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Space News 22 June 2025 - 25 June 2025

Historic Liftoff! Poland’s “Star Scientist” Launches on SpaceX Dragon—All the Inside Details on the Ax-4 Mission, Crew and Experiments

SpaceX’s ‘Grace’ Roars to Orbit: Axiom Mission 4 Sends India, Poland & Hungary Back to Space — and Signals the Dawn of a Truly Global Commercial ISS Era

Liftoff occurred at 2:31 a.m. EDT (06:31 UTC) on 25 June 2025 from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, and the Falcon 9 booster landed at LZ-1 eight minutes later. Dragon C213, the fifth and final production Crew Dragon, was named Grace by Commander Peggy Whitson moments after orbital insertion. The two‑week Ax‑4 mission carried about 60 experiments for 31 nations, the largest research manifest of any Axiom flight. The multinational crew included Peggy Whitson (USA), Shubhanshu Shukla (India’s first ISS astronaut), Sławosz Uznański‑Wiśniewski (Poland’s first ISS visitor), and Tibor Kapu (Hungary’s first spacefarer in 45 years). Ax‑4 marked
25 June 2025
Historic Liftoff! Poland’s “Star Scientist” Launches on SpaceX Dragon—All the Inside Details on the Ax-4 Mission, Crew and Experiments

Historic Liftoff! Poland’s “Star Scientist” Launches on SpaceX Dragon—All the Inside Details on the Ax-4 Mission, Crew and Experiments

On June 25 at 08:31 CEST, SpaceX Crew Dragon “Grace” launched from Pad 39A with four astronauts on Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4). Peggy Whitson (USA) commands Ax-4 and is on her fifth spaceflight, with a U.S. orbital record of 675 days. Shubhanshu Shukla (India) is Pilot for Ax-4, becoming the first Indian in space since 1984. Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski (Poland) is the first Polish national on the ISS and the second Pole in space. Tibor Kapu (Hungary) is Ax-4’s Mission Specialist, marking Hungary’s first visitor to the ISS. Poland’s 47-year space drought ends with Ax-4, following Mirosław Hermaszewski’s 1978 Soyuz 30
25 June 2025
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Jeff Bezos vs. Elon Musk: How Amazon’s New Kuiper Satellites Could Disrupt a $100 Billion Space‑Internet Gold Rush

Space Race Frenzy: Exploding Starships, Quantum‑Proof Satellites & Europe’s Billion‑Dollar Constellation Shake‑Up — Everything That Hit Orbit TODAY (24 June 2025)

SpaceX’s Transporter-14 rideshare lofted 70 payloads, including memorial capsules, ICEYE and Capella radar sats, and York Space Systems’ Dragoon Tranche-1 12-satellite demo. The first Dragoon craft launched Monday on Transporter-14 is now on orbit, with SDA citing a four-month schedule cut to accelerate capabilities. Shijian-21 rendezvoused with Shijian-25 at about 22,236 miles, rehearsing refueling and capture maneuvers that analysts warn could neutralize adversary satellites in a conflict. T-Mobile’s T-Satellite service will provide full data links on 1 Oct 2025, piggybacking on 657 Starlink satellites, with basic messaging starting 23 July and 911 texting free for all U.S. users. SpaceX targets
24 June 2025
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Space Race 2.0: A Shoebox‑Sized Quantum Satellite Blasts Off—Can It Make Hackers Obsolete?

Space Race 2.0: A Shoebox‑Sized Quantum Satellite Blasts Off—Can It Make Hackers Obsolete?

QUICK³ is a 3U CubeSat weighing 4 kg, led by Germany’s Technical University of Munich, and it launched on 23 June 2025 aboard SpaceX’s Transporter‑14 from Vandenberg SFB. It carries the first true single-photon source flown, a laser-pumped hexagonal boron nitride chip on a 10 × 10 × 15 cm photonic chip. True single photons are expected to raise secret-key rates 10–100× over weak-laser systems. The pump laser is a 698 nm diode module, 45 × 80 × 20 mm, weighing 200 g. QUICK³ uses a 3U CubeSat bus with a 4 kg mass budget and rideshare compatibility, with launch
24 June 2025
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Space Superpower Play: How ICEYE’s Radar Satellites Are Turbo-Charging NATO’s ‘Aquila’ Constellation – and Why It Could Change Intelligence Forever

Space Superpower Play: How ICEYE’s Radar Satellites Are Turbo-Charging NATO’s ‘Aquila’ Constellation – and Why It Could Change Intelligence Forever

NATO Allied Command Operations signed a multiyear agreement to receive 24/7 SAR imagery from ICEYE and feed it into the APSS Aquila constellation, announced on 24 June 2025. ICEYE’s 54-satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar fleet can be tasked within eight hours, and in some cases within one hour, for sea- and land-tracking. ICEYE satellites deliver 25 cm ground resolution and have revisit intervals under three hours at mid-latitudes. APSS Aquila pairs ICEYE’s 25 cm SAR with Planet Labs SkySat optical data at 50 cm RGB and supports sub-daily tasking. Contract value was not disclosed, but analysts estimate it is in the
24 June 2025
Jeff Bezos vs. Elon Musk: How Amazon’s New Kuiper Satellites Could Disrupt a $100 Billion Space‑Internet Gold Rush

Jeff Bezos vs. Elon Musk: How Amazon’s New Kuiper Satellites Could Disrupt a $100 Billion Space‑Internet Gold Rush

On 23 June 2025, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V launched 27 Kuiper satellites from Cape Canaveral into a 450 km parking orbit, bringing Amazon’s on‑orbit Kuiper fleet to 54 operational satellites plus two de‑orbiting prototypes. The Atlas V mission is the second of eight Kuiper flights on that rocket, with ULA set to fly 44 Kuiper missions in total (6 more Atlas V plus 38 Vulcan), delivering more than half of the 3,236-satellite constellation. Amazon’s 172,000 ft² Kirkland, WA factory can mass‑produce up to five Kuiper satellites per day, reducing individual test times from months to days. Amazon has
23 June 2025
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Space‑Laser Shockwave: Inside China’s 2‑Watt Orbital Beam That Claims to Outgun Starlink and Reshape the Security Balance in Space

China’s ‘Night‑Light’ Laser Satellite Leaves Starlink in the Dust—What It Means for the Future of Space Internet and Warfare

On 17 June 2025, Prof. Wu Jian of Peking University and Dr. Liu Chao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences down-linked 1 Gbps from an unnamed GEO satellite 36,705 km above Earth using a 2-watt laser. The AO‑MDR method combines 357 micro-mirrors on a 1.8 m telescope to reshape the wavefront and eight spatial modes, with a path-picking algorithm selecting the three cleanest channels and boosting usable signal probability from 72% to 91% in heavy turbulence. The Chinese GEO demo delivered 1 Gbps, about five times the throughput of typical Starlink down-links (100–300 Mbps, peaks ~600 Mbps) from 550 km
23 June 2025
Laser vs. Radar: Shocking Secrets of Earth’s Shrinking Ice Revealed from Space

Laser vs. Radar: Shocking Secrets of Earth’s Shrinking Ice Revealed from Space

ICESat-2 (NASA) launched September 15, 2018 on a Delta II rocket and carries the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS), a photon-counting laser that operates from a ~481 km near-polar orbit (92°) with ground tracks repeating every 91 days to map ice sheets, sea-ice freeboard, glacier height, and forest canopy. CryoSat-2 (ESA) launched April 8, 2010 on a Dnepr rocket, in a ~717 km, 92° inclined drifting orbit not sun-synchronous and reaching up to 88° latitude to measure ice thickness on land and sea. ICESat-2 fires about 10,000 laser pulses per second (532 nm green) with six beams, producing an
23 June 2025
Global Space Launch Roundup (June 2025): SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Honda, CNSA and More

Global Space Launch Roundup (June 2025): SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Honda, CNSA and More

In June 2025, Texas approved a provision granting Starbase authority to close State Highway 4 and Boca Chica Beach during launches, transferring that power from county authorities to SpaceX-aligned Starbase officials. The FAA raised SpaceX’s Starbase launch-permit cap from 5 to 25 launches per year. On June 16, 2025, a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg (VSFB) carried 26 Starlink v2 Mini satellites to orbit and landed its booster on the Pacific drone ship. On June 18, 2025, a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral (CCSFS) lofted 28 Starlink v2 Minis on a rare northeast trajectory, with the booster downrange landing in the
23 June 2025
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Mauritius Online: How a Paradise Island is Beaming Broadband (Even from Space)

Mauritius Online: How a Paradise Island is Beaming Broadband (Even from Space)

As of early 2025, about 1.01 million Mauritians used the internet, representing roughly 79.5% of the population. By 2024 Mauritius had over 2.2 million internet subscriptions, about 178 per 100 inhabitants, indicating many people hold multiple connections. Mauritius completed 100% fiber‑to‑the‑home coverage in 2017, with 100% of households passed by fiber and fixed broadband speeds around 55 Mbps on average. The island is connected by five major undersea cables—SAFE, LION/LION2, METISS, MARS, and T3—with capacities including ~800 Gbps on SAFE, ~1.28 Tbps on LION, 24 Tbps on METISS, 8 Tbps on MARS, and 18 Tbps (upgradable to 54 Tbps) on
22 June 2025
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Space‑Laser Shockwave: Inside China’s 2‑Watt Orbital Beam That Claims to Outgun Starlink and Reshape the Security Balance in Space

Space‑Laser Shockwave: Inside China’s 2‑Watt Orbital Beam That Claims to Outgun Starlink and Reshape the Security Balance in Space

In June 2025, Wu Jian of Peking University of Posts & Telecom and Liu Chao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences directed a 2-watt laser from 36,000 km in geostationary orbit to a ground station, achieving 1 Gbps. The test claimed the 1 Gbps downlink is five times faster than Starlink downlinks, per the South China Morning Post. The AO-MDR scheme combines adaptive optics and mode-diversity, routing eight spatial modes through a 1.8 m telescope and real-time selecting the three cleanest channels. Usable signal quality rose from 72% to 91% despite atmospheric turbulence thanks to AO-MDR. Starlink consumer downlinks typically
22 June 2025
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Mind‑Blowing Satellite Images Reveal Fordow’s Cavernous Crater: Inside the High‑Resolution Photo Forensics that Exposed the Collapse of Iran’s Underground Nuclear Fortress

Shock From Space: Commercial Satellite Photos Reveal How U.S. Bunker‑Busters Crushed Iran’s Fordow Nuclear Mountain

On 22 June at 02:14 a.m. local time, B-2 bombers released at least a dozen 30,000-lb GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs targeting Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. By noon on 22 June, Planet Labs Skysat imagery showed a pale-grey haze over Fordow and two dark impact scars at the vehicle and personnel tunnel portals. Fordow lies 80–90 meters beneath the Kuh-e Daryacheh ridge and housed up to 2,976 IR-1 and IR-6 centrifuges enriching uranium to 60%. Analysts say Israel long sought U.S. MOP capability to neutralize Fordow because the site is too deep for conventional drilling. Image signatures include grey tunnel
22 June 2025
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Stock Market Today

Broadcom Stock Gets a Google AI Spend Lift as Jefferies Sees 60% Upside

Broadcom Stock Gets a Google AI Spend Lift as Jefferies Sees 60% Upside

7 February 2026
Google raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to $175 billion–$185 billion, with most spending expected on data-center chips. Broadcom shares rose about 2% after the announcement, while Nvidia and AMD slipped. Jefferies reiterated a buy rating on Broadcom, maintaining a $500 price target, implying a 62% upside from Wednesday’s close.
No $2,000 IRS stimulus check is coming in February 2026 — but Trump’s tariff-check talk keeps the rumors alive

No $2,000 IRS stimulus check is coming in February 2026 — but Trump’s tariff-check talk keeps the rumors alive

7 February 2026
The IRS has not announced new federal stimulus payments for February 2026, and Congress has not approved fresh checks. Trump told NBC he is considering $2,000 tariff rebate checks but has not committed, saying any payout would likely come later in 2026. The IRS warns taxpayers to ignore texts and emails about “stimulus payments” and verify notices through official channels.
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