Astronomy News 8 June 2025

SpaceX Wins $81.6 Million U.S. Space Force Deal to Launch WSF-M2 Weather Satellite in 2027

Space News Roundup – June 29, 2025

Japan’s H-2A rocket completed its 50th and final mission on June 28 (US time), launching the GOSAT-GW (“Ibuki”) greenhouse gases and water-cycle satellite into a sun-synchronous orbit with an official 98% reliability rate for the H-2A family. Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-33 flight from Launch Site One in West Texas on June 29 carried six space tourists, including a husband-and-wife team, with Carl Kuehner becoming the 750th person in space. SpaceX conducted a rapid-fire Falcon 9 doubleheader—one launch from Cape Canaveral just after midnight on June 28 and a second from Vandenberg 13 hours later—deploying dozens of Starlink satellites and

29 June 2025

Space News Digest: June 2025 / Updated: 2025, June 29th, 07:59 CET

Space Coast launches set records with 93 launches in 2024 and up to 156 projected for 2025, driven by SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin. SpaceX’s Starlink megaconstellation has surpassed 7,900 satellites in orbit. Two Falcon 9 missions deployed 53 Starlink satellites within 13 hours, marking SpaceX’s 81st launch of 2025 and the 468th booster recovery. Amazon’s Project Kuiper has 54 satellites in orbit toward a planned 3,200-satellite constellation, with AWS data processing integration. Japan’s H-2A rocket completed its 50th and final mission, deploying the greenhouse gas monitoring satellite GOSAT-GW, as the H3 rocket begins to replace H-2A. The Vera C.

29 June 2025

Astronomy · Exploration · NASDAQ:AMZN · News · Science · Space

Space News Digest: June 2025 / Updated: 2025, June 29th, 00:31 CET

Rocket Lab completed two Electron launches within 48 hours at Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand, including the Get the Hawk Outta Here mission that deployed four satellites: three Hawkeye 360 RF geolocation microsatellites and the Kestrel-0A experimental satellite. Amazon expanded Project Kuiper by launching 27 new satellites into low Earth orbit, while SpaceX’s Starlink added 80 satellites in a single week, pushing its active constellation past 7,900. Japan marked the 50th and final H-2A launch by deploying the GOSAT-GW greenhouse gas and water-cycle satellite, part of a fleet that achieved 66 launches (63 successful) over 31 years. South Korea’s

29 June 2025

Astronomy · Discoveries · NASDAQ:AMZN · NASDAQ:RKLB · News · Space · Updates

June 2025 Space News: Breakthroughs, Missions, and the Expanding Frontier / Updated: 2025, June 28th, 16:00 CET

Shubhanshu Shukla became India’s 634th person in space, traveling to the ISS on the Axiom-4 mission after a 28-hour journey and a 41-year hiatus. NASA and Roscosmos are conducting investigations as four astronauts arrive at the ISS amid a mysterious air leak detected in the Russian Zvezda module. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory achieved first light with a 3,200-megapixel camera, discovering over 2,000 asteroids in 10 hours and planning to image the entire sky every few nights for a decade. The James Webb Space Telescope directly imaged its first exoplanet, TWA 7b, a Saturn-mass world about 111 light-years away. Japan’s

28 June 2025

Astronomy · Exploration · Scientific Discoveries · Space · Space Missions · Space News

Major Astronomy News in June 2025: Webb’s Exoplanet Discovery, Rubin’s First Images, Space Missions & More

The James Webb Space Telescope directly imaged a Saturn-mass exoplanet, TWA 7 b, about 0.3 Jupiter masses at 50 AU from its star, marking Webb’s first direct exoplanet discovery. The missing baryon problem was resolved using 69 fast radio bursts, showing about 76% of ordinary matter lies in hot intergalactic gas, ~15% in halos around galaxies, and ~9% in galaxies. Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli–Bernstein), the largest Oort Cloud comet, showed CO outgassing jets at 16.6 AU with a nucleus about 140 km across, observed by ALMA. Solar Orbiter delivered the first views of the Sun’s south pole from an inclination

28 June 2025

Astronomy · Exoplanets · NASDAQ:LLAP · Science News · Space · Space Exploration · Space Missions

This Week in Space: New Frontiers, Private Astronauts, and the Next Era of Observation / Updated: 2025-06-28 08:00

China’s Zhongxing-9C satellite was launched on June 20, 2025, atop a Long March 3B from Xichang, marking the full localization of Chinese broadcast satellites in the 582nd Long March flight. SpaceX launched the Starlink 10-34 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, deploying 27 Starlink satellites and bringing the active constellation to nearly 8,000, with the booster marking its fifth flight. Rocket Lab’s Get The Hawk Outta Here mission placed four HawkEye 360 satellites into orbit, including three microsats for RF geolocation and the experimental Kestrel-0A. EarthDaily launched its first satellite to begin a ten-satellite constellation delivering AI-powered daily global

28 June 2025

Astronomy · Exploration · NASDAQ:RKLB · News · Science · Space

Today in Space / June 28, 2025 0:00

SpaceX’s Starship suffered a further explosion during a static-fire test at Starbase, Texas, as the company has now completed nine Starship test flights with a record launch cadence in 2024–2025. SpaceX’s Axiom-4 mission docked with the International Space Station, marking India’s return to human spaceflight after 41 years as Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla became the first Indian to reach the ISS, with Peggy Whitson leading a two-week, 60+ experiment research phase. NASA and Northrop Grumman conducted the Booster Obsolescence Life Extension (BOLE) solid rocket motor test for the Artemis program, which ended with a nozzle explosion but yielded data for

28 June 2025

Astronomy · Daily Updates · Exploration · NYSE:NOC · Science News · Space

June Bootids 2025: How to Watch the Rare Meteor Shower Peaking on 27 June

The June Bootids peak occurs on the night of 27 June 2025 at about 04:00 PDT / 11:00 UTC as Earth intersects the dust trail of periodic comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke. The parent body is periodic comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke with a 6.3-year orbit and a nucleus about 5 km in diameter. Meteor speeds are slow for Bootids, about 18 km/s, producing long, graceful streaks. The typical Zenithal Hourly Rate (ZHR) is 0–10 meteors per hour, but historical outbursts reached 100+ meteors per hour in 1916, 1921, 1927, and 1998. The Moon on 27 June 2025 is a 9% illuminated waxing crescent with moonset

26 June 2025

Astronomy · June Highlights · Meteor Showers · Skywatching · Space Events

Sky‑Spectacle Alert: Rare Northern Lights Could Paint U.S. Skies Tonight—Here’s the Science, the Map and the Expert Warnings You Need

A coronal-hole high-speed stream traveling at about 750 km/s is slamming Earth’s magnetosphere and has prompted NOAA to issue a G2 (Moderate) geomagnetic-storm watch for 24–25 June 2025. The storm could push aurora visibility as far south as Illinois, Ohio, and New York on the night of 24–25 June 2025. The disturbance already produced vivid green and magenta curtains seen from Texas to Alberta earlier this month. NOAA SWPC reported K-index values of 4 late Monday, indicating active conditions likely to produce auroras in the northern tier of the United States. Updated view-line maps show the aurora oval dipping into

24 June 2025

Astronomy · Northern Lights · Science · United States · Weather

Jupiter Unveiled: Surprising Secrets of the Giant Planet and Its 95 Moons

Jupiter is the Solar System’s largest planet, about 318 Earth masses, with a rotation period of roughly 9.9 hours per day. It is composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, with a metallic hydrogen layer that powers a strong magnetic field via a dynamo. The Great Red Spot is a storm at least 300–350 years old, about twice Earth’s diameter, whose roots extend roughly 300 miles (500 km) into the atmosphere. Jupiter’s magnetosphere extends 1–3 million kilometers toward the Sun and a tail over 600 million kilometers long, with a field 14–54 times stronger than Earth’s and new radiation zones near

20 June 2025

Astronomy · Jupiter · Moons · Planets · Space Science

Skywatch Alert: 50+ Must-See Cosmic Events from July 2025 to June 2026 (Eclipses, Meteor Storms & Rare Planetary Shows!)

Perseids peak on August 12–13, 2025 with 50–100 meteors per hour in the Northern Hemisphere, best after midnight as the Moon wanes. Geminids peak on December 13–14, 2025 with 100+ meteors per hour and the first-quarter Moon sets early. Quadrantids peak on January 3–4, 2026 with about 120 meteors per hour over roughly a four-hour window, aided by new Moon darkness. Total lunar eclipse on September 7–8, 2025, the long-haul Blood Moon, fully visible across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia/New Zealand with totality about 1 hour 22 minutes. Saturn at opposition on September 21, 2025; rings are edge-on for a

19 June 2025

2025-2026 Guide · Astronomy · Cosmic Events · Eclipses · Skywatching

Eyes on the Infinite: The Next Generation of Space Telescopes Set to Rewrite the Cosmos

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is planned to launch in late 2026 (latest commitment by May 2027) aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy to a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L2, about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. Roman uses a 2.4-meter primary mirror repurposed from Hubble and a 300-megapixel Wide Field Instrument that covers about 0.28 square degrees, enabling sky surveys roughly 1,000 times faster than Hubble. Its Coronagraph Instrument aims to directly image exoplanets and disks by suppressing starlight with deformable mirrors, potentially detecting planets a billion times fainter than their stars. Roman’s microlensing survey is expected to find over

8 June 2025

Astronomy · Cosmos · Next Generation · Scientific Discoveries · Space Telescopes

Astronomy News 8 June 2025 - 29 June 2025