Tag: spaceflight

Astronomers: We might be experiencing a shower of comets from the distant Oort cloud due to a close pass of another star 2.5 million years ago

1:18 pm

The uncertainty of science: Using computer models and the somewhat sparse data about the distant Oort cloud on the outer fringes of our solar system (from 2,000 to 200,000 astronomical units [au] away) and combining that with the data from the Gaia space telescope that mapped precisely the motions and distances of billions of Milky Way stars, astronomers now posit that the close pass of another star about 2.5 million years ago perturbed the Oort cloud and thus produced the shower of comets that humanity has been experiencing for the last few thousand years.

HD 7977 is a still nearby Sun-like star in the constellation Cassiopeia whose close passage was discovered by the Gaia mission. Approximately 2.5 million years ago, the orbits of the Sun and HD 7977 brought the two stars close together, but exactly how close is still an open question. Gaia data suggest they passed within 4000-25000 astronomical units of one another. Now, Kaib and Raymond have shown that the orbits of long-period comets suggest HD 7977 came within 6000-10000 AU of our Sun, setting off a major shower of new comets into the inner solar system.

You can read the preprint paper here [pdf].

These results are filled with many uncertainties of course. For one, the actual distance for HD 7977’s close pass is not well constrained. The margin of error is large, so that the star might have not done anything at all. Second, our map of the Oort cloud is very uncertain. In fact, it exists at this time only in theory, as it has never been directly observed. Astronomers hypothesize its existence based on the orbits of the long period comets that they have documented for the past few centuries, all coming from that distant region. So while it appears to exist, that existence remains unproven.

These uncertainties thus make the conclusions of this paper interesting but unconfirmed. Nonetheless, they are fascinating, because they are strongly suggestive, and hint at the impact of the galaxy and its stars on the evolution of our solar system itself. That impact is real, though tracing its history is difficult because of the vast time scales and distances. It appears the Gaia data and computers are giving us a first glimpse into that past history.

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South Korea’s space agency wants to accelerate its launch capabilities

10:53 am

The head of South Korea’s space agency KASA, Oh Tae-seok, yesterday outlined plans to to accelerate the launch cadence of its government-built Nuri rocket, while also beginning research into building a second spaceport along with a specific launchpad for private companies.

Oh Tae-seok, head of KASA, held a press briefing at the agency in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province, on Thursday. “This week, the assembly of the first, second, and third stages of the fifth Nuri rocket will be completed,” he said. “From next week, we will begin full assembly of the entire rocket, and after the Launch Management Committee in early August, a September launch is expected.”

Oh also stressed the need to build a repeated launch system after the fifth launch to advance toward an era of “commercial launch services.” “To ensure the economic viability of Nuri, changes are needed in standardization and specification, as well as contracting methods and launch site operations, in addition to the advancement project,” he said. “We are preparing for four launches from 2029 to 2032.”

In addition, the agency plans to accelerate construction of the second spaceport. KASA began accepting candidate site applications for the second spaceport on the 22nd of this month. “We will select the final candidate site in October this year and aim to begin the project in 2028,” the agency said Thursday.

This second news report quoted Oh as also saying this:

“In the 2030s, rather than the current R&D approach, we should consider converting to a system where we commission launch services through purchasing, as NASA does.” This is a model similar to how NASA purchases launch services from private companies such as SpaceX.

In other words, even as he accelerates the use of Nuri, Oh wants to replace it with private rockets. Whether he can do both is questionable, because they act to cancel each other. A cheaper and viable government rocket will make it difficult for private startups to compete.

At the moment South Korea has one truly viable rocket startup, Innospace, which has one launch failure and hopes to try again before the end of the year. That it does not launch in South Korea but in Brazil suggests KASA has not been as cooperative with the commercial sector as Oh wants. His statements about building a launchpad for the private sector suggest he is aware of this.

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Astronomers discover two exoplanets as dense as cotton candy

9:40 am

The observed transits of TOI-791 c.
The observed transits of TOI-791 c by different telescopes
during its 232 day orbit. Figure 9 from the paper.

Using a combination of ground- and space-based telescopes, astronomers have now discovered two exoplanets in the same solar system that have a deas dense as cotton candy.

You can read their paper here. From the NASA press release:

Data from NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission has revealed two new “super-puff” planets, giant worlds so light that their density is comparable to cotton candy. Scientists calculate that these Jupiter-sized planets—named TOI-791 b and TOI-791 c—are the “puffiest” worlds ever found.

The planets orbit a Sun-like star named TOI-791 that is approximately 1,113 light years away from Earth. The TESS mission first detected the planets by watching for repeated dips in TOI-791’s brightness, a telltale sign that a planet is transiting, or passing in front of, a star. Further study revealed two large planets with unusual features.

TOI-791 b is nearly the same size as Jupiter but contains just 3.0 percent of Jupiter’s mass. TOI-791 c is even larger than Jupiter but contains just 5.9 percent of Jupiter’s mass.

The data for determining both planet’s density came from follow-up observations using a telescope based in Antarctica. Both planets have long orbits, 139 and 232 days respectively, so these observations took place over a period of eight years, in order to capture multiple orbital transits.

One interesting tidbit: Though the data suggests both planets are spherical, this is not confirmed with certainty. Overall, the nature of such puffy planets is not really understood at this time.

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ESA to expand its program designed to encourage its commercial rocket industry

9:10 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced it is expanding its “European Flight Ticket” program, designed to encourage its commercial rocket industry, by offering more rocket startups the opportunity to join.

The European Space Agency and the European Commission are inviting launch service providers across Europe to apply to join the European Flight Ticket Initiative. The objective of the Flight Ticket Initiative is to strengthen Europe’s access to space. European launch service providers compete to deliver missions for In-orbit Demonstration and Validation satellite (IOD/IOV) which test new space technologies in orbit. To support this, ESA launched a new two-part call for proposals.

To participate in the Flight Ticket Initiative, a launch service operator must first be awarded a framework contract. This allows them to compete for future missions under the Initiative. Avio, Isar Aerospace, PLD Space, and Rocket Factory Augsburg hold such contracts with ESA, following a first selection in 2024.

ESA and the European Commission are now expanding this pool by inviting additional European providers to apply. Companies that expect to be ready to launch before 2028 are encouraged to take part.

The program is also requesting bids for a new round of launch contracts. All bids are due by July 17, 2026.

The five European companies listed above are all either already operational (Avio), or hope to complete their first launch this year. There are several other European startups (Maiaspace, Latitude, HyImpulse) that are not far behind, and will likely bid.

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Four medical research organizations sign deals to do work on Vast’s space stations

8:59 am

Vast's Haven-1 and Haven-2 stations

Capitalism in space: The space station startup up Vast yesterday announced that three medical research companies and one university institute have signed preliminary agreements to continue and expand their ISS biological research on Vast’s Haven-1 and Haven-2 space stations.

Vast, the company building next-generation space stations and space infrastructure, announced today memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with UC San Diego’s Sanford Stem Cell Institute, Auxilium Biotechnologies, LambdaVision, and BioOrbit, advancing its network of microgravity research and manufacturing partners. Vast’s network brings together world-class universities, pioneering researchers, and cutting-edge technology providers to shape the future of microgravity research and manufacturing conducted in low-Earth orbit (LEO).

Though all four have done pure research on ISS, none have been permitted to produce products there for sale on Earth, due to NASA’s anti-commercial regulations. This will change on the new private stations. For example, LambdaVision has already signed an earlier agreement with the Starlab station to use it to manufacture its artificial retinas for sale. Auxilium meanwhile has already demonstrated on ISS the ability to create implantable medical devices using 3D printing. On Vast’s stations it will be able to expand this work by producing saleable products. BioOrbit in turn will use the Haven stations to begin manufacturing the zero gravity pharmaceuticals it has already tested on ISS.

Below is my updated ranking of the five American space stations presently under development:
» Read more

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SpaceX launches 24 more Starlink satellites

8:28 am

SpaceX last night successfully placed another 24 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage (B1081) completed its 25th flight (50 days after its previous flight), landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

76 SpaceX
41 China
9 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
8 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 76 to 70.

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NASA IG: Isaacman’s decision to cancel Gateway and SLS upgrades saved billions

8:01 am

Isaacman: Saving billions and actually getting more done

According to a report released yesterday [pdf] by NASA’s inspector general, the decision by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman to not only “pause” the Lunar Gateway station (killing its HALO module) but also cancel SLS’s upgraded upper stage (EUS), its related stage adaptor (USA), and the giant mobile launcher (ML-2) needed for that taller upper stage, saved the taxpayer billions in additional cost overruns, and has likely accelerated the Artemis program significantly.

NASA’s reformulation of the Artemis campaign to meet the President’s National Space Policy and increase its cadence of missions by standardizing the SLS heavy-lift rocket resulted in the termination or repurposing of several Artemis-related systems, including the EUS, USA, ML-2, and HALO.

Over the course of their life cycles, the combined contract values for these efforts ballooned from nearly $2.8 billion to $5.9 billion and NASA extended their contracted delivery dates by up to 7 years. However, our projections indicate that if NASA allowed work to continue to completion, the systems would have cost more and taken longer than what was on contract.

Specifically, the IG estimated that the overruns for the upper stage, the stage adaptor, and the mobile launcher would have ended up costing four to five times their original budgets. Gateway’s HALO module was less out of control, but it was still going to go more than 30% over budget. Overall, all four projects would have cost NASA almost $5 billion in additional expenses, with all four likely to also be considerably behind schedule. The upper stage and mobile launcher were certainly not going to be ready when needed.

The IG made no recommendations. It released this report to provide NASA, the White House, Congress, and the public the information so as to properly judge the agency’s actions, as well as provide guidance to the agency itself.

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Smooth on Mars is apparently not so smooth

11:00 am

Panorama on June 17, 2026
Click for full resolution. For original images, go here and here.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Last week I noted how the terrain that stood ahead of Curiosity in its travels on Mount Sharp on Mars appeared to be the smoothest the rover had seen in years.

This week it turns out that upon closer inspection, smooth on Mars is not as smooth as it seems. The panorama above, created from two pictures taken by the rover’s left navigation camera on June 17, 2026 (here and here), provides a much closer view of that smooth ground, and revealed that it isn’t actually smooth at all, but covered with small polygons. The inset on the left shows the area in the white rectangle at full resolution, making the patterned nature of the ground very obvious. From today’s update by the science team:

From up close, the parking spot looks anything but smooth. … There are polygons, veins, lamination, and probably more, once we inspect the higher-resolution images taken today. “Higher-resolution” is the key for why we were in for such a surprise! The features are quite small, a few centimeters across, and therefore we could not see them in the orbital images or from a distance in our navigation and mast camera images. The camera resolution from a distance just isn’t enough to see them. But up close, the terrain revealed all its beauty!

The blue dot on the overview map to the right marks Curiosity’s present position, the white dotted line its actual travels, the red dotted line its planned route. The yellow lines indicate roughly the area covered by the panorama above. The rim of Gale Crater can dimly be seen through the dusty atmosphere 20 to 30 miles away.

Explaining the geological process that caused this patterned surface is beyond my pay grade. My first guess would be it is related to the past presence of water, in the form of liquid or ice, but no one should take that guess very seriously.

As I have said many times, Mars is strange, Mars is wonderful, but above all, Mars is alien.

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Boeing wins $2 billion satellite contract from Space Force

9:05 am

In what appears to be the first major space contract Boeing has won in awhile, the Space Force yesterday awarded it a $2 billion contract to build two new military communications satellites, part of the War Department’s MUOS constellation.

The Boeing Co., El Segundo, California, has been awarded a maximum $2,002,862,607 fixed-price-incentive-firm-target contract for the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) service life extension Phase II effort. This contract provides for the design, development, build, launch support, and on-orbit test support of two MUOS satellites. Work will be performed in El Segundo, California, and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2035. [emphasis mine]

Boeing won the contract competition over Lockheed Martin, which had built the previous MUOS satellites.

I highlight the fixed-price nature of the contract. Boeing’s space-related division in the past two decades has had trouble dealing with such contracts, its corporate culture having become spoiled with cost-plus contracts, which are essentially blank checks. Its fixed-price Starliner contract is the best example, but the company’s repeated inability to stay under budget or get things done got so bad that by 2020 NASA announced it would no longer entertain any contract bids from the company, a policy that it still follows.

For Boeing, making this fixed-price contract work is literally a make-or-break situation. It needs to beginning producing such contracts on-budget and on-time, or else it will die.

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Some details about SpaceX’s secretive Starfall demo mission

8:40 am

Artist's rendering of Starfall provided during today's live steam
Artist’s rendering of Starfall provided during the launch live steam

In reading every report in the past day about SpaceX’s Starfall demo mission, in which it tested a returnable capsule capable of doing manufacturing in space or point-to-point transportation of cargo, the only one that appeared to provide any details about the mission itself was this article at NASAspaceflight.com.

And even those details are unconfirmed and somewhat sparse:

The Starfall demonstration vehicle stayed attached to the Falcon 9 second stage in LEO [low Earth orbit] for around 1.5 orbits. The second stage then deorbited itself and the Starfall capsule, after which Starfall was jettisoned and prepared for reentry. SpaceX released limited information about the mission, and it is unknown whether the Starfall demonstration vehicle carried any payloads, though instrumentation was likely used to measure reentry forces.

Following reentry, Starfall separated its two halves, deployed its parachutes, and splashed down in the Pacific, approximately 1,300 km off the west coast of the United States.

That’s all we presently know. Based on SpaceX’s tight-lipped approach, this mission was probably paid for by the War Department. In 2021 the Air Force had issued the company a $47.9 million contract to test point-to-point cargo transport by rocket “anywhere on the Earth in less than one hour, with a 100-ton capacity.” That cargo requirement suggested the rocket had to be Starship. It is very possible the contract was later amended to fit the 20 ton capability of Falcon 9, and this flight was the first demonstration of this cargo transport capability.

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Scientists: Interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas is very old, as much as 12 billion years old

12:51 pm

Webb data
Click for original image.

Based on spectroscopic data obtained by the Webb Space Telescope in the past year as interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas zipped through our solar system, a team of scientists have now concluded that its make-up suggests it is extremely old, as much as 12 billion years old, which means it was formed in the very early universe not that long after the Big Bang.

You can read their paper here [pdf]. The graph to the right was published by NASA of the infrared spectroscopic data produced by the Webb Space Telescope that supports this conclusion. That data shows the comet was lacking in isotopes commonly found today, while enriched in isotopes expected only in the early universe. From the paper’s abstract:

[W]e report isotopic measurements of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, which reveal an elemental composition unlike any Solar System body. The water in 3I/ATLAS is enriched in deuterium, at a level of D/H = (0.98 ± 0.06)%, which is more than an order of magnitude higher than in known comets, while its range of 12[Carbon]/13[Carbon] ratios (141–191 for CO2 and 123–172 for CO) exceeds typical values found in the Solar System, as well as nearby interstellar clouds and protoplanetary disks.

Such extreme isotopic signatures indicate formation at temperatures ≲ 30 K in a relatively metal-poor environment. When interpreted with respect to models for Galactic chemical evolution, the carbon isotopic composition implies that 3I/ATLAS may have accreted as long ago as 12 billion years, following a period of intense, early star formation. 3I/ATLAS thus represents a preserved fragment of an ancient planetary system.

As the scientists add in what I think is an understatement, “Its distant origin in space and time makes 3I/ATLAS a uniquely-valuable object studies tool for Galactic archaeology.”

That the comet is still remarkable similar in many other ways to comets in our solar system also tells us that the formation processes that form all solar systems are somewhat common. The solar system in which Comet 3I/Atlas formed was different from ours only that it formed when the universe was young, and thus somewhat different in make-up. Otherwise the processes were the same.

At the same time, Comet 3I/Atlas has given us a window into the early universe, and suggests future interstellar comets will do the same. And there will be future interstellar comets, because we are now developing the observational tools to see them as they routinely fly past on a regular basis.

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SpaceX to raise $20 billion more by selling bonds

9:49 am

As part of its need for cash both to support its planned major capital projects and partly it appears to pay off some debt, SpaceX now plans to sell bonds in order to raise an additional $20 billion more.

The proceeds from the bond offering will mostly be used to refinance a $20 billion bridge loan SpaceX took in March as it prepared to go public. Such loans basically ensure that companies planning to go public have the money they would need to wait out an unfavorable turn in market conditions.

As the article at the link notes, however, SpaceX is hardly cash poor, having on hand over $100 billion after its initial public offering (IPO) of stock two weeks ago. On the surface this bond sale seems unnecessary, but I suspect its purpose is merely refinancing some already existing debt in order to save the company some money.

The propaganda press has been making much in the past week about the drop in SpaceX’s stock price following its original burst during the IPO, often spinning the drop as proof that SpaceX is not that valuable a company (see this NBC report for example). After raising to above $200 per share from its initial price of $135, it has since dropped to about $160. All of this is entirely normal. New stocks that capture the public’s interest all do this. The stock is simply now finding its natural market price, which by the way is still higher than that initial price.

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China’s Shenlong X-37B copy deploys a satellite

9:33 am

Shenlong in orbit shortly after launch
Shenlong in orbit shortly after launch.
Click for source.

According to data from the space surveillance company LeoLabs, China’s Shenlong mini-reusable shuttle — similar to the X-37B — deployed a object sometime before June 22, 2026.

At 02:30 UTC on 22 June 2026, LeoLabs detected an unknown object in the vicinity of the Chinese Shenlong reusable spaceplane.

This object did not correlate to any other object in our catalog. It was first observed by our Tracker radar in New Zealand.

This is not the first time a Shenlong in orbit released an object. On two previous flights in 2023 and 2024 it did the same. The Shenlong in orbit now was launched on February 7, 2026, the fourth mission of this X-37B copycat.

Overall, China has released very little information about Shenlong. We have no idea if the same or multiple Shenlongs have launched on the four known missions. No official pictures have ever been released, though the image of it to the right was apparently captured in orbit by amateur astronomers shortly after that February launch.

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Two launches by China and SpaceX

8:29 am

Since yesterday there were two more launches by the global rocket industry.

First, China placed a “communication technology experimental satellite” into orbit, its Long March 7A rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport. No other information was provided.

Artist's rendering of Starfall provided during today's live steam
Artist’s rendering of Starfall provided during today’s live steam

Next, SpaceX launched in the early morning the first demo mission for its Starfall recoverable capsule, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The company has released little information about this project, including not showing the deployment or splashdown of Starfall in the launch broadcast. Its short description of Starfall during the live stream made it sound very similar to Varda’s recoverable capsule, though larger. According to Wikipedia,

Starfall has a circular, disk-shaped form measuring 10′ in diameter and 2′ 6″ in height. Its empty mass is 2,100 kg (4,600 lb). Starfall carries up to 1,000 kilograms of payload in a volume of 2.5 by 0.5 meters and a total mass of about 3,100 kilograms. The vehicle consists of a top plate with maneuvering thrusters and a heat shield that jettisons before a parachute assisted splashdown. Starfall reaches orbit as a payload on Falcon 9 or Starship. The design focuses on precision delivery to specific locations, supporting rapid delivery for critical cargo.

The company has at this time provided no information about the results of this demo mission.

The rocket’s two fairings completed their 24th and 36th flights respectively. The first stage (B1078) completed its 29th flight (29 days after its previous mission), landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. With this flight this booster moved past the space shuttle Columbia into a seventh place tie in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicle:

39 Discovery space shuttle
35 Falcon 9 booster B1067
34 Falcon 9 booster B1071
33 Atlantis space shuttle
33 Falcon 9 booster B1063
31 Falcon 9 booster B1069
29 Falcon 9 booster B1077
29 Falcon 9 booster B1078
28 Columbia space shuttle

Sources here and here.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

75 SpaceX
41 China
9 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
8 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 75 to 70.

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Botswana to sign the Artemis Accords

8:01 am

NASA yesterday announced that the Republic of Botswana will sign the Artemis Accords on June 25, 2026, becoming the 68th nation to join this American alliance in space.

The Republic of Botswana will sign the Artemis Accords during a ceremony at 9:30 a.m. EDT Thursday, June 25, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA Deputy Administrator Matt Anderson will host Botswana’s Minister of Communications and Innovation David Tshere and U.S. Department of State Senior Advisor for Space Gregory Autry for the event.

Since NASA administrator Jared Isaacman took over, the NASA press releases announcing these signings have eliminated much of the pro-globalist language introduced during the Biden administration. No longer does NASA claim the accords are designed to “reinforce” the Outer Space Treaty. In today’s release the language is relatively vague, stating merely that the accords are

responding to the growing interest in lunar activities by both governments and private companies. The accords introduced the first set of practical principles aimed at enhancing the safety, transparency, and coordination of civil space exploration on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

As the accords were originally conceived by Trump as a long term tool to overcome the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property and the establishment of American law in its colonies, this vagueness is likely intended to avoid antagonizing Russia and China, to lull them into apathy about the issue at this time. Later, when the U.S. Moon base is largely established expect that vagueness to fade. That will be the time to use the clout of this large alliance to force a major legal change in this international treaty.

The full list of nations in this American space alliance is as follows:

Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Botswana, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

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NASA IG: NASA’s launch infrastructure at Kennedy and Wallops needs attention

12:30 pm

Launch sites at Kennedy and Cape Canaveral
Figure 2 of IG report, annotated further by me.

According to a report released today [pdf] by NASA’s inspector general (IG), NASA’s launch infrastructure at both the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia are aging and need upgrades, but there is a systemic limitation on NASA’s access to funds to do the work.

The IG report — as is always expected from such a government report — of course whines about the lack of funding in recent NASA budgets, noting that Congress recently allocated $250 million for this purpose, but NASA claims it needs four times that amount, or $1 billion.

The report however also recognizes that this not the real problem. The map to the right, Figure 2 from the report, has been further annotated by me to show who is leasing or using each launch complex at both the Kennedy Space Center (managed by NASA) and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (managed by the military but also supported significantly by NASA). As you can see, almost all launch sites are either leased by private rocket companies, or are being primed for future such leases. Yet, “statutory funding barriers” limit how much money NASA can collect from these companies. From the report’s conclusion:
» Read more

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Astronomers discover an asymmetrical radio galaxy distorted wildly as it plows into the surrounding galactic medium

9:49 am

Distorted radio galaxy
Figure 1 from the paper. Click for original.

Using ground-based radio telescopes, astronomers have now discovered a very strange asymmetrical radio galaxy squashed into a gigantic arc almost two million light years across as the galaxy pushes its way into the surrounding material of an even more gigantic galactic cluster.

In RAD-BAARG [the name they have given the galaxy], the researchers say one of the jets appears to interact with a large bow shock-like structure formed as the host galaxy falls through the surrounding hot gas toward a nearby cluster of galaxies. Similar to the shockwave formed ahead of a supersonic aircraft, a galaxy moving faster than the speed of sound in the surrounding intracluster medium can compress the ambient gas and generate a large-scale shock front.

The radio-emitting plasma from RAD-BAARG appears to illuminate this otherwise extremely faint structure, making it visible in low-frequency radio images, according to the team. The western side of the source contains a narrow jet feeding a sector-shaped emission region and a giant arc-like feature extending over nearly 560 kiloparsecs (1.8 million light years).

On the opposite side, the jet develops a distorted S-shaped morphology followed by a faint offset tail extending to almost 600 kiloparsecs. The overall structure suggests strong interaction between the radio plasma and the surrounding large-scale environment.

You can read their published paper here. The images to the right are figure 1 from that paper. The top image is just the radio data. The bottom image shows the contours of that radio data over the optical view. The cross marks the location of object’s host galaxy, as seen in the optical.

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Canada’s second proposed spaceport opens first rocket factory

9:03 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

The Canadian rocket startup Nordspace, which also hopes to operate the Atlantic Spaceport in Newfoundland, last week announced the opening of a new headquarters where it hopes to begin building its smallsat Tundra rockets.

The 60,000 square foot advanced manufacturing campus is dedicated to the production of the company’s light and medium-lift orbital launch vehicles alongside its space systems division, and represents a 10x expansion over NordSpace’s previous headquarters.

In reading between the lines of the press release, it appears this facility is mostly the company’s administrative and operations headquarters, though it is large enough to assembly two Tundra smallsat rockets at the same time, designed to put about three times more payload into orbit than Rocket Lab’s very successful Electron rocket.

Unlike Spaceport Nova Scotia, which was first proposed more than a decade ago and after years of struggle was leased in March by the Canadian government for $200 million, Nordspace has only been around since 2024 and has received a relatively small grant from the government, some portion of a $8.3 million program to support three Canadian rocket startups.

With both spaceports, there has been a lot of blarney spouted. Thus, separating the sizzle from the steak is difficult. No launch dates for Tundra have been provided, though the company says it has purchased the land for an even larger manufacturing facility, though once again it provides no timetables.

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Rocket Lab and SpaceX complete launches

9:49 am

In the past two days both Rocket Lab and SpaceX successfully completed launches.

I am reporting the Rocket Lab launch two days late because it was unannounced and remains officially unconfirmed by the company two days after lift-off. [UPDATE: Rocket Lab finally confirmed the launch on June 22, 2026.] According to two different launch tracking websites (here and here), the company’s Electron rocket lifted off successfully from one of its two New Zealand launchpads on June 19, 2026, placing a Rocket Lab payload into orbit dubbed Puma, a Space Force satellite designed to rendezvous with a target spacecraft dubbed Jackel that was built by the company True Anomaly and launched on an earlier SpaceX launch.

The mission secrecy was also for a second purpose, as outlined by Rocket Lab:

The $32 million contract includes a Rocket Lab spacecraft, configured for the unique requirements of the VICTUS HAZE mission, that will launch on Electron within just 24 hours’ notice. The mission is designed to improve Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) processes and timelines to demonstrate the SSC’s ability to respond to on-orbit threats on very short timelines.

SpaceX then followed up today with a launch of 24 more Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage (B1063) completed its 33rd flight (70 days after its previous mission), landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. With this flight this booster moved into a tie with the space shuttle Atlantis for fourth place in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicle:

39 Discovery space shuttle
35 Falcon 9 booster B1067
34 Falcon 9 booster B1071
33 Atlantis space shuttle
33 Falcon 9 booster B1063
31 Falcon 9 booster B1069
29 Falcon 9 booster B1077
28 Columbia space shuttle
28 Falcon 9 booster B1078

Sources here and here.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

74 SpaceX
40 China
9 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
8 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 74 to 69.

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Katalyst’s Link rescue satellite goes airborne in advance of launch

9:26 am

Katalyst's proposed Swift rescue mission
Katalyst’s proposed Swift rescue mission.
Click for original image.

Katalyst’s Link rescue satellite — that will attempt to grab the Gehrels-Swift space telescope and raise its orbit — began its journey to its launch area over the south Pacific on June 18, 2026 when Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus rocket that will launch it was taken airborne by company’s Stargazer L-1011 airplane.

Stargazer, a modified L-1011 operated by Northrop Grumman, took off for Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. Attached to the belly of the aircraft was one of the company’s Pegasus XL rockets with LINK inside.

…Stargazer will carry Pegasus and LINK to Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific Ocean with stopovers in California and Hawai’i.

Sometime later this month Stargazer will go to its launch area, climb to 40,000 feet, and release the Pegasus rocket, which will then ignite its engines to carry Link into orbit. Link will then attempt to rendezvous with Gehrels-Swift, using its robot arms to catch it (the telescope has no grapple attachment). If successful, it will then raise the telescope’s orbit so that it can resume observations for years to come.

The mission is daring in more ways than just described. Katalyst has never done this before. It is a startup that reconfigured its first demo mission into this rescue mission.

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