Rocket Launch Triumphs: New Heavy-Lifters and Constellation Boosts Lunar Missions & Spaceflight Milestones: Moon Race Intensifies Next-Gen Satellite Tech & Services: Innovation in Orbit Space Policy & International Developments: Safety, Funding, and Collaboration Sources: Spaceflight Now spaceflightnow.com spaceflightnow.com spaceflightnow.com; Space.com space.com space.com; Space & Defense spaceanddefense.io; Reuters reuters.com reuters.com; Space.com (B. Tingley) space.com space.com; Space.com…
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3I/ATLAS is the third interstellar object ever recorded. It was first spotted on July 1, 2025 by the ATLAS survey telescope in Río Hurtado, Chile. The designation 3I/ATLAS marks it as the third interstellar object in our solar system. Its orbit is hyperbolic with an eccentricity of about 6.2, meaning it is unbound and will…
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NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 launched from Kennedy Space Center on Aug. 1, 2025 at 11:43 a.m. EDT aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, carrying Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke, Kimiya Yui, and Oleg Platonov to the International Space Station. Dragon Endeavour, on its record sixth flight, is set to dock at the ISS early Aug. 2 for a…
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On July 31, 2025, NASA’s Crew-11 mission to the ISS was scrubbed due to weather, with liftoff canceled just over a minute before launch and the crew—Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke, Kimiya Yui, and Oleg Platonov—set to retry on Aug. 1 at 11:43 a.m. ET. SpaceX Falcon 9 booster B1094 landed at Cape Canaveral’s Landing Zone…
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NISAR was launched on July 30, 2025, by ISRO and NASA using a GSLV rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 5:40 p.m. IST, costing $1.5 billion, with dual L-band and S-band radars to map the entire planet every 12 days. The NISAR mission will provide freely available data to aid global climate and disaster…
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Celestron Origin Intelligent Home Observatory, introduced in 2024 and shipping through 2025, uses a 6-inch Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph (RASA) at f/2.2 with an integrated 8.3-megapixel Sony STARVIS IMX178 color sensor, has no eyepiece, a fully motorized one-arm alt-azimuth mount with StarSense plate solving, built-in autofocus and dew control, and about 6 hours of cordless operation.…
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In March 2025 Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense created a Space Policy Directorate to coordinate military space efforts. The crowdfunded ICEYE SAR satellite nicknamed the “People’s Satellite” remained Ukraine’s only satellite under national control, since 2022. Deputy Defense Minister Kateryna Chernohorenko outlined a 2030 roadmap to deploy Ukrainian defense satellites and an air-launch early-warning system. In…
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<li ATLAS imaged the interstellar candidate on 1 July 2025, with precovery back to 14 June 2025, and it was designated C/2025 N1 (ATLAS) and later 3I/ATLAS as the third confirmed interstellar object after Oumuamua and Borisov. <li A JPL orbital solution yields eccentricity e = 6.1 ± 0.1 and hyperbolic excess velocity V∞ ≈…
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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…
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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…
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