Samyang 1.4/85 mm lens filming at 25 frames/second. This was an early twilight pass low in the south-southwest (27 degrees maximum elevation).”
Shortly after launch, Kevin Fetter, another satellite tracker in Canada, observed the OTV-8, posting on August 23 that “something came by roughly 15 seconds ahead of OTV. It took the same path as OTV 8 took. The object didn’t have a stable magnitude.”
Artwork depicts X-37B in Earth orbit with deployed solar panel. Image credit: Boeing/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Laser communications
According to a pre-launch Boeing statement, OTV-8 is flying with a service module. Doing so expands the capacity for experiments for mission partners, which include the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Defense Innovation Unit.
OTV-6 was the first mission to introduce a service module.
“The mission will host demonstrations of high-bandwidth inter-satellite laser communications technologies,” Boeing explains, “as well as the highest performing quantum inertial sensor ever tested in space. The U.S. Space Force will leverage insights from this mission to inform future space architectures.”
Image of Falconsat 8 mounted on the X-37B OTV-6 service module..
Image credit: Boeing via DutchSpace
Mission-focused innovation
In an X posting by DutchSpace, “for those wondering about the additional satellite, called limasat, on X-37B OTV-8, my guess would be that it was on the service module,” also posting an image of Falconsat 8 mounted on the X-37B OTV-6 service module.
“OTV-8 exemplifies the X-37B’s status as the U.S. Space Force’s premier test platform for the critical space technologies of tomorrow,” said Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (AFRCO) Acting Director, William Blauser, in an August 14 press statement. “Through its mission-focused innovation, the X-37B continues to redefine the art of the possible in the final frontier of space,” he stated.
Langbroek’s video can be viewed at:
Image credit: Big Ear Radio Telescope
Nearly half a century has passed since the detection of what’s termed the “Wow! Signal” – a strong, unexplained radio burst captured by Ohio State University’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project in 1977, also known as the “Big Ear.”
That Wow! of a cosmic outburst remains one of the most enticing but perplexing mysteries in SETI world.
Researchers from the Arecibo Wow! Project have re-analyzed decades of previously unpublished observations and archival data from the Ohio State University SETI program. The result is the most precise characterization yet of the perplexing signal from afar and revealing new clues to its origin.
Image credit: Arecibo Wow! Project
Clearest picture yet
“Our results don’t solve the mystery of the Wow! Signal,” said Abel Méndez of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo. “But they give us the clearest picture yet of what it was and where it came from. This new precision allows us to target future observations more effectively than ever before.”
The research findings boost the case for the Wow! Signal being created by a natural astrophysical origin, Méndez and colleagues report. Also the work does make radio interference “an increasingly unlikely explanation,” they add.
Was the Wow! Signal a sudden brightening of the hydrogen line in interstellar clouds, triggered by a powerful transient radiation source such as a magnetar flare or soft gamma repeater (SGR)?
Image credit: Méndez et al., 2024
“This study doesn’t close the case,” Méndez said. “It reopens it, but now with a much sharper map in hand.”
Méndez and fellow researchers hypothesize that the Wow! Signal was caused by a sudden brightening of the hydrogen line in interstellar clouds, triggered by a powerful transient radiation source such as a magnetar flare or soft gamma repeater (SGR).
Citizen science: Wow at home
The ongoing research into the Wow! Signal has also spawned the Wow@Home project. You too can now actively search for similar signals and other rare cosmic events, including potential technosignatures – in real time.
Image credit: Wow@Home
How much does a Wow@Home radio telescope cost?
“A complete setup costs around $500, including a dedicated computer, but we are not selling these systems. Instead, we will provide recommendations for the necessary parts and offer free software to power the telescope and connect it to the Wow@Home network to search for transient events,” a Wow@Home posting explains.
There are also lower-cost options available, the posting adds, and many online resources can guide you through building your radio telescope.
For more information on Wow@Home, go to:
https://phl.upr.edu/wow/outreach
To gain access to the new research report – “Arecibo Wow! II: Revised Properties of the Wow! Signal from Archival Ohio SETI Data” – go to:
Mini-rover imagery of Chang’e-6 lander/ascender.
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
China’s Chang’e-6 Moon sampling mission continues to provide key information on the formation of the Apollo Basin – a huge impact basin on the lunar far side.
The new research could help explain the apparent early impact flux during the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) period of the Moon and the solar system.
It has been determined that the Apollo Basin formed approximately 4.16 billion years ago, pushing back the date at which the LHB began on the Moon by at least 100 million years.
Chang’e-6 scooping operation on Moon’s far side.
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
Geological clock
According to the study published in the journal Nature Astronomy, the research also revealed that the LHB impact flux followed a trend of gradual decay – “a fact which does not support the hypothesis of a sudden surge between 3.8 billion and 4 billion years ago,” reported China’s Central Television (CCTV).
A team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ (CAS’) Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, led by CAS academician Xu Yigang, worked with other Chinese and international researchers. The work integrated remote sensing, geological, geochemical and petrological data.
Examined were three unusual clasts measuring 150 to 350 micrometers in size. They were among the lunar far side samples retrieved by the Chang’e-6 mission, rocketed to Earth back in June 2024 with the mission’s return capsule landing by parachute in Inner Mongolia.
Chang’e-6 drilling into lunar far side landscape.
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
A clast is a fragment of pre-existing rock or mineral that has broken off from a larger rock mass.
The three samples in the study are impact-melt fragments that formed during the formation of the Apollo Basin, serving as a “geological clock” for the impact event.
Crucial insights
Chen Jingyou, researcher, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, CAS.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
“Prior to our discovery, scientists believed that a basin-forming ‘impact storm’ occurred on the Moon between 3.8 billion and 4 billion years ago. Accurately dating the Apollo Basin gives us crucial insights to help unravel the mysteries of this ‘impact storm,’” said Chen Jingyou, a researcher at the institute.
By studying the Chang’e-6 lunar samples the evolution of the Earth-Moon system can be better understood, the research team adds. “The early impact flux recorded by the Moon, especially the first billion years during the basin-forming epoch, is pivotal to understanding the evolution of inner Solar System bodies,” Chen and colleagues report.
Image credit: CLEP
Earlier work
This latest data follows earlier work by Chinese scientists on the Chang’e-6 samples, published in March of this year, confirming that the South Pole-Aitken Basin formed approximately 4.25 billion years ago.
In July, China also released other findings gleaned from the Chang’e-6 far side samples, covering categories such as volcanic activity, ancient magnetic fields, water content, and geochemical characteristics of the lunar mantle.
To access the new research – “KREEP-like lithologies in the South Pole–Aitken basin reworked by the Apollo basin impact at 4.16 Ga” – go to:
Image credit: Ivan Timoshenko
Russia’s Bion-M No. 2 – a unique biosatellite including 75 mice – rocketed skyward from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
This “Noah’s Ark” of space also carries 1,000 fruit flies, cell cultures, microorganisms, plant seeds, and other items.
Russia’s Soyuz 2.1a booster was used to propel the Bion-M No. 2 into a nearly circular orbit at an inclination of roughly 97 degrees, a pole-to-pole orbit, remaining in space for 30 days.
According to a posting by Roscosmos, “telemetry data received today…the spacecraft is operating normally, and all living organisms have successfully begun their journey in space.”
Image credit: Roscosmos
Years of work
The mission is underway via the joint efforts of Roscosmos, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
“Years of intense work in the scientific laboratories of the institutes and the production shops of the Progress Rocket Space Center went into preparing this project,” Roscosmos adds.
For the first time in history, the Roscosmos communiqué notes, “such a spacecraft has been launched into a sun-synchronous orbit with an inclination of about 97 degrees. We are confident that the implementation of all planned scientific experiments will provide invaluable knowledge that will contribute to the further exploration of space by humans.”
Pre-liftoff image shows technician with biosatellite experiments.
Image credit: Roscosmos
30-day mission
At the end of the 30 day mission, Bion-M No. 2’s menagerie of specimens will parachute back to a Russian landing zone, touching down in the steppes of the Orenburg Region.
That orbit taken by Bion-M No. 2 will increase the level of cosmic radiation by at least an order of magnitude compared to that on the Bion-M No. 1 spacecraft launched back in April 2013, placed in a different orbit and also flying for 30 days.
10 sections
The scientific program of experiments and research consists of 10 sections.
According to the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the first and second sections are devoted to experimental studies of gravitational physiology on animals, to help create new technologies for ensuring human life support during flights under the combined effects of weightlessness and cosmic radiation.
Bion-M No. 2 being readied for launch.
Image credit: Roscosmos
The third, fourth and fifth sections are devoted to studies of the influence of space flight and outer space factors on the biology of plants and microorganisms, as well as their communities, i.e. understanding the general patterns of life in the Universe.
The sixth, eighth and ninth sections include biotechnological, technological, physical and technical experiments.
The seventh section is a complex of radiobiological and dosimetric experiments necessary to solve the problems of ensuring radiation safety of new crewed spacecraft.
The tenth section includes experiments prepared by students from various schools of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus.
Image credit: Roscosmos
I am pleased to report I have received the National Space Club Florida Committee’s 2025 Harry Kolcum News and Communications Award.
About the Award: The National Space Club Florida Committee each year recognizes area representatives of the news media and communications professionals for excellence in telling the space story along Florida’s Space Coast and throughout the world. The award is named in honor of Harry Kolcum, the former managing editor of Aviation Week & Space Technology, who was Cape bureau chief from 1980 to 1993, prior to his death in 1994. Kolcum was a founding member of the National Space Club Florida Committee.
Image credit: Mars Guy/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Mars Guy notes that August 6 of this year marked the 13th anniversary of the NASA Curiosity rover landing on Mars.
“It was designed to last at least one Mars year, about 687 Earth days,” Mars Guy explains, “so it’s obviously outperformed all expectations, despite its questionable wheel design.”
Go to video at:
https://youtu.be/MLE785oPsUw?si=LgtQXUJuB94ovj1C
Meanwhile, a recent image of the wheel damage. Curiosity image taken by Left Navigation Camera on Sol 4634, August 19, 2025.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
