Tag: quick space links

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.

• Vast’s Haven Demo satellite successfully completes initial de-orbit burn
  Video at the link. The burn proves the company’s technology for doing these kinds of maneuvers on its upcoming Haven-1 station

• Space Forge’s ForgeStar-1 orbiting furnace generates plasma
  This is demonstration technology for manufacturing pure products in space for sale on Earth that can only be made in weightlessness, such as advanced crystals and semiconductor chips

• An image of China’s next generation Mengzhou manned capsule being lifted up onto a Long March 10A test stage
  China hopes to do a test orbital launch of the rocket and capsule this year.

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.

• Vast touts its full-scale life support testing for its Haven-1 single module space station
  It is my understanding that some of these life support functions will be handled by the Dragon capsule that brings up the crew.

• House NASA authorization bill demands numerous reports and paperwork
  While it is good Congress wants to maintain oversight, this bill simply forces NASA to write seven reports (essentially paperwork) that will add little knowledge not already in public domain and that no one will read.

• On this day in 1956 the Soviet Union launched the world’s first ballistic missile carrying a nuclear warhead
  The R-5M rocket flew 740 miles in 10.5 minutes, delivering a nuclear warhead to the Aral Karakum region with a yield of 300 tons of TNT.

• On this day in 1966 the Soviet Union’s Luna 9 became the world’s first spacecraft to land on the Moon and function thereafter
  It returned data for three days. The landing was not soft, as the spacecraft used giant airbags to protect it as it hit the ground hard and bounced several times.

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.

• A picture of the memorial plaque to the crew of Columbia attached to the Spirit rover on Mars
  The shuttle failure occurred just as the rover team at JPL was finishing prepping Spirit for launch, and the team wanted to pay tribute to them.

• China shows off images of ship it will use to recover its Mengzhou manned capsule returning from the Moon
  The tweet notes that the next test of the Long March 10 rocket will be a launch abort test.

• The 2nd stage of first Zhuque-3 rocket launched in December reentered today in the ocean near Antarctica
  It seems the press in Europe was surprisingly interested in this event, for reasons that are unclear.

• JPL touts Perseverance’s first drives using “generative AI”.
  The drives took place on December 8, and 10, 2025. In many ways this story is bogus. They have been using a variation of AI now on both Curiosity and Perseverance for almost two decades. This Perservance thing was just a slightly longer push.

• To block Russian drones from using Starlink, the satellites won’t send data to anything moving faster than 75 km/hour
  Apparently, the Russian drones fly at higher speeds. The limitation however is lifted for registered Ukrainian terminals.

• On this day in 1977, the test engineering shuttle Enterprise traveled 35 miles from factory to Edwards Air Force Base on a 90-wheel trailer
  It moved at approximately 3 miles per hour.

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.

• PLD provides detailed update on construction of its MIURA 5 rocket
  Very impressive video. They continue to appear on schedule for a 2026 launch.

• Astrolab touts its FLEX unmanned demo lunar rover, and its compact configuration during transport
  Once on the Moon it will unfold.

• Chinese pseudo-company Ispace admits the first launch of its Hyperbola-3 rocket will be postponed
  The tweet touts tests of their strongback, and only mentions the delay as an aside. Jay says the company is now saying it will slip to 2027.

• SpaceX to offer at no cost to all satellite operators the data from its Stargaze system used by Starlink satellites to determine positions precisely
  It is doing this to help avoid collisions. Others should do the same, though no one knows what the large Chinese satellite constellation operators will do.

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.

• Blue Origin successfully completes soft capture test of docking system to be used on its manned lunar lander and Orbital Reef space station
  As far as I know, this could be the first real hardware Blue Origin has built for Orbital Reef.

• Declassifying JUMPSEAT, a surveillance satellite program from the ’70s and ’80s
  The satellites used a high elliptical orbit that favored high latitude observations, excellent for monitoring Soviet military operations.

• I bought “Remove Before Flight” tags on eBay in 2010—it turns out they’re from Challenger’s final flight
  Very interesting story about collecting miscellaneous space memorabilia that turns out to come from a very significant space mission.

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.

• MAVEN engineers resume effort to reestablish contact with Mars orbiter
  Don’t get your hopes up. It is almost certainly lost.

• On this day in 1961 the Air Force selected the Titan II rocket to launch its proposed X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane
  The program was cancelled before it ever flew.

• On this day in 1986 Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Uranus
  A short video at the link gives a nice short summary of what the spacecraft learned.

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.

• Blue Origin late last week flew another New Shepard suborbital tourist flight
  It carried six passengers on the 38th such flight.

• SpaceX apparently tested Starship tiles on yesterday’s Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg
  It also appears during a test-to-failure tank test a few days ago a Superheavy tank ruptured. Lots of speculation, but this rupture does not appear to be a big deal, because it clearly occurred during a test-to-failure test.

• Anti-ICE protester films a Long March 4C upper stage launched in 2022 burning up over Minneapolis
  Being general ignorant (as these anti-ICE protesters are), he speculates it is a meteorite or “something exploded in space,” when it is very clearly appears to be a rocket stage breaking up during re-entry.

• On this day in 1994 Clementine launched to map the Moon, where it detected the first hint of ice in some permanently shadowed craters
  Clementine cost under $100 million and took only two years to build and launch. But then, it wasn’t a NASA probe but a Pentagon-financed mission testing new lightweight cameras and control systems that used the Moon and scientific research to do the test. It was also the first U.S. mission to the Moon in more than two decades.

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.

• Axiom touts its lunar spacesuit
  The video at the link compares this suit with footage of the Apollo astronauts on the Moon.

• On this day in 2003, Pioneer 10 sent back its last signal, sent from 7.6 billion miles away
  That last signal was very weak and took 11 hours to reach Earth.

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.

• Blue Origin announces a new satellite communications network named TeraWave
  It would comprise 5,408 optically interconnected satellites, and appears designed to catch the data center market that has appeared out of nowhere in the past year. I would have made this story a full post, but considering Blue Origin’s inability to get almost anything off the ground, this proposal doesn’t deserve that much coverage at this point.

• On this day in 1976 the supersonic airplane Concorde entered commercial service
  Jointly built by Air France and British Airways, two flights took off at the same time, one operated by the former and the other by the latter.

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.

I am posting this early because I am busy this morning dealing with a scheduled family medical procedure. Nothing critical, but I will be out of the office for a good portion of the day. I plan to catch up in the afternoon.

• NASA astronaut Suni Williams retires
  She spent 27 years at NASA, logging 608 days in space.

• Stratolaunch raises “significant capital” from two new investment partners
  The press release says nothing about the amount of money raised. Nor does it indicate how this deal changes the company’s management.

• Airbus’s plan to consolidate its satellite divisions opposed by unions
  It is unclear from the article how that opposition might impact Airbus’s plans.

• Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy claims its new CQ-90 engine is more powerful than SpaceX’s Merlin engine
  This engine has not flown yet. It is to be used on a planned reusable first stage.

• In November 2026 Voyager-1 will be one light-day away from Earth (16 billion miles)
  In other words, any signals will take a full 24 hours to reach the spacecraft. It will also take that long for data to come back.

• On this day in 1965 an Apollo test command module was launched atop a Little Joe II rocket
  The suborbital flight successfully tested the capsule’s launch abort escape system.

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.

• PLD tests the throttle capabilities of the first stage engines it will use on its Mirura-5 orbital rocket
  This capability is essential for the vertical landing of that planned reusable stage.

• NOAA predicts a major geomagnetic storm to reach Earth January 20, 2026
  While much of the press will scream like Chicken Little, the NOAA prediction notes that the heaviest impact will be above 60 degrees latitude, and that it will have a “minor impact” on satellites and cause “weak fluctuations” in the power grid. In other words, we are not gonna die, though we might see some cool auroras.

• On this day in 2005 New Horizons was launched on a decade-long journey to Pluto
  When it flew past Pluto in 2015 proved that even in the utter cold of the outer solar system, planets can be geologically active.

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.

• An image showing the contrail from Ceres-2 rocket that failed at launch on January 17, 2026
  The image shows nothing of significance, and could even be from another launch entirely.

• Chinese pseudo-company touts a strange design to catch a booster horizontally with wires
  Jay’s comment: “I could think of a few problems with this design.”

• Roscosmos reiterates its promise to launch ~300 satellites by ’27 for its “Russian Starlink” constellation
  It also says it will produce 200,000 ground terminals for the system this year. And both Jay and I have strong doubts.

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.

• Blue Origin completes direct field acoustic testing on its unmanned Blue Moon MK1 lunar lander
  The launch date is presently set vaguely for the first quarter of 2026.

• Liechtenstein awards spectrum license to satellite startup Open Cosmos
  The company will launch the first two satellites in its constellation in ’26, using Rocket Lab as its launch provider.

• On this day in 2005 Stardust’s sample return capsule returned to Earth,
  It returned particles released from Comet Wild 2.

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.

• Airspace closure notice suggests the damaged Shenzhou-20 crew spacecraft will attempt reentry and landing on January 19, 2026
  I wonder if the Chinese will finally release an image of its damaged window, should it survive re-entry.

• On this date in 2005 the Huygens probe landed on Saturn’s moon Titan
  The tweet includes the best picture taken from the surface. Huygens sent back data for 72 minutes.

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.

• War Department will invest in L3Harris’s missile division
  This is a strange deal. Instead of buying solid-rockets from L3Harris, the government appears to be buying part of the company, now called Missile Solutions. Not a good plan in the long run.

• Firefly unveils the upgraded Block II version of its Alpha rocket
  The final launch of Block 1 is tentatively scheduled “in a few weeks” and “will test some Block II subsystems.” As Block I had a poor launch record, the sooner it is replaced with an upgrade the better.

• Nimbus Power Systems successfully completes simulated launch test of its fuel cell system
  This power system will be used on Blue Origin’s lunar landers, both manned and unmanned.

• A review of historical records finds the pulse of a variable star has shortened by three days
  The Space.com headline at the link is garbage, pure clickbait that does not reflect the basic research.

• NASA official admits it is “unlikely” the MAVEN Mars orbiter will be recovered
  Engineers will resume their effort to restore contact later this week, after the solar conjunction ends that is presently blocking communications with Mars.

• NASA’s IMAP space telescope reaches its planned L1 position
  From here it will study the edge of the solar system and the local space weather produced by the Sun

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.

• Eutelsat signs Airbus to build 340 OneWeb satellites
  This is in addition to the 100 satellites ordered in a 2024 deal.

• Russia’s 1st deputy PM admits in a report at the Kremlin that its economy is “cooling off” with “uneasy conditions”
  Apparently he tried to spin things positively, but the bad news could not be avoided, bad news that continues to impact Russia’s space program.

• On this day in 2005 Deep Impact mission was launched on a mission to impact Comet Tempel 1
  As it sent an impactor into the comet the spacecraft stayed at a safe distance and measured what came out.

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.

• Video of the demolition explosions of two old test stands at Marshall
  Neither stand had been used for decades. It was long past time to tear these down to make room for new technology.

• Vast touts the on-going inspection of the twelve deployable solar array wings for Haven-1
  Launch of the single module station early this year appears still on schedule.

• On this day in 1787 British astronomer William Herschel discovered Titania and Oberon, Uranus’s two largest moons
  Both were named for characters in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

• On this day in 1998 NASA’s Lunar Prospector mission entered lunar orbit
  The first NASA mission to the Moon in a quarter century, its data confirmed earlier data suggesting there was water ice in the Moon’s permanently shadowed polar craters, a conclusion not yet proven.

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.

• ESA strikes new deal with NASA in its partnership commitments at ISS
  I read this article earlier today and decided not to post it because it does not make clear what has changed.

• Close-up images of Zhuque-3 first stage engines and tanks coming apart just before impact
  This was that first attempt to land the stage on December 2, 2025.

• New video of the Zhuquie-3 first stage crash
  This footage is quite spectacular.

• On this day in 1973, the Soviet Union launched Luna 21 with their second successful lunar rover, Lunokhod 2
  The tweet shows a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photo of the rover on the floor of the crater Le Monnier.

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.

• Europe’s Orion service module for Artemis-4 mission arrives at Kennedy tests and integration
  This is for the second SLS/Orion manned landing, likely to happen no earlier than 2030. I would not be surprised if Starship does a commercial landing beforehand.

• The Philippine Coast Guard recovers Chinese rocket debris found floating in its territorial waters on January 1, 2026
  Likely from the Long March 7A that launched on December 30, 2025.

• Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov says it will use Proton and Soyuz rockets based in Baikonur to launch the first modules of its new space station
  In other words, neither its new Angara rocket nor its Vostochny spaceport are capable of doing the job yet, and Russia doesn’t have the resources to get either up to speed quickly. Both have been in development for almost a quarter century.

• China says its Wangyu moon space suits will do electrical , structural , thermal control environment testing in 2026
  They predict the suits to be ready for use by 2028. Whether they will be ready to launch a manned mission to the Moon by that date is less certain.

• On this day in 1610 Galileo first observed the four largest moons of Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto
  They are now called the Galilean satellites, and are joined by at least 95 more Jupiter moons.

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.

• China sends 28 astronauts on week-long underground cave trip
  This is the same PR silliness that NASA and ESA have done. Caving is fun and it does teach survival skills, but those skills also have little to do with what astronauts will do in space or on other worlds.

• Starlink provides free broadband service to the people of Venezuela through February 3
  Gee, isn’t it nice when Americans actually support the idea of freedom and liberation from dictators?

• On this day in 1998, Lunar Prospector was launched to the Moon
  It was the first NASA mission to the Moon in a quarter century. Its data confirmed data from Clementine, an earlier Defense Department lunar orbiter, that suggested there was water ice in the Moon’s permanently shadowed polar craters. That conclusion as yet however remains unproven.

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.

• New Spanish communications satellite suffers ‘space particle’ impact
  It appears the satellite was hit by a very tiny micro-meteoroid, but moving at a high relative speed.

• On this day in 1958 Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, burned up on reentry into Earth’s atmosphere
  It had transmitted signals back to Earth for almost a month before its batteries died.

• On this day in 2004 the rover Spirit landed in Gusev Crater
  Its 90-day mission would last more than 6 years. Its twin, Opportunity, would last more than 14 years.

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.

• Astronomers detect a three-galaxy merger, the third ever discovered
  The headline at the link is utter garbage, designed as clickbait. The headline I have given you describes the story’s text accurately. One other detail: All three galaxies also appear to have active nuclei, suggesting the presence of supermassive black holes.

• SpaceX accounts for more than 70% of the world’s total payload mass launched in 2025
  This graph is a nice additional data point I will use in my annual global launch report.

• On this day in 1924 astronomer Edwin Hubble announced that the spiral nebula Andromeda is a distant galaxy like the Milky Way
  Thus proving that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies in the universe.

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.

• Chinese pseudo-company Interstellor touts testing of the landing thrusters on its CYZ-1 crew capsule
  It blurred the thrusters. Jay rightly asked “What’s there to blur? We all know it is a copy.” To my eye, it appears to be copying Stoke’s concept.

• Chinese pseudo-company Azspace touts absurdly ambitious plans for 2026
  It says they will inaugurate a reusable suborbital capsule for tourists, a commercial space station, a larger orbital spacecraft, and a re-entry capsule. Wanna bet?

• Typical mainstream propaganda piece opposing White House proposal to close the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado
  Mainstream outlets (in this case Space News) always oppose all government budget cuts, blindly and without any thought. This is just another example. I have become very bored with their empty-headed predictability.

• NASA touts Perseverance’s excellent health, bragging it can function until at least 2031
  This story was from a week or two ago. It is just NASA lobbying for cash. Perseverance was always expected to last that long, if not longer, especially as it has upgrades that Curiosity lacks. And yet Curiosity is still going strong after more than a dozen years.

• A nice summary of what was learned when Voyager 1 and 2 passed through the boundary of our solar system, the heliopause
  Voyager 1 crossed in 2012. Voyager 2 did it in 2018. Both are still functioning, though their lifespan is only another few years.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay and reader Gary. 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.

• Oblique panorama of Pluto produced by images taken by New Horizons in 2015
  A truly wonderful cool image, well worth viewing.

• Chinese scientists model how charged lunar dust grains stick to spacecraft
  The research was published in August 2024, but highlighted this week at the link. The model is also a variation of many other comparable theories, including some that have already been harnessed in actual experiments, including one by Blue Ghost on the Moon.

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.

• Russia patents space station designed to generate artificial gravity
  And I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you cheap! The chances of Russia building this in the next decade is nil. Nor does this patent have any force of law outside Russia. The idea is not original.

• Apollo 8 entered lunar orbit this week
  Nice picture at the link, but if you really want to know what happened on this mission, you need to read Genesis: The story of Apollo 8.

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.

• Sidus Space wins contract from Missile Defense Agency
  The press release is very vague, par for the course for these kind of defense contract awards. It appears the program could be worth up to $151 billion, but I doubt that is all going to Sidus.

• Video from Chile shows Japan’s H3 rocket’s second stage burning up after its launch failure two days ago
  The location suggests it survived just one orbit.

• Video of the Long March 12A first stage break-up prior to landing
  The video doesn’t show much, other than the stage appeared to fail prior to landing.

• On this day in 1999, astronauts worked the first of three spacewalks for the third Hubble servicing mission
  The crew replaced failed gyroscopes and installed a new computer and fine guidance sensor.

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.

• Smallsat company Axelspace signs multi-launch agreement with launch integrator Exolaunch
  Exolaunch acts as the agent for the satellite company to find the right launch provider.

• Pale Blue to provide thrusters for Axelspace microsatellite
  The deal is for a demo flight in 2027.

• Video of Dawn Aerospace’s Mk-II Aurora drone as it reaches 20 kilometer altitude in 118 seconds
  Beats the F-15 Streak Eagle’s 1975 record by 4 seconds.

• ISRO successfully tests deployment of the Gaganyaan drogue parachutes
  Fun video of the test.

• NordSpace’s commercial Atlantic Spaceport Complex (ASX) on Newfoundland gets its environmental assessment approved
  One of two new spaceport startups on Canada’s eastern seaboard.

• Rocket Lab wins its largest satellite contract award yet, $816 million to build 18 missile tracking satellites for the Pentagon
  Rocket Lab continues to establish itself strongly in all aspects of space, from rockets to satellites.

• Notice to Airman (NOTAM) suggests China will attempt the first launch of its reusable Long March 12A on December 23, 2025
  The launch will be from China’s Jiuquan spaceport, with the interior landing zone probably the same used by the Zhuque-3 rocket two weeks ago. Note that this is not the first Long March 12A NOTAM, so there are no certainties about this launch.

• Today, December 21, 2025, marks the tenth year anniversary of SpaceX’s the first successful landing of an orbital class Falcon 9 booster
  The video at the link, by National Geographic, unfortunately turns this historic event into a fake movie drama, with music and editing to rob it of its reality. Go here to watch the actual live stream.

  That landing changed rocketry forever. As I wrote the next day:

  Despite living in a time when freedom is denigrated, when free speech is squelched, and when oppressive regulation and government control is the answer to every problem, the enduring spirit of the human soul still pushed through to do an amazing thing.

  SpaceX’s success is only the beginning. The ability to reuse the engines and first stage will allow them to lower their launch costs significantly, meaning that access to space will now be possible for hundreds if not thousands of new entrepeneurs who previously had ideas about developing the resources of the solar system but could not achieve them because the launch costs were too high.

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.

• ICEYE and Rheinmetall win major contract from Germany worth billions for space radar reconnaissance
  The contract runs through 2030.

• A 360 degree view of the Gemini-7 capsule interior where Frank Borman and Jim Lovell spent 14 days together in 1965
  You can pan as well as zoom in. Jay: “Look at that Bulova clock in the instrumentation!” As Borman told me when I interviewed him for Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, it was like sitting in a Volkswagon with another guy for two weeks, the doors locked and the steering wheel turned all the way to the left making you go around in circles endlessly.

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.

• Saturn’s biggest moon might not have an ocean after all
  Or it may. Lots of uncertainties based on the limited available data.

• Graphic showing the nine small commercial launchers being developed in India
  The tweet also notes it left out two more because they are in very early stages of development.

• Movie created from Perseverance’s navigation cameras, showing what it saw during its June 20, 2025 longest record drive, 1,350.7 feet
  The drive was so long because the rover was returning across ground it had already traveled, and so it knew exactly what to expect.

• Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS makes its closest approach to Earth this week
  You will still need a telescope to see it.

• On this day in 1903 the Wright Brothers achieved the first powered, heavier-than-air, manned airplane flight
  And the rest is history, as nicely illustrated by the next link.

• On this day in 1972 Apollo 17 astronaut Ron Evans did a spacewalk on the way back from the Moon
  The tweet shows some beautiful enhanced 16mm film of that spacewalk, done to retrieve film canisters from the outside of the Apollo service module.