December 15, 2025

Starfish and Impulse Demo Autonomous Proximity Operations (Source: Space News)
Starfish Space and Impulse Space have demonstrated autonomous spacecraft proximity operations. Two companies collaborated on a demonstration of rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) technologies. Starfish Space and Impulse Space announced Monday the completion of the Remora mission, where one Mira spacecraft developed by Impulse Space approached to within 1,250 meters of another Mira in low Earth orbit. The test used a single camera on the approaching Mira spacecraft with software provided by Starfish to autonomously guide the spacecraft. Starfish said the test demonstrates that RPO can be carried out without large sensor suites. The company plans to use the technology on its Otter line of satellite servicing spacecraft. (12/15)

SpaceX Launches Two Starlink Missions, From Florida and California (Sources: Space.com, Spaceflight Now)
SpaceX performed two Starlink launches over the weekend. One Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California Sunday, putting 27 Starlink satellites into orbit. The launch featured the 550th landing of a Falcon booster. Another Falcon 9 lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport on Monday, putting 29 Starlink satellites into orbit. The launch was the 120th so far this year devoted to Starlink. (12/15)

China Launches Kuaizhou-11 Rocket (Source: Xinhua)
A Chinese Kuaizhou-11 rocket launched two spacecraft late Friday. The rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 8:08 p.m. Eastern, placing into orbit the DEAR-5 spacecraft for Chinese company Azspace. The spacecraft carries 34 experiments from companies and organizations in topics ranging from microgravity science to space manufacturing. Also on the launch was Xiwang-5 phase-2, a satellite by the China Academy of Space Technology. (12/15)

Sky Perfect JSAT Picks SpaceX to Launch Two Satellites (Source: Sky Perfect JSAT)
Japanese satellite operator Sky Perfect JSAT has awarded SpaceX contracts to launch two spacecraft. Sky Perfect JSAT announced last week it selected SpaceX for the launch of the JSAT-31 and JSAT-32 GEO communications satellites. The operator previously picked SpaceX to launch its Superbird-9 satellite, and it said that the three satellites are scheduled for “sequential launches” starting in 2027. (12/15)

Italy Celebrates 1964 Launch Anniversary (Source: GSA)
Every December, Italy celebrates Italian National Space Day to mark the anniversary of the launch of San Marco 1, Italy’s first satellite. That achievement, which took place on December 15, 1964, made Italy only the third country in the world to launch a satellite into space. This year the Italian Trade Agency (ITA) and the Embassy of Italy in Washington, D.C. organized an event at the Embassy, under the auspices of the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The overall theme was “Next Frontiers - Italy and the United States Together to Explore the Next Frontiers of Space, From the Moon to Mars.”

Editor's Note: San Marco was also the first sea-launch platform, proving the concept for later projects by Russia/Ukraine, the US, and China. Two US commercial ventures are developing offshore platforms for orbital and suborbital launches. (12/15)

The U.S. Race to the Moon: Why Plan B Cannot Wait (Source: Space News)
If putting boots on the moon again before China does is a national priority for the United States, why then is the country putting all of its faith into an architecture that is "extraordinarily complex, burdened by untested technologies?" Doug Cooke argues for a "plan B" lunar lander to ensure that American leadership in space doesn't hinge entirely on a single program that's currently years behind schedule while its credibility is repeatedly challenged.

"Without a Plan B, we risk waking up one day to find the truth staring us in the face: The U.S. has lost the moon," Cooke wrote. "Furthering U.S. space leadership is either a national priority or it isn’t. If it is, then decisive action is required now." (12/14)

Far Too Many Americans Think Apollo Landings Were Faked (Source: NASA Watch)
It looks like a lot of Americans still believe in a bunch of conspiracies (surprise surprise) including the whole Apollo Moon landing thing. The conservative Manhattan Institute’s recent report on Republicans’ opinions survey found that 36% of the GOP believes that the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked by NASA. Younger men are more likely to hold this view (51% of men under 50 vs. 38% of women under 50). (12/7)

SpaceX Knocks American Airlines's Interest In Amazon Leo Over Starlink (Source: PC Mag)
As Amazon’s competitor to Starlink starts to emerge and generate customer interest, SpaceX executives are starting to snipe back. On Sunday, the company’s CEO Elon Musk and another SpaceX VP lobbed some criticism toward American Airlines, which is reportedly interested in Amazon’s satellite internet service, Leo. American Airlines is already tapping Viasat and Intelsat for in-flight Wi-Fi for most of its fleet. But according to Bloomberg, the airline has also held talks with Amazon about using Leo as well. (12/15)

NASA is Sending a Robotic Arm Into Orbit to Help Construct Vital Infrastructure in Space (Source: Supercar Blondie)
NASA is sending a robotic arm into orbit to help construct habitats and vital infrastructure in space. The arm is capable of autonomous tool use and can even ‘walk’ across spacecrafts in zero or partial gravity. Motiv Space Systems says this could lay the groundwork for robotic servicing, inspection, and assembly tasks while in orbit. (12/14)

Isaacman Has a Second Chance to Make NASA Great Again (Source: The Information)
Sen. Andy Kim, (D-NJ) had a back and forth with Isaacman about the so-called “Project Athena,” a plan for reforming NASA that Isaacman had developed during his first nomination process. He stood by the document but noted that it was a work in progress. Both Markey and Kim ultimately voted no on Isaacman’s nomination. The final vote was 18 ayes, including all of the Republicans and three Democrats, and 10 nays, all Democrats.

Athena is not only a list of possible future projects for NASA, but a blueprint for how the space agency will operate in a world dominated by heavy-hitting commercial space companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. It proposes three main goals for NASA in the 21st century: to lead the world in human space exploration, ignite a thriving space economy and become a force-multiplier for science.

If approved, Isaacman’s main mandate, informed by Athena and the dictates of his political masters in Congress and the White House, is to get America back on the moon before the Chinese and to establish a lunar base. He also means to spur NASA on to create new technologies — especially nuclear power and the propulsion necessary to expand human civilization beyond Earth. (12/14)

Good News for Lunar Bases? Earth's Atmosphere Leaks All the Way Out to the Moon (Source: Space.com)
Atoms and molecules from Earth's atmosphere have been traveling across space to settle on the moon for billions of years, new research has found, explaining a lunar mystery that goes back to the Apollo missions. Not only do the findings point to a way in which a historical record of Earth's atmosphere could be deposited on the moon, but they also imply a healthy abundance of elements that could be useful to humans should we ever set up a lunar base.

In samples of lunar regolith brought back from the moon by Apollo astronauts, scientists have found puzzling amounts of volatiles, which in this case are elements such as water, carbon dioxide, helium, argon and nitrogen that have low boiling or sublimation points. Some of these volatiles are brought to the moon from the sun via the solar wind, but the abundances of these volatiles, particularly nitrogen, cannot solely be explained by the solar wind. (12/15)

Lunar Soil Analyses Reveal How Space Weathering Shapes the Moon's Ultraviolet Reflectance (Source: Phys.org)
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists are collaborating with researchers at UT San Antonio to study how space weathering can alter the lunar surface materials to help interpret regional and global far-ultraviolet (FUV) maps of the moon. By analyzing just a few grains of returned samples from the Apollo missions, the team gained important insights into the evolution of the lunar surface shaped by solar wind and micrometeoroid impacts over eons. (12/10)

What's in 'Industrial Wastewater' Blue Origin Sends to Indian River Lagoon? (Source: Florida Today)
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin aims to keep discharging almost 500,000 gallons a day of water that starts as drinkable, is used in rocket-component testing and cooling systems, then winds up classified as “industrial wastewater.” The water flows into a pond about the size of seven football fields before reaching the Indian River Lagoon.

It's a permit renewal of what Florida has allowed Blue Origin to do for about five years, with some changes to how they handle the wastewater. But the permit renewal and several permit violations have brought the process to public attention and now has the county and conservationists crying foul. The draft permit doesn't increase Blue Origin’s overall discharge cap but formalizes a second, smaller outfall for cooling‑tower water within the same capacity of wastewater they deal with. The draft permit introduces stricter monitoring and numeric limits for nutrients, reflecting updated water quality requirements. (12/15)

Satellites Help Tackle Landfill Methane Leaks (Source: ESA)
Satellites are emerging as a powerful new tool in the fight to curb emissions of methane. While methane is much shorter-lived in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, it is vastly more potent at trapping heat, which makes rapid cuts essential for slowing warming in the short term. The same satellite technology that has transformed methane monitoring in the oil and gas sector is now being turned towards another major source – landfill sites. (12/15)

2.8 Days to Disaster - Why We Are Running Out of Time in Low Earth Orbit (Source: Universe Today)
According to their calculations, as of June 2025, if satellite operators were to lose their ability to send commands for avoidance maneuvers, there would be a catastrophic collision in around 2.8 days. Compare that to the 121 days that they calculated would have been the case in 2018, before the megaconstellation era, and you can see why they are concerned. Perhaps even more disturbingly, if operators lose control for even just 24 hours, there’s a 30% chance of a catastrophic collision that could act as the seed case for the decades-long process of Kessler syndrome. (12/15)

Alaska Airlines Launches Starlink Wi-Fi Systems on Embraer Planes (Source: Seattle Times)
More than a decade after introducing in-flight Wi-Fi, airlines are turning to the next wave of sky-high connectivity. Airlines are tapping into satellite technology to make in-flight internet faster, harnessing the power of low Earth orbit satellites from Elon Musk’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper, now officially called Leo. On Monday, Alaska Airlines said it had launched its first passenger flights with Starlink-enabled Wi-Fi, after completing installation of the new system on four Embraer E175 regional jets.

Several of the nation’s largest carriers have announced plans or expressed interest in connecting with one of the low Earth orbit satellite providers, with three carriers intending to roll out the service across their fleet in 2026 or 2027. United and Alaska have chosen Starlink. Budget airline JetBlue has inked a deal with Amazon. American is reportedly in talks with the Amazon team, while Delta tested Starlink’s satellite technology three years ago without any commitments. Southwest is launching faster Wi-Fi through a partnership with T-Mobile, but hasn’t commented on the latest satellite technology. (12/15)

‘Victus Haze’ Responsive Space Mission Pushed to 2026 by Rocket Anomaly (Source: Air and Space Forces)
The Space Force has delayed its next Tactically Responsive Space mission, Victus Haze, until 2026, as one of its launch providers continues to recover from a rocket anomaly that occurred earlier this year. The Space Force had planned to fly the Victus Haze mission earlier this year, part of a larger effort to refine its ability to ready spacecraft and rockets for launch on rapid timelines. The service first demonstrated this concept in 2023 when it worked with spacecraft and launch firms to deliver a satellite in months and launch it with just over a day’s notice. (12/15)

NASA to Test SpaceX’s Starshield in Pilot Program (Source: Space News)
In a groundbreaking move, NASA is set to test SpaceX's Starshield satellite network, a cutting-edge system designed for national security. This pilot program aims to enhance the Deep Space Network's communication capabilities, ensuring secure and reliable data transfer. With seven terminals and eight data subscriptions, NASA will establish a redundant communication path, improving the network's resilience.

Starshield, a specialized version of SpaceX's Starlink, promises unparalleled data encryption and secure data processing, catering to the most stringent government standards. This collaboration marks a significant step towards advancing space communication technology, potentially revolutionizing how we explore and communicate in the vastness of space. (12/15)

No Science, No Startups: The Innovation Engine We're Switching Off (Source: Steve Blank)
The U.S. government has supported scientific research at scale (read billions of $s) since 1940. U.S. universities perform about 50% of all basic science research because they are training grounds for graduate students and postdocs. Universities spend ~$109 billion a year on research. ~$60 billion of that $109 billion comes from NIH for biomedical research, NSF for basic science, DoD, DOE, NASA. National power is derived from investments in Science.

Engineers design and build things on top of the discoveries of scientists. For example, seven years after scientists split the atom, it took 10s of thousands of engineers to build an atomic bomb. From the outset, the engineers knew what they wanted to build because of the basic and applied scientific research that came before them. My favorite example is that the reusable SpaceX rocket landings are made possible by the Applied Science research on Convex Optimization frameworks and algorithms by Steven Boyd of Stanford. And Boyd’s work was based on the Basic science mathematical field of convex analysis (SpaceX, NASA, JPL, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab all use variations of Convex Optimization for guidance, control, and landing.)

Countries that neglect science become dependent on those that don’t. Cut U.S. funding, then science will happen in other countries that understand its relationship to making a nation great – like China. U.S. post-WWII dominance came from basic science investments. After WWII ended, the UK slashed science investment which allowed the U.S. to commercialize the British inventions made during the war. The Soviet Union’s collapse partly reflected failure to convert science into sustained innovation, during the same time that U.S. universities, startups and venture capital created Silicon Valley. Reducing investment in basic and applied science makes America weak. (10/13)

China Leads Research in 90% of Crucial Technologies — a Dramatic Shift This Century (Source: Nature)
China is leading research in nearly 90% of the crucial technologies that “significantly enhance, or pose risks to, a country’s national interests”, according to a technology tracker run by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) — an independent think-tank.

The ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker evaluated research on 74 current and emerging technologies this year, up from the 64 technologies it analyzed last year. China is ranked number one for research on 66 of the technologies, including nuclear energy, synthetic biology, small satellites, while the United States topped the remaining 8, including quantum computing and geoengineering.

The results reflect a drastic reversal. At the beginning of this century, the United States led more than 90% of the assessed technologies, whereas China led less than 5% of them, according to the 2024 edition of the tracker. (12/12)

China Installs Defensive Countermeasures on Space Station (Source: Futurism)
About a month after a tiny piece of space debris stranded three astronauts for nine days aboard China’s Tiangong space station, the taikonauts aboard the orbital outpost have begun making some modifications. According to state media network CGTN, the country’s space travelers Zhang Lu and Wu Fei endured an eight-hour spacewalk earlier this week in order to install a debris protection panels on the space station’s outer hull. While there, they also performed an inspection of Tiangong’s exterior, along with other minor repairs. (12/14)

Inside NASA’s Mars Planetary Protection Program — Why There Are “Banned Regions” (Source: The Diary)
Mars is one of the most explored planets within our solar system. Yet, although NASA has been exploring the red planet for almost half a decade, several terrains with its landscapes have remained prohibited from us. In this article, we discuss these areas on Mars and why they are forbidden for exploration. The UN Space Treaty included a section called the Planetary Protection Program, which says, “States Parties to this treaty could conduct exploration on any celestial bodies so long as they do not contaminate or bring any potentially hazardous matter from Earth.”

Since the enactment of the treaty, Mars has been explored for potential extraterrestrial lifeforms. However, to explore whether this exploration is done responsibly, the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) from the International Council of Science has maintained oversight. The committee sets guides on where and cannot be explored on the red planet. These regions where NASA is prohibited from exploring are known as special regions. According to the committee, there are certain microbes from Earth known as prokaryotic or eukaryotic organisms that are usually carried by spacecraft.

What makes these regions special is that they have a near-perfect combination of atmospheric temperatures, water bodies with potential microbial life, and a shield from solar radiation. Therefore, although NASA is allowed to explore Mars, rover spacecraft like Perseverance and Curiosity cannot approach these regions. Since NASA has explored the Martin landscapes, efforts have been made to raise the ban in these special regions. The prominent arguments have echoed how life from Earth cannot grow on Mars and how both planets sometimes share ecosystems. This had left the Planetary Protection program at a crossroads: to explore, but to what extent? (12/14)

This Startup Raised Millions to Beam Solar Power From Space After Dark (Source: New Atlas)
Another day, another ambitious company emerges to harness the power of the Sun from Earth's orbit. The latest to join the fold is Overview Energy, a Northern Virginia-based startup that's raised US$20 million to try transmitting solar power from satellites down to solar panels on Earth, enabling a 24/7 supply.

Specifically, it plans to use wide-beam near-infrared lasers to continuously deliver power from satellites in geosynchronous orbit (about 22,000 miles or 36,000 km above the Earth's surface) to existing solar farms. At that altitude, the Sun is visible around the clock, which means Overview's constellation could help make use of existing solar projects to generate electricity during the 65%-75% of time during the day when they're otherwise idle. (12/12)

China Is Winning the Cyberwar (Source: Foreign Affairs)
American companies are world leaders in technology—be it innovative software, cloud services, artificial intelligence, or cybersecurity products. Yet beginning as many as three years ago, hackers believed to be backed by the Chinese government did something the United States, the tech powerhouse, could not adequately defend against: they gained and maintained access to major U.S. telecommunications networks, copying conversations and building the ability to track the movements of U.S. intelligence officers and law enforcement agents across the country. The attack, dubbed “Salt Typhoon,” constituted a large part of a global campaign against telecoms. (10/25)

How Europe Crushes Innovation (Source: Atlantic Council)
There are two ways for Western companies to sack lots of people. The American one involves the boss inviting hundreds of unsuspecting employees on a Zoom call, offering them a few months’ wages as severance and insincerely wishing them luck in their future endeavors (oh, and to have their desk cleared by lunchtime). The European method is more circuitous. Companies wanting to enact mass lay-offs typically start with consultations with unions, representatives of which sit on companies’ boards in Germany. A plan social is drafted. Strikes inevitably ensue.

Politicians get involved, and badger the employer into firing fewer people than it had originally planned, or to pay for its soon-to-be-ex staff to be retrained. The full cost of downsizing is only known once labor courts are called to rule on the matter, years later. Meanwhile the company in question often cannot hire more employees lest it be made to hire those who were just let go. (11/20)