August 29, 2025

Part of Starship Exploded on Re-Entry (Source: Futurism)
As the spacecraft re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, facing temperatures around 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit, part of its aft appeared to explode, the New York Times reported. Per Spaceflight Now, it seems that the craft's protective skirt blew apart, and one of its rear flaps partially melted. There's a silver lining, however: even in the face of that damage, the remaining portion of the craft performed as intended for the rest of the trip. (8/28)

Spaceport Company Supports Offshore Rocket Motor Test (Source: The Spaceport Company)
The Spaceport Company (TSC) hosted an engine test campaign by Microgravity Inc. aboard the 'Once In A Lifetime' floating launch platform off the coast of Mississippi. Two firings were conducted in one day. The engine test stand was designed and fabricated in less than two months. The operation itself took less than two days including set-up, rehearsals, operations, and demobilization. (8/28)

Astrophysicists Find No ‘Hair’ on Black Holes (Source: Quanta)
According to Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the behavior of a black hole depends on two numbers: how heavy it is, and how fast it is rotating. And that’s it. Black holes are said to have “no hair” — no features that distinguish them from their fellows with the same mass and spin. With new data, it has started to become possible to test this no-hair conjecture.

Astronomers recently summed up their tests, covering a variety of methods and results, including an analysis of gravitational wave signals. Assembling data from multiple black hole collisions, that group found that the data agreed with Einstein’s theory as best they could tell. Any deviation from what general relativity predicts for the shape of space-time around a black hole — any “hair” — would have to lie closer to the hole than 40 kilometers. (8/27)

Rocket Lab's Geost Sells Optical Payloads to Space Force (Source: Space News)
Rocket Lab's recently acquired subsidiary, Geost, has received a contract expansion from the U.S. Space Force to produce two optical payloads for geostationary orbit missions. This expansion allows Rocket Lab to bring mission-critical payload development in-house, enhancing its capability to deliver complete, integrated satellite systems for national security purposes, reducing costs, and accelerating program timelines. (8/28)

What Does SpaceX’s Starship Test Success Mean for the US-China Moon Race? (Source: SCMP)
The first successful flight for Starship – the biggest and heaviest rocket ever built – has revived US hopes of beating China in the race back to the moon, but experts warned the breakthrough may not be enough to stop Beijing from building the first lunar base. NASA acting administrator Sean Duffy wrote that Flight 10’s success “paves the way for the Starship Human Landing System that will bring American astronauts back to the moon on Artemis III”.

Starship’s lunar lander variant is designed to ferry astronauts from the moon’s orbit to the surface and back for the Artemis III mission, which is targeting 2027 for its departure – a timeline that Duffy insisted was realistic and vital to beating China. (8/28)

NASA Debuts New Orion Mission Control Room for Artemis 2 (Source: Space.com)
With shiny new next-generation spacecraft come the complex systems required to track their technologically advanced systems. When it comes to NASA's Orion spacecraft, that need is a whole extra room of monitors. NASA has opened a new complex in the Mission Control Center at its Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston ahead of the Artemis 2 mission to send astronauts around the moon aboard the Orion space capsule — the vehicle's first-ever crewed flight test. (8/28)