December 28, 2025

Isar Aerospace Clears Final Tests for Second Spectrum Launch (Source: Isar)
Less than nine months after Spectrum’s first test flight, Isar Aerospace has completed stage testing and is preparing for its second launch from the company’s dedicated launch complex at Andøya Space in Norway. Both of the vehicle’s stages passed 30-second integrated static fire tests, validating vehicle readiness for final integration and launch operations.

Isar Aerospace’s rapid pace, advancing Europe’s ability to deploy and sustain critical space infrastructure, is powered by a vertically integrated, automated production system built to deliver launch capability at scale from European soil. Spectrum is designed and manufactured almost entirely inhouse, with the infrastructure to produce more than 30 vehicles per year in its new 40,000 square-meter facility near Munich. “Being back on the pad less than nine months after our first test flight is proof that we can operate at the speed the world now demands,” said CEO Daniel Metzler. (12/22)

$9.3 Million Approved by Texas Space Commission for SEARF Grant Award (Source: Texas Space Commission)
The Texas Space Commission (TSC) board of directors voted to conditionally approve a grant application totaling $9,270,000 for a proposed project led by The University of Texas at Austin. The project will support development of a Space Domain Awareness (SDA) “Tools, Applications, and Processing” (TAP) lab. The grant includes facility construction, equipment, as well as research and development costs. The Lab’s permanent infrastructure will serve as Texas’ first operational SDA innovation node, fostering economic growth, orbital safety, and strategic autonomy for both Texas and the nation. (12/20)

GomSpace Selected for Inclusion in Nasdaq First North 25 Index (Source: GomSpace)
GomSpace has been selected for inclusion in the Nasdaq First North 25 Index (FN25), the flagship benchmark comprising the 25 largest and most actively traded companies on Nasdaq First North Growth Market. The inclusion will take effect from market open on January 2, 2026. (12/19)

Caltech Gets $50 Million Gift for Aerospace Department (Source: Caltech)
The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has received a $50 million commitment from Caltech Trustee Lynn Booth and Life Member Kent Kresa, former chair of the Board of Trustees. Made jointly with their family foundations, the gift endows and names the Lynn Booth and Kent Kresa Department of Aerospace, securing the Institute's continued leadership in the rapidly evolving sectors of space science and exploration. (12/18)

ISRO Aims to Commission Third Launch Pad at Shriharikota in 4 Years (Source: Meghalayan Express)
ISRO is in the process of developing a third launch pad at the Shriharikota spaceport and is currently identifying the right vendors for it, a top scientist said. Shriharikota complex, which covers an area of 175 sq km, has been serving the space agency for the launch of various satellites using different launch vehicles. To move ahead with its plan of placing bigger satellites weighing over 12,000 – 14,000 kg in various orbits in space, ISRO requires bigger launch vehicles. To serve this purpose, ISRO is planning a third launch pad.

The third pad is required for the next series of launch vehicles, used for both crewed and uncrewed missions while the first and second launch pads are used for PSLV and GSLV missions. Meanwhile, yet another launch pad currently under construction in Kulasekarapattinam would be used to launch Small Satellite Launch Vehicles (SSLVs), which can place satellites into the Low Earth Orbit.

“These satellites may weigh about 500 kg and can be placed in LEO. For such missions, we will be using that (Kulasekarapattinam) facility,” he said. ISRO currently uses three launch vehicles — the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) and Launch Vehicle Mark 3 (LVM3) or as previously called, Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk-III. (12/28)

The Kiwi ‘Engine’ That Could Change Spaceflight (Source: The Post)
Auckland company Zenno has spent eight years developing a propulsion system that generates a force co-founder Sebastian Wieczorek says could be reasonably compared with that you would get from pushing something with your little finger. So why is it one of the country’s hottest start-ups, having so far raised $29 million from investors in New Zealand and overseas?

The answer is that it can produce that ‘finger-force’ in space, where resistance is next to zero and it could be all that is needed to spin a one-tonne satellite on its axis, or perhaps nudge several rocket-loads of components together to self-assemble into a space station. The “engine” Zenno has developed is an electromagnetic field generated by a wire coil that could in theory be powered indefinitely by the solar panels on a satellite and energy from the sun. (12/27)

Mercury: The Planet That Shouldn't Exist (Source: BBC)
Far smaller and closer to the Sun than it should be, Mercury has long baffled astronomers because it defies much of what we know about planet formation. A new space mission arriving in 2026 might solve the mystery. A joint European and Japanese mission called BepiColombo launched in 2018 and is currently on its way to Mercury. The probe will be our first visitor to the planet in more than a decade. When it enters orbit in November 2026, after a thruster problem delayed its journey, one of its key goals is to try and work exactly where Mercury came from. (12/28)

Iran’s Satellites Launch on Russian Rocket on Sunday (Source: Wanaen)
Iran’s space industry today witnessed one of its most significant achievements in recent years. Three domestically developed satellites—Zafar-2, Paya, and the upgraded Kowsar—were successfully launched into low Earth orbit (LEO) at an altitude of about 500 kilometers by the Russian Soyuz launch vehicle from Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome. (12/27)

Year's Final Space Launch Planned on Sunday From Vandenberg (Source: Noozhawk)
For this mission, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will deliver the COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation FM satellite to low-Earth orbit in support of the Italian Space Agency and the Italian Ministry of Defense. The landing likely will generate sonic booms that may be heard in Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties depending on weather and atmospheric conditions. (12/27)

The Top Astronomical Discoveries of 2025 (Source: Space.com)
2025 was an exciting year for astronomical discoveries. Scientists got the best evidence yet for past life on Mars, discovered an interstellar comet zooming through our solar system, found clues of possible nearby exoplanets, and much more. Here are eight of the most spectacular space stories from the past 12 months. (12/28)

Perseverance Continues Science Mission Amid Uncertainty About Mars Sample Return (Source: Space News)
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is continuing its mission to collect samples in Mars' Jezero Crater, despite uncertainty about how, when or even if those samples will be returned to Earth. The ambitious NASA/ESA Mars Sample Return (MSR) program faces major budget, schedule, and technical challenges, leading to budget cuts, potential cancellations, and review of alternative, cheaper, faster methods to bring those precious Martian samples back to Earth for detailed study in labs, potentially as early as 2035 but with much uncertainty. (12/26)

Space Mouse Gives Birth to First Generation of Pups, Opening Doors for Future Research (Source: CGTN)
One of the four mice that traveled aboard China's Shenzhou-21 spacecraft has successfully given birth to healthy pups after returning to Earth, the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization at Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said on Friday. The four mice were sent into space on October 31 for survival and adaptation experiment under the space environment. They lived in a specialized small mammal habitat onboard China's space station. (12/27)

Starbase Again Sues Texas AG Paxton Over Public Information Requests (Source: San Antonio Express-News)
The secretive nature of Elon Musk’s SpaceX keeps colliding with Texas open records laws at the new company town of Starbase. Since incorporating, the space city has filed at least four lawsuits against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over his office’s rulings on media requests for public information. The most recent came last week when Starbase attorneys sued Paxton in state District Court in Travis County over his ruling that the city must release some information it wants to keep private. (12/27)

2026 Will be the Year NASA Astronauts Fly Around the Moon Again — if All Goes to Plan (Source: NBC News)
If all goes according to NASA’s plans, 2026 will finally be the year that astronauts once again launch to the moon. In a matter of months, four astronauts are poised to fly around the moon on a roughly 10-day mission — the closest humans will have gotten in more than half a century.

The flight, known as Artemis II, could lift off as early as February and would be a long-awaited jump start to America’s lagging return-to-the-moon program. The mission will serve as a crucial test of NASA’s next-generation Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, which have been in development for more than a decade and faced years of setbacks and severe budget overruns. The system has never carried a crew before. (12/27)

NASA Wanted to Use Ireland's Shannon Airport as Emergency Landing Site (Source: RTE)
Shannon Airport has had many eye-catching visitors over the years. But the prospect of a pay-load carrying NASA space shuttle hurtling towards it in a potential crash landing scenario with an "eight to 20 second" warning understandably surprised even the most world-weary of officials. New files released to the National Archives of Ireland under the 30-year rule show that in early 1995, the government was contacted by US officials to request the use of the west of Ireland travel hub as an emergency landing location for a space shuttle. (12/27)

China Launches New Satellite, Boosting Meteorological Observation Capabilities (Source: Xinhua)
China on Saturday sent a new satellite into space from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the country's southwestern Sichuan Province. The satellite, Fengyun-4 03, was launched by a Long March-3B rocket and has entered its planned orbit. With this successful launch, China's Fengyun meteorological satellite family -- now consisting of more than 20 satellites -- has gained a new member that is considered the most capable in terms of comprehensive observation capabilities. (12/27)

Before This Physicist Studied the Stars, He Was One (Source: New York Times)
Because before he became Brian Cox, the particle physicist renowned for his adroitness in explaining the intricacies and magnificence of space, he was Brian Cox the rock star. His first professional gig, in fact, was playing keyboards in the opening band on a tour with Jimmy Page, the lead guitarist of Led Zeppelin. His second band, D:Ream, had a song that hit No. 1 on the British pop charts in 1994. (12/27)

Dark Matter May Be Made of Pieces of Giant, Exotic Objects (Source: Space.com)
It could be that dark matter isn't made of zillions of tiny particles flying through the universe. Instead, it could be composed of bunched-up collections of much larger objects. In particular, the researchers behind a new study, published in November 2025 in the open access server arXiv, investigated two kinds of exotic objects.

The first is known as a boson star. In this model, dark matter is made of an ultra-ultra-ultra light particle — potentially millions of times lighter than neutrinos, the lightest known particles. They would be so light that their quantum nature would make them appear more like waves at galactic scales than like individual particles. But these waves would sometimes bunch up and collect on themselves, pulling together with their own gravity, without collapsing.

Another possibility is called Q-balls. In this model, dark matter isn't a particle at all but rather a quantum field that soaks all of space and time. Due to a special property of this field, it could occasionally pinch off, creating gigantic, stable, lump-like balls that wander the cosmos like a floating piece of flour in gravy that hasn't been mixed well. (12/26)

The New Space Race: the Technicalities of Putting Nuclear Power on the Moon (Source: Power Technology)  
A nuclear reactor on the moon would solve space exploration’s current chicken-and-egg quandary: whether to build power systems or demand systems first. Reviving the 70-year-old space race, the US and Russia – the latter collaborating with China – are set on building the first nuclear reactor on the moon. Both projects seek to power new demand systems, with fears around ‘keep-out’ zones and future mineral dominance spurring the need to win. 

However, the timescales are ambitious; Acting Nasa Administrator Sean Duffy announced in August that the US would put a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030, five years ahead of Russia and China’s plans to do the same. But there is some industry skepticism around the plausibility of overcoming mountainous engineering hurdles in time. Russia and China will face the same hurdles, although on a somewhat less pressured timescale, to realize their plan to power the joint International Lunar Research Station. (11/10)