March 24, 2025

ISS Research Advances Neurodegenerative Disease Science (Source: CASIS)
An investigation, developed by a team of scientists from the Scripps Research Institute, the New York Stem Cell Foundation, and National Stem Cell Foundation, involved sending 3D models of the human brain (neural organoids) to the orbiting laboratory to better understand neurodegenerative diseases. The study, which was the first to use disease-associated neural organoids in microgravity research, revealed that the brain models matured faster than their identical counterparts on Earth. 

This experiment could be a tremendous benefit to neurodegenerative research which is often hampered by the slow progression of the diseases and the brain's unique structure, which makes drug delivery difficult. In addition to allowing scientists to conduct their studies in a condensed timeframe, saving years of research, it could provide them with the opportunity to study the brain in ways previously unimaginable. Results could allow scientists to discover new therapies for these complex diseases more quickly and better predict their effectiveness. (3/24)

Embry-Riddle Team Maps the Moon in NASA Lunar Autonomy Challenge (Source: ERAU)
A team of four Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University students have been selected to compete in NASA’s Lunar Autonomy Challenge, which tasks students with developing navigational software for a rover to map the moon’s terrain. The Embry‑Riddle team earned a spot among the competition’s 31 top teams, which includes teams from Stanford University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University.

The undergraduates hope to advance to the final round in May for a chance to win a top prize of $10,000. The competition challenges students to use a digital twin of NASA’s lunar mobility robot, the ISRU Pilot Excavator (IPEx), to create software that allows the rover to virtually explore and map the lunar surface. (3/18)

Cassie Lee Joins OGC as Chief Innovation Officer (Source: OGC)
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is pleased to announce the appointment of Cassie Lee as its new Chief Innovation Officer (CIO). Lee brings expertise in space-based remote sensing, emerging technology, and engaging culture as a mechanism for transformation. In this newly formed role, she will lead OGC’s growing aerospace portfolio, support the organization’s research and development programs, and help lead OGC in its mission to make the world work better together. (3/20)

Pentagon Alert: Russia and China's Space Warfare Tactics Close Critical Capability Gap (Source: Sirotin Intelligence)
US military officials are closely tracking Russian and Chinese satellite maneuvers that suggest aggressive testing of offensive space capabilities. The Pentagon has observed Russian satellites practicing "attack and defend tactics" in low Earth orbit, including exercises where multiple satellites worked together to surround and isolate another satellite, raising concerns about the narrowing capability gap between the US and its adversaries.

Also, the US Department of Defense has reported that Russian satellites recently engaged in coordinated maneuvers described as "attack and defense" tactics in space. The activity centered around a trio of Russian satellites known as Cosmos 2581, 2582, and 2583, launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in February 2025, demonstrating capabilities that could potentially be used to target hostile spacecraft. (3/24)

SpaceX Launches Spy Satellite at Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Space.com)
SpaceX launched its third mission of the year for the United States' spy satellite agency on March 24, the 19th anniversary of the company's first-ever liftoff. The first-stage booster successfully landed back at the spaceport. (3/24)

Black Holes May Obey the Laws of Physics After All (Source: Space.com)
A team of scientists has developed a recipe for black holes that eliminates one of the most troubling aspects of physics: the central singularity, the point at which all our theories, laws and models shatter. If you were going to design an object to preserve mystery while being utterly troubling, you couldn't do much better than a black hole.

First, the outer boundary of these cosmic titans is a one-way light-trapping surface called an event horizon, the point at which a black hole's gravity is so powerful that not even light can escape. This means no information can escape from within a black hole, so we can never directly observe or measure what lies at its heart. (3/24)

Canadian Region Considers Starlink Alternative (Source: CBC)
The Government of the Northwest Territories is assessing alternatives to Starlink but locals say the territory's only option won't work. Some governments are ending their Starlink contracts as Canada fights a trade war with the United States, and N.W.T. Premier R.J. Simpson said the territory is looking to follow suit.

In the 2024/25 fiscal year the territorial government spent over $400,000 on Starlink, using the technology to support road crews and emergency responders across departments. But the territory is looking at only one alternative, U.K.-based Eutelsat OneWeb — and some N.W.T. providers say the company is too expensive and not as good as Starlink. (3/24)

China’s Own Elon Musks Are Racing to Catch Up to SpaceX (Source: Wall Street Journal)
China is pushing its commercial space industry to grow in a bid to spur greater innovation and close the gap with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. At least six Chinese rockets designed with reusability in mind are planned to have their maiden flights this year. In November, the country’s first commercial launch site began operating. Beijing and local governments are giving private-sector companies cash injections of billions of dollars. (3/23)

Ohio Bid to Land NASA HQ (Source: Cleveland.com)
Euclid native Astronaut Sunita [Suni] Williams and Astronaut Butch Wilmore splashed down back on earth off the Florida coast Tuesday after months in space. Awaiting them was news that Ohio’s Governor and members of Congress would next like to see NASA’s headquarters splash down not off the ‘Gulf of America’ but off the ‘North Coast’ on ‘Lake Ohio’ nearby a new HQ location at The Glenn Research Center next to Cleveland Hopkins Airport. (3/23)

SpaceX Preps New Starlink Dishes, Including One for Gigabit Speeds (Source: PC Magazine)
SpaceX is developing a new Starlink dish meant to offer gigabit internet to customers, a big boost from current download speeds, which are closer to 200Mbps. The dish was mentioned in a webinar for Starlink resellers, according to a person who watched the presentation.

It appears customers will need to buy the new dish to access gigabit speeds. SpaceX will also need to roll out its planned upgrade for the Starlink constellation, which will involve harnessing a broader range of radio spectrum for the satellite internet system. (3/24)

Scientists Scan Mysterious Planet as It Drifts Through Space (Source: WIRED)
Not every large object in space forms part of a solar system. There are some big objects that exist in isolation in space, without either being a star or orbiting one. One of these, SIMP 0136, wanders aimlessly in the Milky Way, about 20 light years away from Earth. It has a mass about 13 times that of Jupiter, and is thought to have the structure and chemical composition of a giant gas planet, though its true characteristics have not yet been determined.

Such untethered objects are typically classified either as “free-floating planets,” which form inside a star system, but are thrown out by the gravitational force of another planet, or as “brown dwarfs,” which form like stars in dense molecular clouds of gas and dust, but lack the mass to undergo stable nuclear fusion like a typical star (for this reason, brown dwarfs are sometimes also known as “failed stars”). It is unclear yet whether SIMP 0136 belongs to either of these categories. (3/24)

NASA's SPHEREx Space Telescope Begins Skyward Mission After Shedding Protective Shield (Source: Space Daily)
NASA's SPHEREx mission, newly launched into low Earth orbit on March 11, has taken a major step toward beginning its cosmic survey by discarding its dust cover. On March 18, mission controllers successfully directed the observatory to jettison the shield that safeguarded the telescope's aperture from particles and moisture. This crucial component, which measured roughly 25 inches by 16 inches (64 cm by 40 cm), was designed to protect sensitive elements, including the trio of mirrors central to SPHEREx's optical system. (3/24)

Chang'e-6 Samples Pinpoint Moon's Oldest Crater to 4.25 Billion Years Ago (Source: Space Daily)
Chinese scientists have precisely dated the moon's oldest and largest impact feature, the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, to 4.25 billion years ago using lunar samples returned by the Chang'e-6 mission. This result offers critical insights into the moon's formative history and the early development of the solar system.

A research team led by Chen Yi from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted the study, which was published Friday in *National Science Review*. Their analysis of the Chang'e-6 samples marks the first time scientists have directly dated the SPA basin. (3/21)

SpaceX Targets End of Month for Private Astronaut Polar Orbit Mission Fram2 (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
With the drama around the first human spaceflight of the year behind it, SpaceX is back to the business of sending private customers to space. The Fram2 mission headed by a Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur and three of his friends is targeting Monday, March 31 for liftoff from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A.

It would be the second human spaceflight of the year behind the Crew-10 launch for NASA from KSC earlier this month that set up the return of another Crew Dragon on the Crew-9 mission from the International Space Station. (3/24)

Space Force Declares Space Symposium 'Essential' (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Space Force has declared an upcoming major conference as 'essential' for the service. In a memo last week, the Space Force said that next month's Space Symposium in Colorado Springs is "mission essential" for those participating in conference sessions and others "with scheduled industry engagements." Guardians who are based in the area can attend so long as they cover their own transportation costs. The declaration came after an executive order last month called on agencies to cut nonessential travel, which caused a sharp reduction in attendees at the AFA Warfare Symposium earlier this month. (3/24)

Kratos Plans Low-Cost Hypersonic Drone for US Military Needs (Source: Interesting Engineering)
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions is developing a low-cost hypersonic drone capable of exceeding Mach 5, possibly combining existing rocket propulsion with future air-breathing technology. The drone, part of the Kratos Furies Family of Hypersonic Systems, aims to be significantly cheaper than current systems, potentially operating in unmanned strike craft, reconnaissance and testbed applications. (3/21)

Chinese Astronauts Perform Spacewalk at TSS (Source: Space News)
Two Chinese astronauts performed a spacewalk outside the Tiangong space station Friday. Astronauts Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong spent roughly seven hours outside Tiangong on a spacewalk that ended at 8:50 a.m. Eastern. Cai and Song installed space debris protective shielding to the outside of the Wentian module, completing the deployment of shielding carried out across a series of missions and activities. They also installed and inspected equipment on the exterior of the station. The spacewalk was the third by the Shenzhou-19 crew, who are expected to return to Earth in about a month. (3/24)

Star Catcher Beams Energy Ahead of KSC Tests (Source: Space News)
Star Catcher Industries said it conducted the first test of technologies to beam concentrated solar energy. In a test in a football stadium, the company beamed concentrated sunlight more than 100 meters, successfully powering multiple off-the-shelf solar arrays. The company intends to use that technology in space to transmit beams of sunlight to spacecraft, increasing the power their solar panels can generate. Star Catcher plans another test this summer, beaming power more than a kilometer at the runway at the Kennedy Space Center. (3/24)

France's MaiaSpace Signs Launch Contract with Exotrail (Source: Space News)
French launch vehicle developer MaiaSpace has signed its first commercial contract. The company said last week it signed a deal with Exotrail for multiple launches of that company's spacevan orbital transfer vehicles, starting as soon as 2027. MaiaSpace is developing a small launch vehicle that can place 500 to 1,500 kilograms into orbit, depending on whether the first stage is recovered. Exotrail launched its first spacevan vehicle on a SpaceX rideshare mission in 2023 and has contracts for additional launches with Arianespace and Isar Aerospace. (3/24)

Pangea Raises $25 Million for Space Propulsion Development (Source: Space News)
Pangea Aerospace raised 23 million euros ($25 million) to further its work on space propulsion systems. Pangea announced the Series A round last week led by Hyperion Fund, a Madrid-based firm focused on aerospace, cyber and defense. The company, with offices in Barcelona and Toulouse, will use the funding to advance work on propulsion systems like aerospike engines it is developing for use in future launch vehicles. (3/24)

China's Ceres-1 Rocket Launches Six Weather Satellites (Source: Xinhua)
A commercial Chinese rocket launched several satellites Friday. The Ceres-1 rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 7:07 a.m. Eastern, placing into orbit six Yunyao-1 satellites that collect radio occultation data for weather forecasting. The launch was the second in less than a week of the Ceres-1, a solid-fuel small launcher operated by Galactic Energy. (3/24)

Norway Hosts Mainland Europe's First Orbital Launch (Source: Space Daily)
A German start-up hopes to conduct Monday a test flight of its Spectrum rocket from Norway's Andoya Spaceport, a first for Europe which is keen to maintain its access to space. The launch from the Arctic space center will be the first flight of an orbital launch vehicle from the European continent, excluding Russia. Measuring 28 meters (92 feet) high and two meters in diameter, with a payload capacity of one tonne, the Spectrum will not carry any cargo on this launch and is not expected to reach orbit. (3/24)

Starship Will Simply Never Work (Source: Medium)
A collective cheer echoed throughout the internet on the 6th of March as yet another Starship spectacularly exploded across the Caribbean sky. Some of this derision came from the understandable backlash to the now-outed billionaire nazi-sympathizer neo-fascist goon at the head of SpaceX. But a surprising amount came from a chorus of disgruntled engineers, physics teachers and people with common sense.

You see, SpaceX’s plans for Starship are demonstrably stupid. In fact, it is so stupid in so many different ways a lot of us, myself included, struggle to get a big-picture view and articulate why this moronic giant phallus will never work. I want to correct that with this article. So, come with me as I will lay out in glorious detail the 7 Deadly Sins of Starship and why this project is destined for the scrap heap.

Starship is meant to be a heavy-launch vehicle with a payload capacity of at least 100 tonnes to LEO. This specification is critical to every contract Starship has received. However, Musk has stated that, due to issues with thrust, Starship can only take 40–50 tonnes to LEO. That is actually less than their already operational Falcon Heavy! Okay, so what is going on here? Click here. (3/22)

Scientists Think They Discovered What Existed Before the Big Bang (Source: Brighter Side)
One such groundbreaking idea is the "Dark Big Bang" (DBB) theory, proposed in 2023 by Katherine Freese and Martin Winkler from the University of Texas at Austin. Unlike the conventional Big Bang, which explains the birth of ordinary matter, the DBB suggests that dark matter arose from a separate event.

This second Big Bang, occurring sometime after the first, would have generated dark matter through the decay of a quantum field trapped in a false vacuum state. In this model, the early universe consisted of two sectors: the visible sector, filled with the familiar particles and forces, and a dark sector, which remained cold and decoupled. Eventually, the dark sector underwent its own phase transition, analogous to the visible sector’s hot Big Bang. (3/22)

Curiosity Rover Cracked Open a Rock and May Have Settled the 'Life on Mars' Debate (Source: Earth.com)
While working its usual Martian shift, the rover stumbled upon, rather drove over, a rock and cracked it wide open, revealing a sight never before seen on Mars – a dazzling display of yellow sulfur crystals. This unexpected discovery was relayed to a team of astounded scientists, including Ashwin Vasavada, the Curiosity’s project scientist from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

“Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert. It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting,” Vasavada enthused. Researchers want to know what factors created this elemental form and how it can exist alongside other deposits that speak to the planet’s watery past. Its formation requires specific conditions not previously linked to this Martian location. (3/24)

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