Tag: Space Exploration

Exoplanet Research Breakthroughs Webb Directly Images a Saturn-Mass Exoplanet: For the first time, the James Webb Space Telescope has discovered an exoplanet previously unknown – a young gas giant roughly the mass of Saturn orbiting the star TWA 7 science.nasa.gov reuters.com. This object, dubbed TWA 7 b, is about 50 AU from its star and…
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This Week in Space: New Frontiers, Private Astronauts, and the Next Era of Observation Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Space Launches and Satellite Milestones – China’s Zhongxing-9C: Full Localization of Broadcast Satellites – SpaceX Starlink Launches and Global Connectivity – Rocket Lab and HawkEye 360: Expanding RF Intelligence – EarthDaily and Next-Gen Earth Observation…
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Summary of Recent Developments (Mid-2025) SpaceX’s Starship vehicle lifting off on its ninth test flight from Starbase, Texas in May 2025. Starship is the company’s next-generation, fully-reusable rocket system under development. In summary, by mid-2025 SpaceX is breaking launch records, advancing Starship’s development amid regulatory hurdles, expanding its Starlink network, and securing a growing share…
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The past 24 hours delivered a blizzard of space headlines: an explosive Starship test darkened Elon Musk’s Mars timeline; Europe’s “Project Bromo” megaconstellation stalled amid board‑room drama; the U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA) surprised the Pentagon by lofting a prototype SATCOM bird four months early; T‑Mobile promised Starlink‑powered mobile data for every U.S. dead‑zone; and a shoebox‑sized CubeSat beamed…
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The maiden flight of QUICK³, a 4 kg CubeSat led by Germany’s Technical University of Munich (TUM), has hurled quantum‑secure communications research into orbit. Launched 23 June 2025 on SpaceX’s Transporter‑14 rideshare from Vandenberg SFB, the nanosatellite carries the first true single‑photon source ever flown, a laser‑pumped hexagonal‑boron‑nitride chip that could underpin an unhackable global data network. Over the next few months…
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SpaceX’s Starbase and Texas Infrastructure Updates Recent policy changes in Texas are shaping SpaceX’s launch operations at Starbase (Boca Chica). In June 2025, Texas lawmakers approved measures giving the newly incorporated city of Starbase – effectively a SpaceX company town – authority to close public roads and beaches for rocket activity texastribune.org texastribune.org. This allows…
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Jupiter: The Solar System’s Giant Planet Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere, as captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft in 2019, showcases its reddish-brown cloud bands and the iconic Great Red Spot (lower right) science.nasa.gov science.nasa.gov. A Planet of Superlatives: Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system – so big that if it were a hollow shell,…
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Figure 1: Intuitive Machines’ Athena lunar lander (bronze, top) and its rideshare payloads are shown inside a SpaceX Falcon 9 fairing prior to launch spaceflightnow.com. AstroForge’s Brokkr‑2 spacecraft (renamed Odin, gold box at bottom center) was attached beneath Athena for this flight. Odin’s mission was to fly by a near-Earth asteroid to scout its composition, specifically to confirm…
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Blue Origin is a private aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000, with a mission to enable commercial human space travel. Its New Shepard suborbital rocket has been conducting crewed tourist flights since 2021, and its New Glenn heavy orbital rocket made its first successful launch in January 2025 en.wikipedia.org. These activities have generated…
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