August 29, 2025

The Dangerous Folly of Relocating Space Command to Alabama (Source: Washington Examiner)
If you shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken, you certainly shouldn’t fix what’s working very well. This is especially true when the imprudent change would risk the U.S. military’s prospects of victory in a future war. President Donald Trump appears poised to make such a mistake by announcing the relocation of the military’s Space Command from Colorado‘s Peterson Space Force Base to Alabama‘s Redstone Arsenal. Pushing ahead with this would be a serious error of judgment that would bring immediate costs to Space Command’s operating efficiency as the centerpiece of the military’s space operations. (8/28)

LIGO, Facing Threats of Closure, More Than Doubles its Black Hole Haul (Source: Big Think)
Back in 2015, advanced LIGO turned on for the first time, and within mere days it received and detected its first gravitational wave event. The era of gravitational wave astronomy was born. Upgraded several times and joined by the Virgo and KAGRA detectors, LIGO reached 90 gravitational wave events after its third observing run, and has just released its new data haul partway through its (current) fourth run.

With around 300 total events, we now have a better picture of black holes in our Universe than ever before. At the same time, funding cuts threaten to close one of LIGO’s two main facilities. Can gravitational wave astronomy survive? (8/27)

Chemists Create New High-Energy Compound to Fuel Space Flight (Source: Phys.org)
University chemists have created a new high-energy compound that could revolutionize rocket fuel and make space flights more efficient. Upon ignition, the compound releases more energy relative to its weight and volume compared to current fuels. In a rocket, this would mean less fuel required to power the same flight duration or payload and more room for mission-critical supplies.

The newly synthesized compound, manganese diboride (MnB2), is over 20% more energetic by weight and about 150% more energetic by volume compared to the aluminum currently used in solid rocket boosters. Despite being highly energetic, it is also very safe and will only combust when it meets an ignition agent like kerosene. (8/27)

Spacecom Commander Emphasizes Need for Expanded Latin American Partnerships, Investment (Source: DoD)
As Russia and China seek to expand their influence in space, Space Force Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command, urged greater international cooperation to safeguard the domain at the South American Defense Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Aug. 20. (8/26)

Space Florida: Tax-Exempt Bonds are a Game-Changer for America’s Aerospace Future (Source: Space Florida)
Spaceport bonds are now tax-exempt, putting space transportation infrastructure on equal footing with airports, seaports, and other modes of transportation. This critical change opens the door to lower-cost capital, scalable financing strategies, and deeper private-sector participation in space infrastructure projects nationwide.

For decades, tax-exempt private activity bonds (PABs) have been a proven tool that accelerates growth of America’s transportation hubs, financing projects that serve both public and private users by attracting private capital. These American transportation hubs connect regions to global markets, enable the movement of goods and people at scale, and anchor ecosystems of logistics, manufacturing, tourism, and technology.

Access to tax-exempt bonds can reduce the cost of building spaceport infrastructure, empowering public sector entities like Space Florida and our national partners to meet growing industry demand sooner rather than later. And we can do so without requiring new federal spending. By lowering borrowing costs and risk sharing with private investors through tax exempt bonds, we can reduce the barriers to investment and ensure spaceport infrastructure is more responsive to growing demand and more resilient to market fluctuations. (8/28)

White Dwarf Stars Could Create Surprisingly Common Long Lived Habitable Zones (Source: Universe Today)
A new study by Manuel Barrientos and colleagues from the University of Oklahoma reveals that between 0.6% and 2.5% of white dwarfs in our solar neighborhood undergo dramatic cooling delays that could extend habitable zones for billions of additional years. The secret lies in an element known as neon-22, which after carbon and oxygen, is the most abundant element inside white dwarfs. (8/28)

GE Aerospace Receives 2024 Secretary of Defense Performance Based Logistics Award (Source: GE Aerospace)
GE Aerospace and their customer United States Naval Supply Systems Command have received the Secretary of Defense Performance-Based Logistics (PBL) government / industry of the year award for 2024. The award recognizes the teams’ support of the stores management system with the U.S. Marine Corps in support of the F/A-18, AV-8B and AH1-Z aircraft globally, enabling fleet readiness. (8/26)

On Strike: Workers at GE Aerospace Walk Off Job (Source: Fox19)
More than 600 UAW workers are now officially on strike at GE Aerospace plants in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. Contract negotiations failed to bring a last-minute deal. Union President Brian Strunk says they are fighting for more health care coverage, time off and job security. (8/28)

Rocket Lab Opens Launch Complex at Virginia Spaceport, A Critical Milestone Toward Neutron’s First Launch (Source: Business Wire)
Rocket Lab today celebrated the official opening of Launch Complex 3, its dedicated test, launch, and landing facility for its reusable rocket Neutron - representing a bold step forward in delivering an alternative, reliable, and responsive launch capability from U.S. soil with its next-generation challenger to the medium-lift launch industry. Located within the Virginia Spaceport Authority’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Launch Complex 3 stands ready to deliver the largest orbital launch capacity in the Spaceport’s history with Neutron. (8/28)

Starship Landing Recorded in HD at Indian Ocean Target Site (Source: Scott Manley)
SpaceX appears to have stationed a team at the Indian Ocean site where Starship was intended to make a controlled landing. They captured high-res video of the Starship's descent. Click here. (8/27)

Musk Predicts ‘In About 6 or 7 Years’ SpaceX’s Starship Will Have ‘Days Where Starship Launches More Than 24 Times in 24 Hours’ (Source: Barchart)
CEO Elon Musk’s latest statement about SpaceX’s next-generation launcher frames the company’s goals in unmistakably production-minded terms. Starship, conceived as a fully reusable, heavy-lift system, is designed for rapid turnaround and high flight cadence — features that, if realized at scale, would shift launch services from bespoke scheduling toward industrial throughput.

The vision situates space access alongside other high-volume industries, where unit economics improve as utilization rises. “In about 6 or 7 years, there will be days where Starship launches more than 24 times in 24 hours,” according to a recent social media post from the SpaceX CEO, who continued: “24/day would be peak. Sustained is more like ~10/day.”(8/28)

Cellular Starlink Rival Skylo Teases Satellite Voice Calling for Phones (Source: PC Mag)
A company that has been partnering with Google, Samsung, and Verizon says it can now offer satellite-powered voice calls on smartphones. On Wednesday, Skylo announced it had completed its first voice calls via the company’s "narrow-band non-terrestrial network," which includes satellites from Viasat and EchoStar. "Skylo’s innovation and breakthrough yield a capacity for tens of millions of calls monthly per region on its existing, commercially available satellite network service," it says. (8/27)

Amazon Takes the Fight to Musk with Vietnam Kuiper Satellite Expansion (Source: TipRanks)
Amazon is aiming to ramp up the roll-out of its Kuiper satellite broadband services and keep challenging tech rival Elon Musk by going live in Vietnam. According to the Asian country’s Ministry of Science and Technology, the decision to launch in Vietnam was taken following a meeting between the government and Gonzalo de Dios, head of Global Licensing and Project Kuiper at Amazon. (8/27)

Colorado's Broadband Funding Favors Kuiper Over Starlink (Source: PC  Mag)
As SpaceX lobbies for more federal funding for Starlink, the company is facing a new setback in Colorado, which is awarding a major portion of its broadband projects to a rival satellite provider. On Friday, Colorado announced the winners of its $400 million US Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. Its proposal stands out for picking satellite services to deliver high-speed internet to about half of the underserved locations.

Other states, such as Virginia and Louisiana, have decided to mostly lean on faster, but more expensive fiber installations. Colorado selected satellite internet providers for over 47,000 of the 96,000 underserved and unserved locations that will get BEAD funding. The rest will receive mostly fiber. The news may sound like a win for SpaceX. But Colorado awarded the vast majority of the locations, over 42,000, to Amazon’s upcoming Project Kuiper. SpaceX was only selected for 5,400 locations and $9.16 million in federal subsidies. (8/25)

Harassment at Antarctic Research Bases Could Spell Problems for Moon, Mars Outposts (Source: Space.com)
More than 40 percent of respondents to a new survey experienced a sexual assault or sexual harassment during recent Antarctic research expeditions, according to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Antarctica is a common analog for spaceflight or stay on a future moon base or Mars settlement due to its remote nature. NSF pledged to work with its own participants, as well as to share information with other organizations working in remote environments, for assessment, prevention and follow-up.

In a report in Nature, a scientist and past participant in NSF polar work said the survey is "an important step" towards addressing issues with harassment. "Surveys like this play a critical role in documenting lived experiences that have too often been ignored or minimized," said Asa Rennermalm, a physical geographer and polar scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey. (8/27)

Orlando Startup NUVIEW Wins DoD Contract for LiDAR Satellite Constellation (Source: Space News)
Nuview, a Florida startup building a constellation of lidar satellites, received a $5 million award from a Defense Department office. The National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC) program will provide the funding to Nuview to rapidly prototype a lidar (light detection and ranging) payload the company plans to use on a constellation of satellites that will offer three-dimensional mapping of the Earth. NSIC was established in 2021 by the Defense Innovation Unit to support early-stage startups developing dual-use technology. (8/29)

Viridian Wins Air Force Funding for VLEO Propulsion (Source: Space News)
Viridian Space Corp. won U.S. Air Force funding to develop propulsion for very low Earth orbit (VLEO) satellites. The $1.25 million Phase II award from Air Force technology innovation arm AFWERX will allow the Southern California startup will develop an air-fed cathode able to withstand erosion in the oxygen-rich VLEO environment. The technology will be used by an electric propulsion system capable of scooping up air for plasma thrusters that could be used to maintain the orbits of spacecraft in VLEO. (8/29)

China's Guangdong Province Focuses on Aerospace Economy (Source: Space News)
China’s southern province of Guangdong is aiming to create a fully integrated commercial aerospace ecosystem. The provincial government released a document this month outlining efforts along those lines, extending a 2024–2028 action plan on promoting the commercial space industry issued. It sets out seven domains with 21 measures to support the development of commercial space there. It follows moves by, most notably, Beijing and Shanghai, to foster commercial space ecosystems, although the Guangdong plan appears to lack measurable goals that other regions have established for promoting space activities. (8/29)

New Indian Spaceport Enters Construction Phase (Source: Times of India)
Construction is set to begin on a new Indian spaceport. Officials with the Indian space agency ISRO held a pre-construction ceremony at the site of the spaceport in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The launch site will be used by ISRO’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicle and small launcher being developed by Indian companies, enabling them to reach sun-synchronous orbits. The spaceport will be complete by the end of 2026, the chairman of ISRO said. (8/29)

US/India Science Satellite Working Well So Far (Source: NASA)
A joint NASA-ISRO Earth science spacecraft is working well a month after its launch. NASA said Thursday that the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) spacecraft has successfully completed all its preliminary checkouts since its July 30 launch. That includes deployment of its 12-meter radar antenna. The progress keeps the mission on track to begin regular science operations in about two months. (8/29)

Nobel Physicist Behind LIGO Passes (Source: New York Times)
The physicist who invented the gravitational wave detector, and shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery of such waves, has died. Rainier Weiss died Monday at the age of 92. Weiss, a physicist at MIT, sketched out a concept in the 1970s to use lasers to measure ripples in spacetime caused by events such as black hole collisions. That concept became the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), which detected the first gravitational waves in 2015. Weiss won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2017 with Barry Barish and Kip Thorne. (8/29)

Boeing, Space Force Partner on Strategic Satcom Development (Source: Jane's)
The US Space Force has partnered with Boeing to develop the Evolved Strategic Satcom system, a project valued at $2.8 billion. Boeing will construct two satellites, with the option for two more, aiming to achieve initial operational capability by 2031. The satcom system will be crucial for nuclear command, control and communications. (8/28)

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)