Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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March 12th, 2025
That NASA/Caltech Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft deployed February 26 is officially a no-go for its intended mission of looking for water-ice on the Moon.
A new JPL report has stated that efforts to reestablish communications with NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer have continued since mission operators lost contact with the small satellite one day after launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 as a rideshare payload.
Listen up
“The team continues to send commands to the spacecraft via NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), while other radio ground stations are volunteering time to ‘listen’ for a signal from Lunar Trailblazer and track the spacecraft as it moves farther from Earth,” a NASA posting notes.
Science instruments onboard Lunar Trailblazer smallsat probe for lunar water.
Image credit: Jasper Miura, Lockheed Martin
Lunar Trailblazer’s orientation and rotation is being assessed while engineers also are using testbeds to study the spacecraft’s behavior during boot-up and recovery options from a low power state.
The downer of news: “While Lunar Trailblazer’s prime science mission is no longer possible, NASA is assessing whether there are mission options for the future,” explained a JPL release.
The mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and its science investigation is led by Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA.
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Captured by astronaut Don Pettit aboard the International Space Station (ISS), this long-exposure photograph showcases Earth’s city lights, the upper atmosphere’s airglow, and streaked stars. The bright flashes at the center are reflections of sunlight from SpaceX’s Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit.
Image credit: NASA
The ongoing human attack on Earth’s atmosphere is resulting in climate change according to a majority of the scientific community. That alteration, in part, involves increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
A new study by researchers report that this change will reduce the atmosphere’s ability to “burn up” space clutter.
MIT aerospace engineers have found that greenhouse gas emissions are changing the environment of near-Earth space in ways that, over time, will reduce the number of satellites that can sustainably operate there.
The new research has been published in Nature Sustainability.
Thermosphere contraction
Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases can cause the upper atmosphere to shrink. Of special interest is the thermosphere because when the thermosphere contracts, the decreasing density reduces atmospheric drag.
Image credit: NOAA
That reduction in atmospheric drag affects the force that pulls satellites and other space riff-raff down to altitudes where they encounter air molecules, causing reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.
Less drag therefore means extended lifetimes for space junk, which will litter sought-after regions for decades and increase the potential for collisions in orbit, the research team points out.
Fragile state
“The upper atmosphere is in a fragile state as climate change disrupts the status quo,” explains William Parker, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) and lead author of the work.
“At the same time, there’s been a massive increase in the number of satellites launched, especially for delivering broadband internet from space,” Parker adds. “If we don’t manage this activity carefully and work to reduce our emissions, space could become too crowded, leading to more collisions and debris,” he states in a MIT research statement release.
Falcon 9 booster topped with sixty Starlink satellites.
Credit: SpaceX
Enter the megaconstellation
Says study member Richard Linares, associate professor in MIT’s AeroAstro department: “Our behavior with greenhouse gases here on Earth over the past 100 years is having an effect on how we operate satellites over the next 100 years.”
Enter the megaconstellation, a new trend, Linares notes, “and we’re showing that because of climate change, we’re going to have a reduced capacity in orbit.” Furthermore, in local regions, “we’re close to approaching this capacity value today.”
Observes Parker: “We rely on the atmosphere to clean up our debris. If the atmosphere is changing, then the debris environment will change too.”
Their research work includes co-author Matthew Brown of the University of Birmingham.
“We show the long-term outlook on orbital debris is critically dependent on curbing our greenhouse gas emissions,” says Parker.
In-orbit explosions can be related to the mixing of residual fuel that remain in tanks or fuel lines once a rocket stage or satellite is discarded in Earth orbit. The resulting explosion can destroy the object and spread its mass across numerous fragments with a wide spectrum of masses and imparted speeds.
Credit: ESA
Over-utilized
Considering the recent, rapid expansion in the number of satellites in low Earth orbit, the study team points out that understanding environmental variability and its impact on sustainable operations is necessary to prevent over-exploitation of the region.
“On-orbit satellite failures, explosions and collisions have contributed to a large population of non-maneuverable and often non-trackable debris objects. Meanwhile, decreasing launch costs and maturing satellite technology have created conditions favorable for rapid commercialization across orbital regimes, especially in LEO [Low Earth Orbit],” Parker and his fellow researchers state.
“If no governance action is taken to manage the occupation of Earth’s orbit, the environment will very likely become over-utilized, diminishing the orbital resource and limiting future access,” the study team observes. “Any realistic projection of the orbital debris environment should consider that fragmentation events (collisions, explosions, anti-satellite weapon tests and so on) will occur.”
This research is supported, in part, by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council.
To read the research paper – “Greenhouse gases reduce the satellite carrying capacity of low Earth orbit” – go to:
Intuitive Machines IM-2 lunar lander within SpaceX Falcon 9 payload fairing.
Image credit: SpaceX
The latest lander to touch down on the Moon is the Intuitive Machine IM-2 mission, called Athena. But the craft tipped over on landing that lead to loss of the spacecraft and fulfilling operational, and full use of its load of payloads.
New imagery from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter depicts the landing site terrain and locale of the lost to the Moon commercial spacecraft.
Rest in peace IM-2. Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
The IM-2 Athena lander hit the surface faster than intended and ended up on its side within a 65-foot dimater (20-meters) crater.
Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Tipped over Athena Moon lander.
Image credit: Intuitive Machines
Two for two troubles
On March 6, the Athena lander made its way down to attempt a landing in Mons Mouton, a lunar plateau near the Moon’s South Pole.
The effort is part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and the space agency’s Artemis campaign to establish a long-term lunar presence.
But in a bit of a retro-replay, the IM-2 botched landing seems similar to the IM-1 mission of the group’s Odysseus lunar lander last year.
Coming in hot
The $118 million IM-1 Odysseus spacecraft was victorious in February 2024 in becoming the first U.S.-built probe to make a lunar touchdown since the Apollo 17 human-carrying moon trek over 50 years earlier.
However, it too was not a glitch-free ride to its intended destination, Malapert A, near the Moon’s south pole.
That six-legged lander came in hot.
The IM-1 mission arrived with a higher downward and horizontal speed than designed for, hitting harder, skidding across sloping terrain, snapping off some of its landing gear in the process.
The IM-1 mission also tipped over, resulting in less-than-optimal success.
Image credit: ESA/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Tune in to a spacecraft flyby of Mars!
The European Space Agency’s Hera probe needs a gravity assist to get to its final destination.
This livestream event will feature releases of images as the spacecraft slips by the surface of Mars – and also zoom by Deimos, the smaller of the two moons circling the Red Planet. Hera will also image Mars’s larger moon, Phobos, as it begins to move away from Mars.
The broadcast will involve ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst, as well as Andy Weir, science fiction author of The Martian and Project Hail Mary, as well as a surprise special guest.
To lend an eye to this flyby and release of imagery, the event is slated for Thursday March 13, starting at 11:50 Central Europe Time.
Image credit: ESA
Destination Dimorphos
Launched on October 7, 2024, Hera is to visit the first asteroid to have had its orbit altered by human action.
By gathering close-up data about the Dimorphos asteroid, which was impacted by NASA’s DART spacecraft in 2022, Hera’s mission is to sharpen asteroid deflection into a well understood and potentially repeatable technique.
Hera will reach the Didymos asteroid and its Dimorphos moonlet in December 2026.
For more information on this unique event, go to:
Here’s the website to check in on images from Hera’s Mars flyby, the official broadcast, at:
The Age of Disclosure is a documentary that features 34 senior members of the U.S. Government, military, and intelligence community.
At the heart of this film is the prospect of an 80 year cover-up of the existence of non-human intelligent life.
Spotlighted are Congressional hearings on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP, aka UFOs). This documentary points to a secret war amongst major nations to reverse engineer technology of non-human origin.
The film provides a behind-the-scenes look at those at the forefront of the bi-partisan disclosure effort.
Image credit: Ken Bye Voice of VR Podcast/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Produced and directed by Dan Farah, The Age of Disclosure was premiered during this month’s 2025 South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin, Texas.
The official Trailer can be viewed at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkU7ZqbADRs
Also, go to this video from SXSW courtesy of Ken Bye of the Voice of VR Podcast that features key personalities from the documentary at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1_u_w4kgcM
Lastly, read this review — ‘The Age of Disclosure’ Review: A Documentary Claims to Offer Proof that Alien Spaceships Are Visiting Us. But Does It Really? – at:
Image credit: Firefly Aerospace
The Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost lander is approaching lunar noon – with the lunar day shooting up to 250°F (121°C).
Firefly Aerospace reports that Blue Ghost that landed on March 2 has begun planned power cycling to keep the lander as cool as possible.
“With eight payloads’ objectives already complete, we aim to continue operating our two remaining payloads throughout these power cycles,” the Blue Ghost team reports. “We’ll gradually get back to full power once the surface temperatures start to cool down again. Stay tuned for more!”
Blue Ghost landed near a volcanic featured called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, and is set to operate for 14 Earth days, or roughly one lunar day.
Photo of the LISTER prototype – about the size of a shoebox. When integrated into the Blue Ghost lander, the right side points down.
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics
Thermal probe
One experiment underway is the Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity, or LISTER. It is the deepest-reaching robotic planetary subsurface thermal probe.
LISTER is one of 10 NASA payloads aboard the Blue Ghost Mission 1 lander as part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
LISTER’s pneumatic drill is designed to go as deep as three meters (9 feet). Every half meter, the drilling system will pause so that a thermal probe can gauge the temperature of the Moon.
Image captures LISTER in operation on the Moon.
Image credit: Firefly Aerospace/NASA Marshall Space Flight Center/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Drill tip details
Texas Tech University in Lubbock and Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company of Altadena, California, jointly developed LISTER. The payload is managed by the Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
LISTER is using ultra pure nitrogen (N2) gas to excavate and coiled tubing to push the drill tip down, reports Kris Zacny, Vice President, Exploration Systems at Honeybee Robotics. “We are at one meter [roughly 3 feet] depth now and could resume next week,” he explains.
In viewing video of LISTER, sparks can be seen, identified by Zacny as either reflection from the Sun or arcing as the instrument disturbs highly charged regolith and provides atmosphere for arcing to occur.
To watch the drill in action, go to this NASA Marshall Space Flight Center issued video at:
Wait-a-Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
There is increasing angst in the ranks of NASA space explorers about the overall future health and vitality of the agency.
For example, The Planetary Society recently put out a 911 emergency dispatch about reported cuts to NASA that “would amount to an ‘extinction event’ for space science and exploration.
“The Planetary Society is deeply alarmed by reports that the White House will propose a 50% cut to NASA’s science activities in the upcoming agency budget request.”
Trump’s pick to run NASA
It’s a wait-a-minute moment given President Trump’s pick to run NASA – Jared Isaacman, an American entrepreneur, philanthropist and commander of two SpaceX Dragon capsule sojourns into Earth orbit.
Piloting his way to NASA, Jared Isaacman.
Image credit: Jared Isaacman
Back in early December 2024, Isaacman “X-tolled” President Trump’s nomination to serve as the next Administrator of NASA. “Having been fortunate to see our amazing planet from space, I am passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history,” he posted.
A February 18 communiqué from the nominee had him flying himself back to Washington, D.C. to “continue NASA confirmation prep” that night. “I am grateful to President Trump for this chance to give back to the nation that enabled me to live the American dream.”
Image credit: White House
Work in progress
Meanwhile, the ongoing steps taken by President Trump’s administration to transform and reduce in size the federal workforce is work in progress.
The topsy-turvy action plan includes the work of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory group to modernize and perk up the effectiveness of the federal government. DOGE is led by billionaire Elon Musk, the SpaceX chief rocketeer, with DOGE seen by some as controversial and confusing.
NASA’s Acting Administrator, Janet Petro, has requested space agency employees “to lean into this opportunity” as the DOGE seeks to maximize efficiencies. She is a former director of NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Image credit: NASA
Travel allowance
So Isaacman’s confirmation to get decision-making underway at NASA appears to be urgent.
SpaceX Starships exploding, Artemis rebooting of the Moon plans pending, Mars sample return decision-making, Earth climate change investigation, as well as other NASA agenda items in flux – things are stacking up.
On March 12, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, will convene a full committee Executive Session to consider nominations and legislation – but as of this writing, an appearance by Isaacman is not listed as there’s need to hold a nomination hearing before voting on whether to confirm him.
Go to:
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/3/executive-session-7
In that upcoming Executive Session, along with other lawmaker Acts — such as a Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance and Rehabilitation Act of 2025 and a Romance Scam Prevention Act — Cruz is to back his Astronaut Ground Travel Support Act. That legislation would provide transportation of government astronauts before they receive medical clearance to drive.
Perhaps the Act might have a proviso to move Isaacman into NASA’s driver’s seat in short-order?
Wait-a-Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
Extendable mast on the top deck of Blue Ghost lander. Image credit: Firefly Aerospace/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost Moon lander has deployed electrodes on the lunar surface, an experiment to study the deep interior of the Moon.
Shortly after its March 2 landing, Blue Ghost deployed four tethered Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) electrodes, developed by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).
The LMS experiment is designed to probe the structure and composition of the Moon’s interior to depths up to 700 miles or two-thirds of the lunar radius.
Extendable mast
The LMS magnetometer was deployed from the Blue Ghost top deck via an extendable 8-foot mast to reduce interference from the lander. The LMS instrument ejected cables with electrodes at 90-degree angles to each other at distances up to 60 feet.
From within the Mare Crisium impact basin, the SwRI-led Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) may provide the first geophysical measurements representative of the bulk of the Moon. Most of the Apollo missions landed in the region of linked maria to the west (left image), whose crust was later shown to be compositionally distinct (right image) as exemplified by the concentration of the element thorium. Mare Crisium provides a smooth landing site on the near side of the Moon outside of this anomalous region.
Image credit: NASA
“For more than 50 years, scientists have used magnetotellurics on Earth for a wide variety of purposes,” said SwRI’s Robert Grimm, principal investigator of LMS.
Those purposes include finding oil, water, geothermal and mineral resources, as well as to understand geologic processes such as the growth of continents, Grimm advised. Now on the Moon, the LMS instrument is the first extraterrestrial application of magnetotellurics, he said.
“Yarn ball” of cable
“The five individual subsystems of LMS, together with connecting cables, weigh about 14 pounds and consume about 11 watts of power,” Grimm said in a SwRI statement. “While stowed, each electrode is surrounded by a ‘yarn ball’ of cable, so the assembly is roughly spherical and the size of a softball.”
The LMS instrument for the Mare Crisium lander mission, which includes (from left) a magnetometer, a central electronics box and four spring-launched electrodes.
Image credit: SwRI
The LMS payload was funded for delivery to the lunar surface through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
SwRI designed the instrument, built the electronics box and leads the science investigation. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center provided the LMS magnetometer to measure the magnetic fields, and Heliospace Corporation provided the magnetometer mast and four electrodes used to measure the electrical fields.
To view a video of the Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder Deployment, go to:
https://youtu.be/mjsT99ergfA?si=RaVpJnxTcdF32q1O
To watch an informative SwRI video about the LMS instrument, what it does, how it works, click here at:
The U.S. Space Force’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle Mission Seven successfully landed at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., March 7, 2025. The X-37B landed at Vandenberg SFB to exercise the service’s ability to recover the spaceplane across multiple sites.
Image credit: U.S. Space Force courtesy photo
That hush-hush flight of the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle-7 (OTV-7) has come to full stop – landing at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California on March 7 at 02:22 a.m. Easter Standard Time.
This seventh mission of the space plane program remained on-orbit for over 434 days. It was launched to a highly elliptical high Earth orbit aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket back on December 28, 2023.
In a U.S. Space Force posted release, the landing of the automated spacecraft at Vandenberg Space Force Base spotlights its rapid ability to launch and recover its systems across multiple sites.
Artist rendering of the X-37B performing an aerobraking maneuver using the drag of Earth’s atmosphere.
Image credit: Boeing Space
Highly elliptical orbit
X-37B’s Mission 7 was the first launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket to a highly elliptical orbit. After aerobraking to a low Earth orbit and completing its test and experimentation objectives, the space plane successfully performed its deorbit and landing procedures.
As did the previous (OTV-6) space plane trek, OTV-7 also involved a service module that expanded the capabilities of the spacecraft.
OTV-6 was the first mission to introduce a service module that expanded the capabilities of the spacecraft.
Image credit: Staff Sgt. Adam Shanks
Aerobraking breakthrough
“The successful completion of the novel aerobraking maneuver demonstrated the agile and flexible capabilities the X-37B provides the United States Space Force,” according to the statement issued by the Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs.
The aerobraking technique entails use of atmospheric drag over the course of multiple passes to change orbits while expending minimal fuel.
“While on orbit, Mission 7 accomplished a range of test and experimentation objectives intended to demonstrate the X-37B’s robust maneuver capability while helping characterize the space domain through the testing of space domain awareness technology experiments,” the statement notes.
Image credit: Boeing/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Flight roster
Here’s a listing of previous flights of the space plane:
OTV-1: launched on April 22, 2010 and landed on December 3, 2010, spending over 224 days on orbit.
OTV-2: launched on March 5, 2011 and landed on June 16, 2012, spending over 468 days on orbit.
OTV-3: launched on December 11, 2012 and landed on October 17, 2014, spending over 674 days on-orbit.
OTV-4: launched on May 20, 2015 and landed on May 7, 2015, spending nearly 718 days on-orbit.
OTV-5: launched on September 7, 2017 and landed on October 27, 2019, spending nearly 780 days on-orbit.
OTV-6: Launched on May 17, 2020 and landed on November 12, 2022, circling Earth for 908 days.
Image credit: Boeing/Inside Outer Space Screengrab
First use technologies
The builder of the vehicle, Boeing, has previously noted that the X-37B makes use of several “first use in space” technologies including:
— Avionics designed to automate all de-orbit and landing functions.
— Flight controls and brakes using all electro-mechanical actuation; no hydraulics on board.
— Use of a lighter composite structure, rather than traditional aluminum.
— New generation high-temperature wing leading-edge tiles and toughened uni-piece fibrous refractory oxidation-resistant ceramic (TUFROC) tiles and advanced conformal reusable insulation (CRI) blankets.
Image credit: Boeing/Inside Outer Space screengrab
New chapter
In its earlier missions, OTV-1, OTV-2, and OTV-3 touched down at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. That changed with the OTV-4, OTV-5, and OTV-6 missions landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Commenting on Mission 7’s achievements, the X-37B Program Director, Lt. Col. Blaine Stewart stated in a post-landing comment: “Mission 7’s operation in a new orbital regime, its novel aerobraking maneuver, and its testing of space domain awareness experiments have written an exciting new chapter in the X-37B program. Considered together, they mark a significant milestone in the ongoing development of the U.S. Space Force’s dynamic mission capability.”
An onboard camera captured the X-37B and Earth during its OTV-7 flight, during which it also performed an aerobraking maneuver for the first time. Image credit: U.S. Space Force
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander safely touched down in the eastern part of the Moon’s Mare Crisium.
Image credit: ASU/NASA GSFC
The Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost lunar lander continues to check off operations of its science experiments.
Blue Ghost successfully landed in Mare Crisium on March 2 and is now operating payloads for a complete lunar day (about 14 Earth days).
Firefly Aerospace reports that eight out of ten NASA-sponsored payloads have met their mission objectives – “with more action to come.”
Image credit: Firefly Aerospace
Science activities
Those reported science activities on the Moon are:
Surface Access Arm deployment of the Lunar PlanetVac (LPV): Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company
Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS): NASA Kennedy Space Center
Next Generation Lunar Retroreflector (NGLR): University of Maryland
A Next Generation Lunar Retroreflector (NGLR) sits on an adjustable multidirectional mount.
Image credit: International Laser Ranging Service
Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC): Aegis Aerospace
Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC): Montana State University
Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE): Italian Space Agency (ASI); NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER): Texas Tech University
Stereo CAmera for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS): NASA Langley Research
In a video, the Lunar PlanetVac is shown successfully collecting, transferring, and sorting lunar soil from the Moon using pressurized nitrogen gas.
Go to: https://youtu.be/5drBYiUCCsg?si=TVuWcbyRomBkqmi4
Also, before-and-after image blink emphasizes the Blue Ghost engine plume disturbance of the surface. Images taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Go to: https://www.lroc.asu.edu/ckeditor_assets/pictures/1493/content_FireflyBlink_v2.gif
