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Exploration

Space Race Heats Up: Double Launch Blitz, Comet Surprises & Global Space Showdowns (Oct 7–8, 2025)

Space Race Heats Up: Double Launch Blitz, Comet Surprises & Global Space Showdowns (Oct 7–8, 2025)

Rapid Launch Cadence and New Missions SpaceX’s one-day, two-coast launch blitz. SpaceX demonstrated its unprecedented launch tempo by carrying out two Falcon 9 launches on Tuesday, Oct. 7 – one from Florida before dawn and another from California that night. The first mission at 2:46 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral lofted 28 Starlink V2 Mini satellites into low Earth orbit, then successfully landed its booster on an Atlantic droneship space.com nasaspaceflight.com. That flight marked SpaceX’s 126th Falcon 9 mission of the year and 130th overall launch of 2025 (counting Starship test flights) space.com – a record-smashing cadence averaging a launch
Space Race Heats Up: Record Rocket Launches, New Alliances & a Visitor From Beyond – Space News Roundup (Oct 3–4, 2025)

Space Race Heats Up: Record Rocket Launches, New Alliances & a Visitor From Beyond – Space News Roundup (Oct 3–4, 2025)

Key Facts Record Launches Fuel a Satellite Frenzy The first days of October saw rocket launch activity reach new heights. In California, SpaceX continued its torrid pace – a Falcon 9 blasted off from Vandenberg SFB on October 3 carrying 28 Starlink internet satellites to orbit space.com. This mission marked SpaceX’s 125th Falcon 9 launch of the year, an unprecedented cadence that underscores the company’s dominance in orbital access. In fact, over 70% of SpaceX’s 2025 launches have been for Starlink deployment, rapidly building the largest satellite constellation in history space.com. The latest batch brings Starlink’s active fleet to roughly
Global Space News Roundup (Sept 26–27, 2025)

Global Space News Roundup (Sept 26–27, 2025)

Summary: Record Launch Cadence for Starlink and Kuiper Constellations SpaceX’s launch blitz: SpaceX achieved an unprecedented launch cadence, flying three Falcon 9 missions in under 41 hours through Sept. 25–26 spaceflightnow.com. These included two Starlink batches (28 satellites from Florida and 24 from California) and NASA’s solar observatory mission (IMAP) to deep space. The Sept. 26 Vandenberg launch marked SpaceX’s 123rd Falcon 9 flight of 2025 and the 15th just in September, putting the company on pace to smash its previous annual launch record space.com. With these missions, SpaceX surpassed 8,400 Starlink satellites in orbit, with about 8,500 active Starlink craft now
27 September 2025
Space Race in 48 Hours: Starship Roars, Moon Mission Nears & Space Tourism Soars

Space Race in 48 Hours: Starship Roars, Moon Mission Nears & Space Tourism Soars

Key Facts (Sept. 23–24, 2025) Satellite Launches & Space Missions Solar Probes Take Flight: On Sept. 24, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 thundered off pad 39A in Florida carrying three solar science spacecraft: NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), a small Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, and NOAA’s SWFO-L1 space-weather monitor science.nasa.gov science.nasa.gov. Liftoff was targeted for 7:30 a.m. EDT, with the booster aiming to hurl the payloads toward the Sun-Earth L1 point, about a million miles out nasa.gov nasa.gov. This mission inaugurates a new era in heliophysics – IMAP will map the boundaries of the heliosphere (the “bubble” of solar wind around our solar system) to
24 September 2025
Space Race Heats Up: Launch Milestones, Satellite ‘Bloom’ & a Lunar Showdown (Aug 18–19, 2025)

Space Race Heats Up: Launch Milestones, Satellite ‘Bloom’ & a Lunar Showdown (Aug 18–19, 2025)

United States: Moon Missions, Mega-Constellations & Scientific Milestones Europe: Weather Satellite Success & Space Safety Initiatives Asia: Ambitious Launches, New Satellites & Spaceflight Firsts Space Security & Policy: The Final Frontier Turns Battleground Sources: NASA News Releases and Blogs nasa.gov nasa.gov nasa.gov; Spaceflight Now spaceflightnow.com; Reuters reuters.com; Gizmodo gizmodo.com gizmodo.com; NDTV ndtv.com ndtv.com; Times of India timesofindia.indiatimes.com; United News of India uniindia.com uniindia.com; Xinhua/CGTN english.news.cn en.people.cn; Associated Press apnews.com apnews.com; SatNews news.satnews.com; KeepTrack Space Brief keeptrack.space.
19 August 2025
You Won’t Believe What Launched in Space This Week

You Won’t Believe What Launched in Space This Week

SpaceX conducted two Falcon 9 Starlink launches within 24 hours (July 26 from Florida and July 27 from California), marking SpaceX’s 92nd mission of 2025, with the first booster flying 22nd time and the second booster 19th flight, and both droneship landings bringing the total to 480 recoveries. A rare global Starlink outage on July 24 was resolved within hours through software fixes, with SpaceX identifying the bug to prevent a repeat. Amazon announced a $139.5 million investment in new Florida facilities to scale up Project Kuiper launches after three prototype satellite batches this year and plans for more. China
29 July 2025
Space News Roundup: July 2025 / Updated: 2025, July 10th, 00:00 CET

Space News Roundup: July 2025 / Updated: 2025, July 10th, 00:00 CET

NASA deployed the WB-57 and UAVSAR-equipped Gulfstream III to support Texas flood recovery, delivering high-resolution real-time data despite persistent cloud cover, with over 110 fatalities and more than 170 missing. The European Launcher Challenge finalists are Isar Aerospace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, MaiaSpace, PLD Space, and Orbex, each eligible for contracts up to €169 million. Airbus Defence and Space España will build two PAZ-2 radar satellites for Hisdesat, delivering sub-25 cm SAR imagery with AI analytics, and first in-service expected by 2031, with 65% of work performed by Spanish firms. India approved Starlink to operate under IN-SPACe for five years, allowing
10 July 2025
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Space News Roundup: July 2025 / Updated: 2025, July 6th, 12:00 CET

Space News Roundup: July 2025 / Updated: 2025, July 6th, 12:00 CET

MTG-S1, Europe’s first geostationary meteorological sounder, was launched with an Infrared Sounder and Copernicus Sentinel-4, enabling high-frequency atmospheric data collection over Europe and Africa. SpaceX planned the Starlink 10-28 mission for June 8 from Cape Canaveral on a Falcon 9, marking the 59th orbital launch of 2025, and won an $81.6 million USSF-178 contract. SpaceX’s Starship exploded over Florida during ascent, scattering debris before four mock satellites could be deployed. T-Mobile will launch T-Satellite with Starlink service on July 23, authorized for nearly all phones including the iPhone 13, with full satellite internet rolling out in October. MethaneSAT, an $88
6 July 2025
Space News Digest: July 2025 / Updated: 2025, July 5th, 00:00 CET

Space News Digest: July 2025 / Updated: 2025, July 5th, 00:00 CET

Starlink has over 4.6 million users and a constellation of nearly 7,900 satellites in orbit as of mid-2025. The EU Space Act would unify space regulation with debris mitigation, cybersecurity, and environmental standards, with existing Starlink satellites exempt through 2030 but future deployments subject to the Act. France’s SNCF plans to deploy satellite internet on trains by combining terrestrial 4G/5G with LEO connectivity, with Starlink and Eutelsat as leading providers. Boeing won a 2.8 billion US Space Force contract to develop two ESS satellites, with options for two more, targeted for deployment between 2031 and 2033. MTG-S1, the Meteosat Third
5 July 2025
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Space News Roundup: July 2025 / Updated: 2025, July 3rd, 12:00 CET

Space News Roundup: July 2025 / Updated: 2025, July 3rd, 12:00 CET

Europe launched its first geostationary atmospheric sounding satellite, MTG-S1, as part of the Meteosat Third Generation program, equipped with a hyperspectral infrared sounder and Copernicus Sentinel-4 for air-quality monitoring, with a 9–12 month commissioning phase. Russia’s Kosmos-2558 approached the U.S. reconnaissance satellite USA-326, with a sub-satellite ‘Object C’ displaying high maneuverability and potential anti-satellite capabilities. MethaneSAT, an $88 million climate satellite launched in March 2024 by EDF, Google, and SpaceX, lost contact after 15 months, creating a gap in global methane-emissions monitoring. SpaceX marked its 500th Falcon 9 launch, deploying Starlink satellites as the booster landed successfully and its overall
3 July 2025
Today in Space / June 28, 2025 0:00

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

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
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