New Hubble observations of Comet 3I/Atlas refine its size

10:42 am

3I/Atlas as seen by Hubble on July 21, 2025
Click for original image.

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have refined significantly the size of the interstellar object Comet 3I/Atlas as it zips through the solar system in its journey through the galaxy.

The image to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, is a Hubble image taken on July 21, 2025. The streaks are background stars.

Hubble’s observations allow astronomers to more accurately estimate the size of the comet’s solid, icy nucleus. The upper limit on the diameter of the nucleus is 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers), though it could be as small as 1,000 feet (320 meters) across, researchers report. Though the Hubble images put tighter constraints on the size of the nucleus compared to previous ground-based estimates, the solid heart of the comet presently cannot be directly seen, even by Hubble.

…Hubble also captured a dust plume ejected from the Sun-warmed side of the comet, and the hint of a dust tail streaming away from the nucleus. Hubble’s data yields a dust-loss rate consistent with comets that are first detected around 300 million miles from the Sun. This behavior is much like the signature of previously seen Sun-bound comets originating within our solar system.

In other words, though this object comes from far outside our solar system, it so far appears to closely resemble comets from our own system. If confirmed, this fact is quite significant, as it suggests the formation of solar systems throughout the galaxy are likely to be relatively similar to our own.

2 comments

Italy to fly experiments on first Starship flights to Mars

10:31 am

According to a tweet by SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer Gywnne Shotwell today, the Italian Space Agency (ASI) has signed an agreement to fly experiments on first Starship flights to Mars that will carrying customer payloads. She quoted a tweet by ASI’s president, Teodoro Valente:

ASI_Spazio and SpaceX have signed a first-of-its-kind agreement to carry Italian experiments on the first Starship flights to Mars with customers. The payloads will gather scientific data during the missions. Italy continues to lead in space exploration!

Little other information has yet been released, but expect more details in the coming days.

UPDATE: ASI’s press release on August 8th added this detail:

The payloads will include a plant growth experiment, a weather monitoring station and a radiation sensor. The goal is to collect scientific data in the approximately six-month interplanetary flight phase from Earth to Mars and then on the Martian surface.

Hat tip to reader Gary.

2 comments

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

Hera photographs two main belt asteroids on its way to Didymos/Dimorphos

10:12 am

Asteroid Otero as seen by Hera
Click for original image.

The science team for the European Space Agency’s Hera asteroid probe, on its way to the binary asteroid Didymos/Dimorphos in late 2026, has successfully taken images of two different main belt asteroids, demonstrating once again that its camera and pointing capabilities are operating as expected.

The image to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced, shows all the observations of Otero, the first asteroid observed, as it moved upward in the field of view. The result was that vertical line of dots.

On 11 May 2025, as Hera cruised through the main asteroid belt beyond the orbit of Mars, the spacecraft turned its attention toward Otero, a rare A-type asteroid discovered almost 100 years ago.

From a distance of approximately three million kilometres, Otero appeared as a moving point of light – easily mistaken for a star if not for its subtle motion across the background sky. Hera captured images of Otero using its Asteroid Framing Camera – a navigational and scientific instrument that will be used to guide the spacecraft during its approach to Didymos next year.

The second observation of asteroid Kellyday was even less spectacular visually, but because that asteroid was forty times fainter than Otero, the observation was more challenging, and thus its success more significant.

Hera will arrive at the Didymos/Dimorphos binary asteroid in 2026, where it will make close-up observations of the changes the asteroids have undergone following Dart’s impact of Dimorphos in 2022. Subsequent ground- and space-based observations have been extensive and on-going, but the close-up view will be ground-breaking.

0 comments

China completes landing and take-off tests of its manned lunar lander

9:49 am

China's manned lunar lander during landing and take-off tests
Click for original image.

China announced today that it has successfully completed landing and take-off tests of its manned lunar lander.

That lander is shown to the right, its engines firing as its likely descends, held up by cables to simulate the lunar gravity. From the caption:

This file photo shows a manned lunar lander during a trial at a test site in Huailai County, north China’s Hebei Province. China on Thursday announced that it has successfully completed a comprehensive test for the landing and takeoff of its manned lunar lander at a test site in Huailai County, Hebei Province.

The test completed on Wednesday represents a key step in the development of China’s manned lunar exploration program, and it also marks the first time that China has carried out a test for extraterrestrial landing and takeoff of a manned spacecraft, said the China Manned Space Agency.

History buffs will immediately notice the similarity of this lander to the Lunar Module (LM) that the U.S. used during the Apollo missions. What is not clear is whether the lander will have a separate descent and ascent stage, as the LM did, and if so, whether these flight tests included separate operations of each.

3 comments

Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

Acting NASA head Duffy reshapes NASA’s space station plans

9:36 am

Sean Duffy
Sean Duffy, transportation secretary and interim
NASA administrator

Earlier this week NASA’s interim administrator Sean Duffy issued a new directive [pdf] that fundamentally reshaped the agency’s space station program in how it will fund and operate the private commercial space stations now under development.

Under the present plan, NASA had issued development contracts to three proposed commercial stations, with a major contract award expected next year to one of the four companies/consortiums that are bidding. Duffy instead wants NASA to fund all the stations in an open-ended manner.

Instead of moving forward in Phase 2 with a firm fixed price contract for [commercial station] certification and services, NASA will continue to support U.S industry’s design and demonstration of [commercial stations] with multiple funded SAAs [Space Act Agreements] for the next phase. NASA will shift the formal design acceptance and certification planning acceptance from this SAA phase to a follow-on certification phase.

Utilizing SAAs for the next phase better aligns with enabling development of US industry platforms. It provides greater resources for industry to align schedule with NASA’s needs. SAAs also provide more flexibility to deal with possible variations in funding levels without the need of potentially protracted and inefficient contract renegotiations.

SAAs are generally fixed price, but the structure Duffy is establishing appears to allow NASA to supplement these contracts endlessly, making them a kind of hybrid cost-plus deal. It also aims at supporting “a minimum of two, preferably three or more” of the private stations under development.

Duffy’s shift to SAAs will also give the private stations more design and operational freedom, as SAAs shift responsibility and ownership to the company, not NASA. The arrangement will also likely require a larger investment by the companies, though this is not clear in Duffy’s directive.
» Read more

4 comments

Firefly’s stock sells at price higher than expected

8:54 am

Firefly began selling stock to the public today on the Nasdaq stock market, with the price per share immediately rising to $45 per share, above the expected range of $41-$43, suggesting it could raise as much as$868 million in investment capital.

The strong interest in the stock by investors suggests there is great confidence in the company’s future, following the successful landing of its Blue Ghost lunar lander earlier this year. It has won a total of four lander contracts from NASA. The company also has won both commercial and NASA contracts in connection with its Elytra orbital tug. It has had mixed results with its Alpha rocket, experiencing both launch failures as well as successes, but it is also developing a larger rocket in partnership with Northrop Grumman.

This enthusiasm is noteworthy in that the company is not yet in the black, though its revenues have been increasing.

For the quarter that ended in March, Firefly reported a net loss of about $60.1 million, widening from $52.8 million in the year-ago period. Revenue jumped sixfold to $55.9 million from $8.3 million. Its backlogged totaled about $1.1 billion.

Overall it appears Firefly’s future is solid, suggesting it will join SpaceX and Rocket Lab as a major new space player in the coming years.

0 comments

Leaving Earth cover

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

August 6, 2025 Quick space links

2:07 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

5 comments

Sunspot update: The Sun appears ready to once again confound the experts

1:12 pm

It is the start of the month and time once again for my monthly sunspot update, using the update that NOAA posts each month to its own graph of sunspot activity but annotated by me with extra information to illustrate the larger scientific context.

This month’s update graph is below, and it shows once again that it is a big mistake to put any faith into any prediction anyone makes about the Sun’s eleven-year sunspot cycle, tracked by scientists since the 1700s. Beginning in April 2025 the NOAA solar science panel has been predicting that the solar maximum had hit its peak and that we should expect the Sun to begin its ramp down to solar minimum, expected around 2031.

NOT!
» Read more

1 comment

NASA officially ends failed Lunar Trailblazer mission

9:27 am

NASA on August 4, 2025 officially ended its months-long effort to recover its Lunar Trailblazer mission that failed almost immediately after launch in February.

Lunar Trailblazer shared a ride on the second Intuitive Machines robotic lunar lander mission, IM-2, which lifted off at 7:16 p.m. EST on Feb. 26 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The small satellite separated as planned from the rocket about 48 minutes after launch to begin its flight to the Moon. Mission operators at Caltech’s IPAC in Pasadena established communications with the small spacecraft at 8:13 p.m. EST. Contact was lost the next day.

Without two-way communications, the team was unable to fully diagnose the spacecraft or perform the thruster operations needed to keep Lunar Trailblazer on its flight path.

This failure of a NASA-built and operated lunar orbiter contrasts starkly with the success of the privately-built and operated Capstone mission. Contact with that spacecraft, built by Rocket Lab, was also lost soon after launch, but the company doing mission control, Advanced Space, was able to re-establish contract and get the spacecraft into lunar orbit, where it continues to function as planned.

0 comments

Confusion reigns as to what shuttle will be moved to Houston, if any

9:20 am

Despite amendments in the reconciliation bill that said the space shuttle Discovery held by the Smithsonian in DC would be transferred to Houston for display, it appears there is uncertainty and confusion as to what shuttle will be moved, above and beyond the Smithsonian’s opposition to this transfer.

The legislation that required Duffy to choose a “space vehicle” that had “flown in space” and “carried people” did not specify an orbiter by name, but the language in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that President Donald Trump signed into law last month was inspired by Cornyn and fellow Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s bill to relocate Discovery. “The acting Administrator has made an identification. We have no further public statement at this time,” said a spokesperson for Duffy in response to an inquiry by collectSPACE.

It appears Duffy’s options are limited. NASA no longer has any title or ownership rights to the shuttles held by the Smithsonian and the California Science Center in Los Angeles. It owns the only remaining shuttle, Atlantis, which it has on display in Florida, but moving that to Houston would entail big political warfare.

6 comments
1 … 148 149 150 151 152 … 2,929