June 10, 2025

What Isaacman Would Have Done at NASA (Source: NASA Watch)
"In short, I would have deleted the bureaucracy that impedes progress and robs resources from the mission (this is not unique to NASA it’s a govt problem). I would flatten the hierarchy, rebuild the culture—centered on ownership, urgency, mission-focus alongside a risk recalibration. Then concentrate resources on the big needle movers NASA was meant to achieve.

"And if it came down to poor outcomes like failing to launch a near-complete Roman, shutting down Hubble or Chandra prematurely or flying reduced crew sizes to the ISS just to save money (yes, people are actually considering 3 astronauts instead of 4) … then yes, I would have funded it myself to protect the science." (6/9)

The Long Road to Near-Real-Time Satellite Reconnaissance (Source: Space Review)
Today, we take it for granted that countries and companies and return high-resolution reconnaissance images from space almost instantly. Dwayne Day outlines the decades-long effort by the US to create that capability that was established nearly a half-century ago. Click here. (6/9)
 
Starship Setbacks and Strategies (Source: Space Review)
SpaceX conducted another Starship test flight in late May, and again failed to achieve major test objectives. Jeff Foust reports that, despite that setback, Elon Musk is still pressing ahead with an extremely ambitious future for the vehicle. Click here. (6/9)
 
Space-Based Solar Power: A New Frontier in US Energy Security (Source: Space Review)
Advocates of space-based solar power have long talked about the benefits that the large amount of clean energy could provide. David Steitz and Sowmya Venkatesh discuss how they are also warning about the risks of falling behind China in its development. Click here. (6/9)

UK Space Conference 2025 to land in Manchester (Source: AstroAgency)
UK Space Conference returns on 16–17 July 2025 at Manchester Central, bringing together global space leaders, policymakers, researchers, and innovators to explore the theme Space for Growth. As the UK’s official biennial space sector forum, delivered in partnership with UK Space Agency, 2025’s event will focus on practical solutions, national capability, and unlocking economic value across industry, academia, defense, and adjacent sectors. (6/10)

United Airlines Shuts Down Starlink After the Antennas Caused Problems With Its Jets' Equipment (Source: Futurism)
SpaceX's satellite-based internet provider is interfering with radio communications on some United Airlines regional jets, leading the airline to shut down the WiFi service aboard its Embraer E175 jets. Whenever they communicated with air traffic controllers, pilots were getting static interference on their radio transmission, which was then linked to the recent installation of Starlink antennae. The WSJ reports that the airline doesn't think it was a safety issue. (6/9)

There's an Infinite Amount of Energy Locked in the Vacuum of Space-Time. Could We Ever Use It? (Source: Space.com)
The idea of vacuum energy comes from quantum field theory, which is a marriage of quantum mechanics with Einstein's theory of special relativity. In quantum field theory, particles are not really what we think they are. Instead, they are better represented as fields, which are quantum entities that span all of space and time. When a localized patch of the field gets sufficient energy and starts traveling, we identify it as a particle. But the real fundamental object is the field itself.

In quantum mechanics, any system has a defined set of energies, like the energies that an electron can have in its orbital shells around an atomic nucleus. Similarly, the quantum fields have energies associated with them at every point in space. Any finite volume, like an empty box, contains an infinite number of geometric points, so this means there's an infinite amount of energy in that volume. (6/9)

Blue Origin Pushes Second Flight of New Glenn to August (Source: Tech Crunch)
The second flight of Blue Origin’s massive New Glenn rocket won’t happen until at least mid-August, CEO Dave Limp announced Monday in a post on X. That represents a slight delay — Jeff Bezos’ space company had said in March it was targeting “late spring” for the rocket’s second launch.

New Glenn’s first launch took place January 16. While the rocket’s upper stage reached orbit on its first attempt, the booster stage exploded while attempting to land on a drone ship in the ocean. Blue Origin said in March it discovered “seven corrective actions” as part of the investigation mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration. Limp said Monday the company will once again try to land and recover the booster stage on New Glenn’s second flight. The executive wrote that Blue Origin is targeting a launch date of no earlier than August 15. (6/9)

A Reinvigorated Push for Nuclear Power in Space (Source: Space News)
“We’ve spent nearly $20 billion on nuclear (space) power since the 50s and the only system we currently have is a light-bulb sized, 100-watt radioisotope generator,” said Bhavya Lal, former NASA Associate Administrator for Technology, Policy, and Strategy. Lal, along with Roger Myers say they now hope to “confront that disconnect head-on,” with an upcoming Idaho National Lab-funded report, entitled “Weighing the Future: Strategic Options for U.S. Space Nuclear Leadership.”

In April of this year, Kristin Houston, president of L3Harris’ space propulsion and power systems, said “we are finally at the cusp for both nuclear electric propulsion and nuclear thermal propulsion,” and that the company is monitoring NASA’s Fission Surface Power program, meant to develop nuclear power systems for both lunar and Mars surface operations. It’s not clear what such developments could signal in this next era of space exploration. But as space infrastructure needs and developments ramp up, there is an open question of power. (6/9)

Astronomers Close In on the Source of the Highest Energy Particles (Source: Big Think)
In a laboratory setting, humans have accelerated particles — protons, antiprotons, electrons, and positrons — to incredibly high energies: up to the TeV (trillions of electron-volts) scale. But cosmic rays, also including protons, electrons, and other atomic nuclei, are produced up to far greater energies, at the PeV (quadrillions of electron-volts) scale and beyond. These very high energy cosmic rays are produced somewhere in our own galaxy: in natural, astrophysical particle accelerators. (6/9)

Webb Detects Familiar Ice-Covered Dust in a Galaxy 5 Billion Light-Years Away (Source: Phys.org)
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a Tufts astronomer and her colleagues have found that the ice-covered dust in a far-away galaxy is much like dust that is closer to us. Knowing that will allow astronomers to more accurately calibrate their calculations for measuring things like star and black hole formation in the earlier universe. (6/9)

Shrinking The NASA Office Of Communications (Source: NASA Watch)
NASA Sources report that OCOMM – NASA Office of Communications – employees are saying that at least 60% of their staff need to take advantage of a NASA Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), Voluntary Early Retirement (VERA), and/or Voluntary Separation Incentive Program (VSIP) to leave the agency and do so by the deadline. Otherwise there is going to be an involuntary RIF beginning in August. (6/9)

Is China’s BeiDou a Weapon of War? (Source: Space News)
Chinese technologies are without question a double-edged sword. From DeepSeek AI to Huawei smartphones, DJI drones and industrial port cranes, many of these tools raise valid concerns about surveillance, information theft and disruption. The United States is right to not trust them. But not every Chinese innovation is a covert weapon. And there is one technology in particular that the U.S. would be short-sighted to decouple from — China’s GPS rival BeiDou.

Skepticism is certainly warranted. But BeiDou isn’t Huawei, and not all threats are created equal. In the case of GNSS, many of the concerns reflect theoretical fears rather than engineering realities. Restricting access to BeiDou and other foreign GNSS like GLONASS would undercut the very resilience our positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) systems are supposed to deliver. (6/9)

A Long-Shot Plan to Mine the Moon Comes a Little Closer to Reality (Source: Ars Technica)
Last Month Interlune announced that it had partnered with an industrial equipment manufacturer, Vermeer Corporation, to build and test an excavator that could ingest 100 metric tons of dirt (which was a decent facsimile of lunar regolith, but not a high-quality simulant) per hour. The machine is sized to produce about 20 kg of helium-3 a year. Of course, operating on Earth is vastly different from the lunar surface, but this nonetheless offers a reasonable proof of concept. (6/9)

Advanced Simulations Explain Exoplanetary Systems with Compact Orbits (Source: Phys.org)
Star and planet formation has largely been considered separate, sequential processes. But in a new study, scientists at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) have modeled a different scenario where planets start developing early—during the final stages of stellar formation—rather than after this phase ends, as previously assumed. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Among the many thousands of known exoplanets there is a large population of compact systems that each have multiple planets orbiting very close to their central star. This contrasts with our solar system, which lacks planets orbiting closer than Mercury. Interestingly, in compact systems, the total mass of the planets in each system relative to the host star's mass is remarkably consistent across hundreds of systems. The cause of this common mass ratio remains a mystery. (6/9)

The Latin American Country That Told Elon Musk ‘No’ (Source: New York Times)
Web pages load at a crawling pace. Video streams glitch and freeze. Outside Bolivia’s biggest cities, the nearest internet signal is sometimes hours away over treacherous mountain roads. So when Elon Musk’s Starlink offered Bolivia fast, affordable internet beamed from space, many expected the Andean nation of 12 million to celebrate. Instead, Bolivia said no thanks.

But Starlink’s advance has been stymied by Bolivia, which refused to give it an operating license last year, with experts and officials citing worries over its unchecked dominance everywhere it has set up shop, instead choosing to rely on the country’s own aging Chinese-made satellite. The decision to reject Starlink has puzzled and angered people in Bolivia, where internet speeds are the slowest in South America and hundreds of thousands remain offline. (6/8)

SpaceX Rocket Debris Litters Mexico Beach, Threatens Environment (Source: AccuWeather)
Since the explosion, debris from the uncrewed booster, which was larger than the Statue of Liberty, has been washing up along the beaches of Mexico, revealing the extent of the environmental fallout from the launch. "I personally inspected 40 kilometers of beach, and the findings were shocking: clearly, millions of plastic fragments are reaching the shoreline. This puts the entire marine ecosystem at high risk, negatively affects local fishing communities, and poses a threat to boats that may collide with the floating tanks," Conibio Global A.C. posted on Facebook on June 1. (6/9)

White House Struggles to Hire Senior Advisers to Pete Hegseth (Source: NBC)
The White House is looking for a new chief of staff and several senior advisers to support Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after a series of missteps that have shaken confidence in his leadership, but it has so far found no suitable takers, according to four current and former administration officials and a Republican congressional aide.

Top Defense Department jobs, including the defense secretary’s chief of staff, are normally considered prestigious and typically attract multiple qualified candidates. But at least three people have already turned down potential roles under Hegseth, according to a former U.S. official, the defense official and a person familiar with the matter. (6/9)

Space Farming with Mushrooms (Source: Adele Baker)
In a notable step forward for space agriculture, Australian firm FOODiQ Global cultivated and grew oyster mushrooms in microgravity aboard Fram2, the first human spaceflight mission to traverse Earth's polar regions. On the final day of the three-and-a-half-day mission, which was launched on the 31st of March 2025, the experiment addressed fundamental questions about food production capabilities that could sustain future deep space exploration.

Unlike traditional crops, which require soil, large amounts of water, and sunlight, mushrooms thrive in compact, controlled environments with minimal inputs. They can grow on organic waste, do not need to photosynthesize, and complete their growth cycle in days rather than weeks. This makes them a perfect candidate for microgravity environments like the International Space Station (ISS), where resource efficiency is crucial. (6/9)

What Does an Axiom Ticket Get You? (Source: Business Insider)
Its tickets, which cost roughly $70 million, are steep compared to other human spaceflight options offered by space tourism companies. For context, Blue Origin requires a $150,000 refundable deposit for a ticket to space, and auctioned off a ticket for $28 million. Virgin Galactic tickets were previously priced at $600,000, and are expected to go up. So why is Axiom's offering priced so much higher?

For starters, the destination is different. Unlike other human spaceflight missions, like Blue Origin's New Shepard trip, Axiom Space missions extend beyond an 11-minute experience, involving much more than a rocket trip into weightlessness and a quick return to Earth.Instead, you'll visit the International Space Station, for around two weeks.

The $70 million price tag doesn't just cover a ticket to space, but a yearlong program to become a trained astronaut. The company told BI that Axiom Space's private astronauts undergo training that meets NASA standards, though it isn't quite as robust as what is required of NASA astronauts. The exact price is determined on a case-by-case basis. (6/9)

Axiom-4 Space Mission Will Boost ISRO's Future Crewed Trips (Source: New Indian Express)
Axiom-4 (Ax-4) is scheduled to lift off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 10. It can help the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) reap benefits for its future manned space missions. India’s maiden crewed space mission, Gaganyaan, is scheduled for 2027, and one of the four astronauts chosen for it, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, is the pilot for the Ax-4 Space Mission.

For the record, Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to go into space in April 1984, and Group Captain Shukla— the second Indian to follow suit after nearly 41 years—will be the first Indian to pilot a spacecraft. Piloting the SpaceX Dragon, Shukla will be responsible for docking the vehicle with the International Space Station and undocking for its return to Earth after the 14-day mission.

Incidentally, ISRO’s own Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) has been ongoing in autonomous mode since January, during which two satellites, each weighing just 220 kg, are undergoing docking and undocking procedures in space at an orbital altitude of 400 km. (6/8)

Trump's Palace Coup Leaves NASA in Limbo (Source: The Hill)
NASA is in for months more of turmoil and uncertainty as the nomination process gets reset and starts grinding its way through the Senate. The draconian, truncated budget proposal is certainly not helpful, either. Congress, which had been supportive of Trump’s space policy, is not likely to be pleased by the president’s high-handed shivving of his own nominee.

Whoever Trump chooses to replace Isaacman as NASA administrator nominee, no matter how qualified, should face some very direct questioning. Trump’s NASA budget proposal should be dead on arrival, which, considering the cuts in science and technology, is not necessarily a bad thing. (6/8)

Chinese Rocket Delivers E-Commerce Packages in Sea Recovery Test (Source: Xinhua)
A Chinese private rocket firm has successfully tested transporting packages from Taobao, one of the country's largest e-commerce platforms, using a reusable rocket. The rocket was later recovered from the sea, marking a significant advancement in commercial space logistics. SEPOCH, a Beijing-based startup, completed its inaugural "rocket delivery" experiment on May 29 when its XZY-1 verification rocket carried over 20 kilograms of packages during a test flight off China's eastern coast.

The 26.8-meter stainless steel rocket, weighing 57 tonnes, flew for 125 seconds and reached an altitude of 2.5 kilometers before successfully landing vertically on the sea surface near Shandong Province. Following an 18-hour recovery operation, the rocket was retrieved intact and returned to the facility in excellent condition, according to SEPOCH. (6/9)

ImageSat International Signs $42 Million Agreement with a Customer for Satellite Services (Source: ISI)
ImageSat International (ISI) announced today the signing of a significant agreement with a customer for the provision of services from the EROS satellite constellation. The agreement also includes related equipment and support services, provided over a two-year period. Under the terms of the agreement, the customer will pay ISI a total of $42 million ($21 million per year), subject to ISI’s commitment to deliver services as defined in the agreement. (5/25)

Draft Report Spells Out SpaceX Plans for Storied Launch Pad at Vandenberg (Source: Noozhawk)
A draft environmental impact report reveals plans to demolish several space-shuttle era structures as SpaceX gets set to add a second launch facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Details of the plans were included in the draft environmental document released last month and as SpaceX continues its fast pace at its only West Coast launch facility.

Work to ready historic SLC-6 for the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rocket would span 18 months and start as soon as later this year, according to the report. Four existing structures — mobile service tower, mobile assembly shelter, fixed umbilical tower, and lift and pit crown — would be demolished. (6/8)