TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
April 11, 2025
The ISS Meets Venus
Made with a telescope shaded from bright sunlight by an umbrella, on April 5 a well-planned video captured a crescent Venus shining in clear daytime skies from Shoreline, Washington, USA at 11:57AM Pacific Time. It also caught the International Space Station in this single video frame. In close conjunction with the bright planet, the faint outline of the orbital outpost seen at a range of about 400 kilometers appears to be similar in size to the slender planetary crescent. Of course the ISS is much smaller than Venus. Now appearing as planet Earth's brilliant morning star and climbing above the eastern horizon in predawn skies, inner planet Venus was nearly 45 million kilometers from Shoreline.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
the clip is even better
Hubble Captures a Star’s Swan Song
Apr 11, 2025
The swirling, paint-like clouds in the darkness of space in this stunning image seem surreal, like a portal to another world opening before us.
In fact, the subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is very real. We are seeing vast clouds of ionized atoms thrown into space by a dying star.
This is a planetary nebula named Kohoutek 4-55, a member of the Milky Way galaxy situated just 4,600 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus (the Swan).
Planetary nebulae are the spectacular final display at the end of a giant star’s life.
Once a red giant star has exhausted its available fuel and shed its last layers of gas, its compact core will contract further, enabling a final burst of nuclear fusion.
The exposed core reaches extremely hot temperatures, radiating ultraviolet light that energizes the enormous clouds of gas cast off by the star.
The ultraviolet light ionizes atoms in the gas, making the clouds glow brightly. In this image, red and orange indicate nitrogen, green is hydrogen, and blue shows oxygen.
Kohoutek 4-55 has an uncommon, multi-layered form: a faint layer of gas surrounds a bright inner ring, all wrapped in a broad halo of ionized nitrogen.
The spectacle is bittersweet, as the brief phase of fusion in the core will end after only tens of thousands of years, leaving a white dwarf that will never illuminate the clouds around it again.
This image itself was also the final work of one of Hubble’s instruments: the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2).
Installed in 1993 to replace the original Wide Field and Planetary Camera, WFPC2 was responsible for some of Hubble’s most enduring images and fascinating discoveries.
Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 replaced WFPC2 in 2009, during Hubble’s final servicing mission.
A mere ten days before astronauts removed Hubble’s WFPC2 from the telescope, the instrument collected the data used in this image: a fitting send-off after 16 years of discoveries.
Image processors used the latest and most advanced processing techniques to bring the data to life one more time, producing this breathtaking new view of Kohoutek 4-55.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-captures-a-stars-swan-song/
It's been a while since I've seen it too, could do with a rewatching.
Where you been, MAGA went cosmic
Sen. Moran Questions Nominees for NASA Administrator, FCC Commissioner
Apr 10 2025
U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) – a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation – yesterday questioned Jared Isaacman, the nominee for NASA Administrator, and Olivia Trusty, the nominee to be Commissioner for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), during a hearing to review their nominations.
Sen. Moran questioned Ms. Trusty on spectrum policy, the implementation of the 5G Fund and her vision for the FCC.
“Ms. Trusty, I’m pleased by your nomination; I have great faith in you,” said Sen. Moran.
“It’s been my disappointment over time to watch the FCC become much more partisan and incapable of reaching decisions.
I would encourage you to use every effort to find solutions to these problems and bring the commission together to serve the American people.”
Sen. Moran questioned Mr. Isaacman on NASA’s plans for the Space Launch System (SLS), parts of which are manufactured in Kansas, and highlighted the Cosmosphere and its importance to Kansas.
“Do you believe the current Artemis architecture featuring the SLS rocket or Orion spacecraft is the best or fastest way to beat China to the Moon,” asked Sen. Moran.
“Senator, this is the current plan, and I do believe it is the best and fastest way to get there,” answered Mr. Isaacman.
https://www.moran.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?id=DE31F9C3-726D-4F3D-A904-F6ADB30569EA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn1wbacSk5U
https://science.nasa.gov/open-science/planetary-defense-asteroids/
https://science.nasa.gov/open-science/
How NASA Science Data Defends Earth from Asteroids
Apr 10, 2025
The asteroid 2024 YR4 made headlines in February with the news that it had a chance of hitting Earth on Dec. 22, 2032, as determined by an analysis from NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
The probability of collision peaked at over 3% on Feb. 18 — the highest ever recorded for an object of its size. This sparked concerns about the damage the asteroid might do should it hit Earth.
New data collected in the following days lowered the probability to well under 1%, and 2024 YR4 is no longer considered a potential Earth impactor.
However, the event underscored the importance of surveying asteroid populations to reveal possible threats to Earth.
Sharing scientific data widely allows scientists to determine the risk posed by the near-Earth asteroid population and increases the chances of identifying future asteroid impact hazards in NASA science data.
“The planetary defense community realizes the value of making data products available to everyone,” said James “Gerbs” Bauer, the principal investigator for NASA’s Planetary Data System Small Bodies Node at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland.
How Scientists Spot Asteroids That Could Hit Earth
Professional scientists and citizen scientists worldwide play a role in tracking asteroids.
The Minor Planet Center, which is housed at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, collects and verifies vast numbers of asteroid and comet position observations submitted from around the globe.
NASA’s Small Bodies Node distributes the data from the Minor Planet Center for anyone who wants to access and use it.
A near-Earth object (NEO) is an asteroid or comet whose orbit brings it within 120 million miles of the Sun, which means it can circulate through Earth’s orbital neighborhood.
If a newly discovered object looks like it might be an NEO, information about the object appears on the Minor Planet Center’s NEO Confirmation Page.
Members of the planetary science community, whether or not they are professional scientists, are encouraged to follow up on these objects to discover where they're heading.
When an asteroid’s trajectory looks concerning, CNEOS alerts NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office at NASA Headquarters in Washington, which manages NASA’s ongoing effort to protect Earth from dangerous asteroids.
NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office also coordinates the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), which is the worldwide collaboration of asteroid observers and modelers.
Orbit analysis centers such as CNEOS perform finer calculations to nail down the probability of an asteroid colliding with Earth.
The open nature of the data allows the community to collaborate and compare, ensuring the most accurate determinations possible.
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How NASA Discovered Risks of Asteroid 2024 YR4
The asteroid 2024 YR4 was initially discovered by the NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey, which aims to discover potentially hazardous asteroids.
Scientists studied additional data about the asteroid from different observatories funded by NASA and from other telescopes across the IAWN.
At first, 2024 YR4 had a broad uncertainty in its future trajectory that passed over Earth.
As the planetary defense community collected more observations, the range of possibilities for the asteroid’s future position on Dec. 22, 2032 clustered over Earth, raising the apparent chances of collision.
However, with the addition of even more data points, the cluster of possibilities eventually moved off Earth.
Having multiple streams of data available for analysis helps scientists quickly learn more about NEOs.
This sometimes involves using data from observatories that are mainly used for astrophysics or heliophysics surveys, rather than for tracking asteroids.
“The planetary defense community both benefits from and is beneficial to the larger planetary and astronomy related ecosystem,” said Bauer, who is also a research professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Maryland.
“Much of the NEO survey data can also be used for searching astrophysical transients like supernova events. Likewise, astrophysical sky surveys produce data of interest to the planetary defense community.”
How Does NASA Stop Asteroids From Hitting Earth?
In 2022, NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission successfully impacted with the asteroid Dimorphos, shortening the time it takes to orbit around its companion asteroid Didymos by 33 minutes.
Didymos had no chance of hitting Earth, but the DART mission’s success means that NASA has a tested technique to consider when addressing a future asteroid potential impact threat.
To increase the chances of discovering asteroid threats to Earth well in advance, NASA is working on a new space-based observatory, NEO Surveyor, which will be the first spacecraft specifically designed to look for asteroids and comets that pose a hazard to Earth.
The mission is expected to launch in the fall of 2027, and the data it collects will be available to everyone through NASA archives.
“Many of the NEOs that pose a risk to Earth remain to be found,” Bauer said.
“An asteroid impact has a very low likelihood at any given time, but consequences could be high, and open science is an important component to being vigilant.”
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Meet the Mars Samples: Sapphire Canyon (Sample 25)
April 10, 2025
Meet the 25th Martian sample collected by NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover – “Sapphire Canyon” – a sample taken from a vein-filled rock named “Cheyava Falls.”
The arrowhead-shaped rock contains compelling features that may help answer whether Mars was home to microscopic life in the distant past.
As of early April 2024, the Perseverance rover has collected and sealed 28 scientifically selected samples inside pristine tubes as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign.
The next stage is to get them to Earth for study.
Considered one of the planetary science community’s highest priorities, MSR would be the first effort to bring back pieces of another planet and provides the best opportunity to answer fundamental questions about Mars' early evolution, its potential for ancient life, and its climate, while also unlocking mysteries that we have yet to even conceive.
NASA is teaming with ESA (European Space Agency) on this important endeavor. A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life.
The rover will characterize the planet's geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, as well as be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
https://science.nasa.gov/resource/meet-the-mars-samples-sapphire-canyon-sample-25/
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/mars-rock-samples/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bLhVJKoIOg
NASA Measures Moonlight to Improve Earth Observations
Apr 10, 2025
Flying high above the clouds and moon-gazing may sound like a scene from a timeless romance, but NASA did just that in the name of Earth science research.
In March 2025 pilots took the agency’s ER-2 science aircraft on a series of night flights over NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, as the Moon increased in visible size.
For those few nights, the high-flying plane was converted into a one-of-a-kind airborne lunar observatory.
The Airborne Lunar Spectral Irradiance, or air-LUSI, mission observed the Moon at different phases and measured the sunlight reflected by the lunar surface.
Specifically, the instrument tracks the amount of light reflected at different wavelengths. This information enables scientists to use the Moon as a calibration tool for Earth-observing sensors.
As an “absolute reference, the Moon also becomes the perfect benchmark for satellites to consistently and accurately measure processes on Earth,” said Kevin Turpie, air-LUSI’s principal investigator and a researcher based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
This helps scientists to improve the precision of many different measurements, including data on weather patterns, vegetation growth, and ocean conditions.
As the highest-flying platform for airborne science, the ER-2 can fly the air-LUSI instrument in the stratosphere, above 95% of the atmosphere.
Data collected at an altitude nearing 70,000 feet are highly accurate because the air is predominantly clear of the gases and particles found in the lower atmosphere that can interfere with measurements.
“To date, air-LUSI measurements of the Moon are the most accurate ever made,” said Kelsey Bisson, the NASA program scientist supporting the mission.
“Air-LUSI data can advance our ability to understand the Earth and our weather, and they provide a new way to calibrate satellites that can result in cost savings.”
The quality of these data has transformative implications for satellite and Earth observing systems.
The improved accuracy and enhanced ability provided by air-LUSI data flown on the ER-2 reduces the need for onboard reference devices, effectually cutting satellite costs.
The air-LUSI project is a collaboration between scientists and engineers from NASA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and McMaster University in Ontario.
“The collective effort of the American and Canadian team members offers an opportunity for truly exciting engineering and science collaboration,” said Andrew Gadsden, associate professor and associate chair for graduate studies in mechanical engineering at McMaster University, and co-investigator on the air-LUSI project.
The McMaster team developed the Autonomous Robotic Telescope Mount Instrument System and High-Altitude Aircraft Mounted Robotic (HAAMR) telescope mount, which support the air-LUSI system.
The HAAMR telescope mount was integrated onto the ER-2 and flown for the first time during the science flights in March.
This new lunar tracking system is contributing to what John Woodward IV, co-investigator for air-LUSI, called the “highest accuracy measurements” of moonlight.
To improve Earth observation technology, air-LUSI represents an important evolutionary step.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/armstrong/nasa-measures-moonlight-to-improve-earth-observations/
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/perseverance-rover/nasas-perseverance-mars-rover-studies-trove-of-rocks-on-crater-rim/
NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover Studies Trove of Rocks on Crater Rim
Apr 10, 2025
The diversity of rock types along the rim of Jezero Crater offers a wide glimpse of Martian history.
Scientists with NASA’s Perseverance rover are exploring what they consider a veritable Martian cornucopia full of intriguing rocky outcrops on the rim of Jezero Crater.
Studying rocks, boulders, and outcrops helps scientists understand the planet’s history, evolution, and potential for past or present habitability.
Since January, the rover has cored five rocks on the rim, sealing samples from three of them in sample tubes. It’s also performed up-close analysis of seven rocks and analyzed another 83 from afar by zapping them with a laser.
This is the mission’s fastest science-collection tempo since the rover landed on the Red Planet more than four years ago.
Perseverance climbed the western wall of Jezero Crater for 3½ months, reaching the rim on Dec. 12, 2024, and is currently exploring a roughly 445-foot-tall (135-meter-tall) slope the science team calls “Witch Hazel Hill.”
The diversity of rocks they have found there has gone beyond their expectations.
“During previous science campaigns in Jezero, it could take several months to find a rock that was significantly different from the last rock we sampled and scientifically unique enough for sampling,” said Perseverance’s project scientist, Katie Stack Morgan of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“But up here on the crater rim, there are new and intriguing rocks everywhere the rover turns. It has been all we had hoped for and more.”
That’s because Jezero Crater’s western rim contains tons of fragmented once-molten rocks that were knocked out of their subterranean home billions of years ago by one or more meteor impacts, including possibly the one that produced Jezero Crater.
Perseverance is finding these formerly underground boulders juxtaposed with well-preserved layered rocks that were “born” billions of years ago on what would become the crater’s rim.
And just a short drive away is a boulder showing signs that it was modified by water nestled beside one that saw little water in its past.
Oldest Sample Yet?
Perseverance collected its first crater-rim rock sample, named “Silver Mountain,” on Jan. 28. (NASA scientists informally nickname Martian features, including rocks and, separately, rock samples, to help keep track of them.)
The rock it came from, called “Shallow Bay,” most likely formed at least 3.9 billion years ago during Mars’ earliest geologic period, the Noachian, and it may have been broken up and recrystallized during an ancient meteor impact.
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About 360 feet (110 meters) away from that sampling site is an outcrop that caught the science team’s eye because it contains igneous minerals crystallized from magma deep in the Martian crust.
(Igneous rocks can form deep underground from magma or from volcanic activity at the surface, and they are excellent record-keepers — particularly because mineral crystals within them preserve details about the precise moment they formed.)
But after two coring attempts (on Feb. 4 and Feb. 8) fizzled due to the rock being so crumbly, the rover drove about 520 feet (160 meters) northwest to another scientifically intriguing rock, dubbed “Tablelands.”
Data from the rover’s instruments indicates that Tablelands is made almost entirely of serpentine minerals, which form when large amounts of water react with iron- and magnesium-bearing minerals in igneous rock.
During this process, called serpentinization, the rock’s original structure and mineralogy change, often causing it to expand and fracture.
Byproducts of the process sometimes include hydrogen gas, which can lead to the generation of methane in the presence of carbon dioxide.
On Earth, such rocks can support microbial communities. Coring Tablelands went smoothly. But sealing it became an engineering challenge.
Flick Maneuver
“This happened once before, when there was enough powdered rock at the top of the tube that it interfered with getting a perfect seal,” said Kyle Kaplan, a robotics engineer at JPL.
“For Tablelands, we pulled out all the stops. Over 13 sols,” or Martian days, “we used a tool to brush out the top of the tube 33 times and made eight sealing attempts. We even flicked it a second time.”
During a flick maneuver, the sample handling arm — a little robotic arm in the rover’s belly — presses the tube against a wall inside the rover, then pulls the tube away, causing it to vibrate.
On March 2, the combination of flicks and brushings cleaned the tube’s top opening enough for Perseverance to seal and store the serpentine-laden rock sample.
Eight days later, the rover had no issues sealing its third rim sample, from a rock called “Main River.” The alternating bright and dark bands on the rock were like nothing the science team had seen before.
Up Next
Following the collection of the Main River sample, the rover has continued exploring Witch Hazel Hill, analyzing three more rocky outcrops (“Sally’s Cove,” “Dennis Pond,” and “Mount Pearl”). And the team isn’t done yet.
“The last four months have been a whirlwind for the science team, and we still feel that Witch Hazel Hill has more to tell us,” said Stack.
“We’ll use all the rover data gathered recently to decide if and where to collect the next sample from the crater rim. Crater rims — you gotta love ’em.”
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https://www.livescience.com/33883-gallery-weird-moon.html
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasa-webbs-autopsy-of-planet-swallowed-by-star-yields-surprise/
https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-117
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/adb429
NASA Webb’s Autopsy of Planet Swallowed by Star Yields Surprise
Apr 10, 2025
Observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have provided a surprising twist in the narrative surrounding what is believed to be the first star observed in the act of swallowing a planet.
The new findings suggest that the star actually did not swell to envelop a planet as previously hypothesized. Instead, Webb’s observations show the planet’s orbit shrank over time, slowly bringing the planet closer to its demise until it was engulfed in full.
“Because this is such a novel event, we didn’t quite know what to expect when we decided to point this telescope in its direction,” said Ryan Lau, lead author of the new paper and astronomer at NSF NOIRLab (National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory) in Tucson, Arizona.
“With its high-resolution look in the infrared, we are learning valuable insights about the final fates of planetary systems, possibly including our own.”
Two instruments aboard Webb conducted the post-mortem of the scene – Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph).
The researchers were able to come to their conclusion using a two-pronged investigative approach.
Image A: Planetary Engulfment Illustration
Constraining the How
The star at the center of this scene is located in the Milky Way galaxy about 12,000 light-years away from Earth.
The brightening event, formally called ZTF SLRN-2020, was originally spotted as a flash of optical light using the Zwicky Transient Facility at Caltech's Palomar Observatory in San Diego, California.
Data from NASA’s NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) showed the star actually brightened in the infrared a year before the optical light flash, hinting at the presence of dust.
This initial 2023 investigation led researchers to believe that the star was more Sun-like, and had been in the process of aging into a red giant over hundreds of thousands of years, slowly expanding as it exhausted its hydrogen fuel.
However, Webb’s MIRI told a different story. With powerful sensitivity and spatial resolution, Webb was able to precisely measure the hidden emission from the star and its immediate surroundings, which lie in a very crowded region of space.
The researchers found the star was not as bright as it should have been if it had evolved into a red giant, indicating there was no swelling to engulf the planet as once thought.
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Reconstructing the Scene
Researchers suggest that, at one point, the planet was about Jupiter-sized, but orbited quite close to the star, even closer than Mercury’s orbit around our Sun.
Over millions of years, the planet orbited closer and closer to the star, leading to the catastrophic consequence.
“The planet eventually started to graze the star's atmosphere.
Then it was a runaway process of falling in faster from that moment,” said team member Morgan MacLeod of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“The planet, as it’s falling in, started to sort of smear around the star.” In its final splashdown, the planet would have blasted gas away from the outer layers of the star.
As it expanded and cooled off, the heavy elements in this gas condensed into cold dust over the next year.
Inspecting the Leftovers
While the researchers did expect an expanding cloud of cooler dust around the star, a look with the powerful NIRSpec revealed a hot circumstellar disk of molecular gas closer in.
Furthermore, Webb’s high spectral resolution was able to detect certain molecules in this accretion disk, including carbon monoxide.
“With such a transformative telescope like Webb, it was hard for me to have any expectations of what we’d find in the immediate surroundings of the star,” said Colette Salyk of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, an exoplanet researcher and co-author on the new paper.
“I will say, I could not have expected seeing what has the characteristics of a planet-forming region, even though planets are not forming here, in the aftermath of an engulfment.”
The ability to characterize this gas opens more questions for researchers about what actually happened once the planet was fully swallowed by the star.
“This is truly the precipice of studying these events. This is the only one we've observed in action, and this is the best detection of the aftermath after things have settled back down,” Lau said. “We hope this is just the start of our sample.”
These observations, taken under Guaranteed Time Observation program 1240, which was specifically designed to investigate a family of mysterious, sudden, infrared brightening events, were among the first Target of Opportunity programs performed by Webb.
These types of study are reserved for events, like supernova explosions, that are expected to occur, but researchers don’t exactly know when or where.
NASA’s space telescopes are part of a growing, international network that stands ready to witness these fleeting changes, to help us understand how the universe works.
Researchers expect to add to their sample and identify future events like this using the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory and NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which will survey large areas of the sky repeatedly to look for changes over time.
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JPL Engineers Restore NASA’s Juno Spacecraft After Safe Mode Events at Jupiter
Friday, April 11, 2025 | 6:18 am
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has resumed normal operations after unexpectedly entering safe mode twice during its 71st close approach to Jupiter, according to mission officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
The solar-powered spacecraft, which has been orbiting Jupiter since July 2016, entered safe mode on April 4 at 5:17 a.m. EDT—approximately one hour before reaching its closest point to Jupiter, known as perijove.
A second safe mode event occurred 45 minutes after the spacecraft passed its perijove point.
According to NASA’s update on April 9, “The mission operations team has reestablished high-rate data transmission with Juno, and the spacecraft is currently conducting flight software diagnostics.
The team will work in the ensuing days to transmit the engineering and science data collected before and after the safe-mode events to Earth.”
Safe mode is a protective measure spacecraft are designed to enter when they detect anomalies in their systems.
During both incidents, Juno performed exactly as intended by rebooting its computer, powering down nonessential functions, and orienting its antenna toward Earth to maintain communication capabilities.
As part of this safety protocol, Juno’s science instruments were automatically powered down for the remainder of the flyby.
Radiation challenges
Preliminary data analysis by Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers suggests the safe mode events occurred as Juno passed through Jupiter’s intense radiation belts, widely considered some of the most hostile environments in the solar system.
Jupiter’s radiation environment presents significant challenges for the spacecraft. According to the mission documentation, “Of all the planets in our solar system, Jupiter is home to the most hostile environment, with the radiation belts closest to the planet being the most intense.”
To protect sensitive electronics from high-energy particles, Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers designed Juno with a titanium radiation vault. This protective feature has been crucial to the spacecraft’s longevity in Jupiter’s harsh environment.
The April incidents mark the third and fourth times Juno has unexpectedly entered safe mode since arriving at Jupiter nearly nine years ago. Previous occurrences happened in 2016 during its second orbit and in 2022 during its 39th orbit.
In December 2022, the spacecraft also experienced a memory anomaly following its 47th close flyby, likely caused by a radiation spike. In all cases, Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s operations team successfully recovered the spacecraft to full capability.
Mission adaptations
Juno was launched on Aug. 5, 2011, and completed its five-year, 1,740-million-mile journey to Jupiter on July 4, 2016.
The mission was originally designed for shorter, 14-day science orbits, but concerns about the spacecraft’s main engine led NASA to maintain Juno in its initial 53-day orbit.
“The decision to forego the burn is the right thing to do — preserving a valuable asset so that Juno can continue its exciting journey of discovery,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, then at NASA’s Science Directorate, when the orbital adjustment was canceled.
This adaptive approach has proven successful, with Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers and mission planners transforming Juno from a Jupiter-focused mission into a full Jovian system explorer that now studies not only the gas giant but also its rings and moons.
Looking ahead
Juno’s next perijove will occur on May 7, 2025, and will include a flyby of the volcanic Jovian moon Io at a distance of about 55,300 miles (89,000 kilometers).
This upcoming encounter is particularly significant following Juno’s observations from Dec. 27, 2024, including “the detection of what scientists called ‘the most intense volcanic eruption ever recorded on Io'” during that flyby.
The Juno mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, for principal investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
The mission is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
Several institutions contributed to the mission: the Italian Space Agency funded the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper instrument, Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft, and various other institutions across the United States provided several of Juno’s scientific instruments.
The current mission extension is scheduled to continue through September 2025, adding to Juno’s substantial scientific legacy while navigating one of the solar system’s most challenging environments.
https://pasadenanow.com/main/jpl-engineers-restore-nasas-juno-spacecraft-after-safe-mode-events-at-jupiter
Commander of Greenland U.S. Space Force base fired after comments on Vance visit
April 11, 2025 / 10:26 AM
The commander of the U.S. Space Force's Pituffik base in Greenland, Col. Susannah Meyers, was fired by the head of Space Operations Command for allegedly undermining Vice President JD Vance by briefing against him following his March 28 visit to the station.
Meyers was removed from her command on Thursday by Col. Kenneth Klock, commander of Space Base Delta 1, due to a "loss of confidence in her ability to lead," SpOC said in a news release.
Meyers was said to have sent an email to all base personnel on March 31 in which she said Vance's statements and the stance of the Trump administration regarding the autonomous region of Denmark did not reflect the values Pituffik Space Base stood for.
"I spent the weekend thinking about [Vance's] visit – the actions taken, the words spoken, and how it must have affected each of you," she said in email which was on a base-wide distribution and went to everyone on base including non-U.S. military Canadian, Danish and Greenlander staff, according to Military.com which said it had obtained a copy.
"I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the U.S. administration discussed by Vice President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base.
I commit that, for as long as I am lucky enough to lead this base, all of our flags will fly proudly – together."
In a speech to staff at the base, Vance accused Denmark of failing in its obligations to protect Greenland, arguing that the United States could provide the security necessary to ward off Russia and insisted that Greenlanders backed President Donald Trump's annexation plans for the strategically located and mineral-rich island. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell commented on X that insubordination was unacceptable.
"Actions to undermine the chain of command or to subvert President Trump's agenda will not be tolerated at the Department of Defense," he wrote in response to Military.com's article Thursday, which came out before SpOC's announcement.
Meyers had been in command of the Pituffik base since July.
Since Vance's visit to the base, accompanied by his wife, Usha Vance, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Sen. Michael Lee, R-Utah, Greenland and Denmark have closed ranks in resisting U.S. moves to take over the island.
In a visit to Nuuk last week, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen stood shoulder to shoulder on the deck of a Danish Navy ship with Prime Minister-elect Jens-Frederik Nielsen outgoing Prime Minister Mute Egede in a show of unity.
"You can't annex other countries," she said. However, she stressed that while Denmark was beefing up its military forces on Greenland and across Arctic, Denmark wanted to work with the United States on defense for the region.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/04/11/Greenland-Pituffik-base-commander-fired/9861744370847/
https://www.spoc.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/4152328/for-release
Texas Senators demand return of Space Shuttle Discovery to Houston
April 10, 2025
Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz are blaming political favoritism for what they call a decades-old snub—and now they’re pushing to bring the Space Shuttle Discovery back to Houston
Both Texas lawmakers introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate that would move Discovery from Virginia to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Cornyn and Cruz filed the bill the bring the shuttle home to NASA's Mission Control, which led all the space shuttle flights in the program's history from the 1980s to 2010.
Four shuttles have been retired and one was scheduled to be displayed at Johnson Space Center.
But that never happened.
One went to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, another went to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. Space Shuttle Discovery went to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Virginia.
But Cornyn and Cruz—who believe the Houston snub was politically motivated—now want to get that shuttle back in Houston.
"Houston played a critical role throughout the life of the space shuttle program, but it is clear political favors trumped common sense and fairness when the Obama administration blocked the Space City from receiving the recognition it deserves," Cornyn said in a statement.
"I am proud to lead the effort the finally bring Discovery home to Houston, where future generation of Texans and Americans can come to learn about the city's integral role in our nation's space shuttle program."
The bill would allow Discovery, which is the only shuttle still owned by the federal government, to be moved from the Smithsonian to a non-profit near Johnson Space Center.
"It is past time that the Space Center Houston Museum house a space shuttle," said Cruz.
https://www.chron.com/news/space/article/texas-space-shuttle-discovery-20269805.php
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/space/article/cornyn-cruz-bill-space-shuttle-houston-20267987.php
https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/1910363856724959448
What time is Blue Origin's New Shepard launch with Katy Perry and Gayle King on April 14?
April 11, 2025
Blue Origin is gearing up for its most star-studded mission to date.
A crew of six women, all of varying celebrity, are slated to ride Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket on a suborbital flight to the edge of space and back.
The mission, NS-31, is scheduled to lift off Monday morning (April 14) from the company's launch facilities in West Texas.
A livestream of the NS-31 launch will be available on Space.com, via Blue Origin, and also on the company's website. The broadcast is expected to begin approximately 15 minutes before liftoff.
Blue Origin is targeting Monday (April 14) for the New Shepard launch. Liftoff is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT). The launch will take place from the company's Launch Site One, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Van Horn, Texas.
Delays due to weather, or issues with rocket hardware or launch infrastructure could push the liftoff back into the launch window, which has the potential to extend up to an hour or more.
If the launch time shifts before the beginning of Blue Origin's livestream, the start of the launch broadcast will likely shift accordingly.
Yes, the Blue Origin NS-31 New Shepard rocket launch will be available to watch online.
Blue Origin will provide a livestream of the New Shepard launch on its website BlueOrigin.com about 15 minutes before liftoff.
The company typically simulcasts that stream to its YouTube page and X account, and it will also be carried on Space.com. Space.com's YouTube channel will also carry the feed.
The NS-31 crew is led by Lauren Sánchez — partner of Blue Origin's billionaire founder Jeff Bezos.
Also flying are pop-star singer Katy Perry — most notably known, in this case, for her hit single "Firework" — author and bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen, STEMBoard CEO and former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, film producer Kerianne Flynn and "CBS Mornings" co-host journalist Gayle King.
The sextet will be shattering the ceiling to space, so to speak, by blasting off on the first mission to launch an all-female crew into the final frontier.
That is, of course, not to discredit the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova, who flew a solo mission as the first woman in space in 1963.
Blue Origin's flight plan for its New Shepard rocket typically follows the same course every launch.
New Shepard will lift off at T-0, carrying its passengers at increasing speeds away from the launch pad and into the Texas sky.
The rocket will reach up to three times the speed of sound before separating from its crew capsule at T+2:40.
The capsule will coast on a trajectory that will arc above the 62-mile (100-kilometer) high, internationally recognized "boundary" of space known as the Kármán line.
There, the NS-31 crew will get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness before beginning a descent back to the ground.
The New Shepard booster is expected to return to Earth for a vertical landing on a pad near its launch site in West Texas about 7.5 minutes after liftoff, while the capsule and crew will parachute down for a soft landing a few minutes later.
In total, the mission will last about 11 minutes from liftoff to capsule landing.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/what-time-is-blue-origins-new-shepard-launch-with-katy-perry-and-gayle-king-on-april-14
https://www.blueorigin.com/missions/ns-31
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5ozKoAipnM&feature=youtu.be
https://nypost.com/2025/04/10/media/gayle-kings-journey-into-space-aboard-bezos-blue-origin-wont-help-cbs-mornings-ratings-as-they-sink-to-record-lows-sources/
The sun just leaked a huge amount of helium-3 — the rare isotope scientists want to harvest on the moon
April 11, 2025
The sun just released a burst of a rare form of helium known as helium-3 (3He). What's peculiar is this lightweight, elusive isotope isn't usually seen in such high amounts.
"This rare isotope, which is lighter than the more common 4He by just one neutron, is scarce in our solar system — found at a ratio of about one 3He ion per 2,500 4He ions," Radoslav Bucik, lead scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in the U.S., said in a statement.
"However, solar jets appear to preferentially accelerate 3He to high speeds or energies, likely due to its unique charge-to-mass ratio."
On Earth, 3He is highly prized for its potential uses in nuclear fusion, clean energy research, cryogenics, quantum computing and even medical imaging and neutron detection.
It is, however, far more abundant on the moon because, unlike Earth, the moon lacks a magnetic field, which would normally deflect particles from the sun — including 3He.
By contrast, these particles settle on the surface of the moon, providing a potential lunar supply that has sparked growing interest in harvesting initiatives for future energy and technology applications.
The sun just released a burst of a rare form of helium known as helium-3 (3He). What's peculiar is this lightweight, elusive isotope isn't usually seen in such high amounts.
"This rare isotope, which is lighter than the more common 4He by just one neutron, is scarce in our solar system — found at a ratio of about one 3He ion per 2,500 4He ions," Radoslav Bucik, lead scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in the U.S., said in a statement.
"However, solar jets appear to preferentially accelerate 3He to high speeds or energies, likely due to its unique charge-to-mass ratio."
On Earth, 3He is highly prized for its potential uses in nuclear fusion, clean energy research, cryogenics, quantum computing and even medical imaging and neutron detection.
It is, however, far more abundant on the moon because, unlike Earth, the moon lacks a magnetic field, which would normally deflect particles from the sun — including 3He.
By contrast, these particles settle on the surface of the moon, providing a potential lunar supply that has sparked growing interest in harvesting initiatives for future energy and technology applications.
This recent surge of 3He particles was detected by the Solar Orbiter, a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) designed to uncover the inner workings of our star.
The spacecraft recorded a staggering 200,000-fold increase in 3He particles, which were accelerated to much higher speeds than typically seen with heavier elements.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which has been monitoring the sun from Earth orbit since 2010, followed up on the event.
Using high-resolution imaging, SDO traced the outburst back to a small solar jet erupting from a coronal hole — a region where the sun's magnetic field opens out into space.
"Despite its tiny size, the jet was clearly linked," Bucik said.
What surprised scientists was that this small jet erupted from a region of the sun with a weak magnetic field — a trait more common in quiet solar areas than in the active, explosive regions typically associated with bursts of high-energy particles.
Although the exact mechanism behind the ejection of 3He remains a mystery, the finding supports earlier theories that these rare particles are more likely to be enriched in the sun's calmer, weakly magnetized zones.
Researchers think that in these quieter regions, subtle processes — like gentle waves or minimal turbulence — may create just the right conditions to boost 3He in a unique way.
Interestingly, the team observed an odd ion enhancement pattern, where the ionization or excitation of an element or molecule is increased by the presence of another.
Typically, it would be expected that the jet would have ejected a greater abundance of heavier elements, such as iron, especially in regions with high ionization or excitation.
However, the jet instead released more carbon, nitrogen, silicon and sulfur alongside helium, suggesting an unexpected process or interaction at play.
With only 19 similar events in the past 25 years, this rarity is significant, offering potential new insights into the underlying phenomena.
https://www.space.com/the-universe/sun/the-sun-just-leaked-a-huge-amount-of-helium-3-the-rare-isotope-scientists-want-to-harvest-on-the-moon
https://www.swri.org/newsroom/press-releases/swri-scientists-source-solar-emissions-largest-ever-concentration-of-rare-helium-isotope
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/adb48d
China launches TJS-17, expanding classified geostationary satellite series
April 10, 2025
China launched Thursday what appears to be the third satellite for a subset of classified, experimental satellites bound for geosynchronous orbit.
A Long March 3B rocket lifted off at 12:47 p.m. Eastern (1647 UTC) April 10 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, southwest China.
The Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), a major arm of state-owned main space contractor CASC, announced launch success within an hour of liftoff.
The launch was anticipated due to airspace closure notices, but the payload was unknown until the SAST statement revealed the mission payload to be communication technology experiment Satellite-15, or Tongxin Jishu Shiyan-17 (TJS-17).
SAST, which developed the satellite, stated that TJS-17 will be “mainly used to carry out multi-band, high-speed satellite communication technology verification.”
It published neither images nor technical details of the satellite, following the pattern for all previous TJS launches.
Broadly, the TJS series mainly operates in geostationary orbit (GEO).
It is seen by Western analysts as potentially carrying out classified missions including signals intelligence, early warning missions and satellite inspection activities to support the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
China now has 16 main TJS satellites in orbit, with no apparent TJS-8 satellite.
The mission, however, does appear linked to two recent launches: the launch of TJS-15, March 9, also using a Long March 3B from Xichang, and TJS-16 launched via a Long March 7A rocket—seen as the kerosene-liquid oxygen successor to the aging, hypergolic Long March 3B—from Wenchang, March 29. All three of TJS-15, 16 and 17 were developed by SAST.
The TJS-17 mission patch from SAST depicts the King of the North, one of the Four Heavenly Kings; a set of Buddhist deities each guarding one cardinal direction of the world.
The TJS-15 and TJS-16 mission patches depicted the King of the West and King of the East, respectively. This hints at a possible forthcoming TJS mission to complete the celestial quartet.
TJS-15 is located around 90.3 degrees East, while TJS-16 is located at around 152.5 degrees East.
China launched its first TJS satellite in 2015, with eight launched over the past 18 months.
Notable missions include TJS-13, launched in December 2024, joining two other Chinese satellites, Shiyan-10 (01) and Shiyan-10 (02), in a highly elliptical, Molniya-like orbit, and TJS-3, launched in 2018, which released an object which carried out subsequent maneuvers.
China launch plans
The TJS-17 mission was China’s 19th orbital launch of 2025. It follows the launch of four internet satellite test satellites April 1, and a Long March 6 launch from Taiyuan spaceport April 3, carrying Tianping-3A (02) into a near polar orbit.
China could be targeting 100 or more launches in 2025, driven by growing commercial activity, megaconstellation projects, and new launcher development.
A number of new, medium-lift and potentially reusable rockets are targeting debut flights this year. Two of these could carry new, low-cost cargo spacecraft to Tiangong space station.
Major missions include the Tianwen-2 near-Earth asteroid sample return and main belt comet rendezvous mission, expected to launch around May, and the crewed Shenzhou-20 and -21 missions to the Tiangong.
https://spacenews.com/china-launches-tjs-17-expanding-classified-geostationary-satellite-series/
https://twitter.com/AJ_FI/status/1910435900024381477
https://spacenews.com/space-force-official-trumps-executive-order-validates-current-commercial-strategy/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/modernizing-defense-acquisitions-and-spurring-innovation-in-the-defense-industrial-base/
Space Force official: Trump’s executive order validates current commercial strategy
April 10, 2025
An executive order issued April 9 by the Trump administration — which instructs the Pentagon to prioritize commercial technologies in its acquisition strategy — validates the U.S. Space Force’s ongoing efforts to harness private-sector space technologies, a service official said April 10.
Col. Richard Kniseley, head of the Commercial Space Office (COMSO) within the Space Force’s Space Systems Command, described the directive as “an exclamation point” on initiatives already underway to modernize how the Pentagon procures space-based capabilities.
“We’ve done so much of a grassroots effort in COMSO … showing how amazing the commercial capabilities are,” Kniseley told reporters at the Space Symposium.
The executive order, titled “Modernizing Defense Acquisitions and Spurring Innovation in the Defense Industrial Base,” aims to reform the Department of Defense’s procurement processes by prioritizing commercial products and streamlining defense acquisitions.
Bridging commercial and military
COMSO operates within the Space Force’s procurement organization, the Space Systems Command (SSC).
While traditional defense contracting processes handle much of the military’s space hardware acquisitions, SSC adopted a new approach several years ago with the mantra: “Exploit what we have, buy what we can and build only what we must.”
Established in 2023 to implement this strategy, COMSO oversees the Commercial Satellite Communications Office and SpaceWERX, the Space Force’s innovation arm that is part of the Department of the Air Force’s AFWERX.
The office also manages programs like the Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve (CASR) and the Space Domain Awareness Marketplace, which aim to integrate private-sector technologies for tracking satellites and debris in orbit.
The Space Force a year algo also rolled out a commercial strategy to provide higher level guidance.
Kniseley noted growing interest across military combatant commands in commercial satellite services, including communications and target tracking.
However, he highlighted that the Pentagon’s budget structure, which focuses on established “programs of record,” creates challenges in reallocating funding to nontraditional commercial services.
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Congressional support
Congressional backing has been instrumental for COMSO’s initiatives, Kniseley said. Lawmakers inserted $50 million in the 2024 defense spending bill and $40 million in 2025 specifically for commercial space services.
“What that did was help make our commercial services program relevant,” he said. He emphasized that efforts to expand commercial integration were well underway before the executive order.
“Long before Trump’s executive order came out last night, there’s been a lot of work going on behind the scenes,” Kniseley said.
Late last year, the Space Force’s Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein and then-senior procurement executive Frank Calvelli — who departed at the end of the Biden administration — signed a directive requiring procurement executives to review their requirements and “look to see which ones of those can we move over to commercial, international, and what has to be purpose built.” That analysis is ongoing, with a final report expected “in the next couple of months,” according to Kniseley.
The findings “will probably have an influence on the budget going forward,” he added, explaining that part of the process involves vetting companies offering services of interest by examining “the investments that each of these companies have, the number of contracts they have, the capabilities that they’re bringing to bear.”
Resource requirements
Despite the push for commercial integration, Kniseley acknowledged that expanding the use of private-sector services will not happen overnight and will require additional resources.
“When I look at the executive order, I look at it more as an exclamation point on a lot of the things that we’re doing,” he said. “But it will require additional budget, it will also require additional resources, and that usually means people as well.”
He cited the need for contracting officers with expertise in commercial contracting vehicles. Kniseley added that defense committees in Congress “are very forward leaning with commercial and they’ve been very receptive to a lot of the things that we have asked them for.”
Expanding commercial services
The military’s interest in commercial space services extends across multiple domains. Key areas include satellite communications; high-resolution imagery and geospatial data analytics; space object tracking for threat identification; and commercial positioning, navigation, and timing solutions to complement GPS.
The Space Force is also exploring emerging commercial capabilities such as responsive launch services—the ability to rapidly deploy satellites or replace damaged assets through commercial providers.
Other areas of interest include in-orbit servicing, debris removal, and satellite refueling, collectively referred to as space access, mobility, and logistics.
Environmental monitoring represents another sector where commercial providers supply weather data and environmental insights used for military mission planning and operations.
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https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/4151963/top-enlisted-ussf-usaf-leaders-testify-to-congress-on-military-member-quality-o/
Top enlisted USSF, USAF leaders testify to Congress on military member quality of life
April 10, 2025
Chief Master Sgt. of the Space Force John Bentivegna and Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force David Flosi testified before the House Committee on Appropriations, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Subcommittee, addressing concerns about military quality of life and the impact of budgetary constraints on readiness April 8, 2025.
The hearing focused on challenges faced by service members, including housing affordability, access to childcare, spouse employment and the increasing need for investment in personnel and divesting excess infrastructure.
Senior enlisted leaders from both the Air Force and Space Force emphasized the ongoing need to ensure service members are adequately supported while facing the ever-evolving demands of modern warfare.
Flosi kicked off the discussion by emphasizing the importance of quality of life as a key element in maintaining a highly capable, lethal and ready force.
“While there's always work to be done on this important subject, make no mistake, your Air Force is the most lethal and ready flying force in the world,” Flosi stated.
“I humbly represent more than 670,000 Total Force Airmen who remain ready to deliver airpower, anytime, anywhere.”
He highlighted the critical need for ongoing investments in dormitory upgrades, the need for access to quality and affordable healthcare, childcare options and compensation adjustments for non-commissioned officers.
"Our Airmen have been busy—busy repelling complex Iranian drone and missile attacks against our allies, disrupting and defeating Houthi attacks on international shipping and providing humanitarian assistance to victims of natural disasters at home and abroad,” Flosi said.
“We cannot afford for our Airmen to be distracted by inadequate housing, lack of access to healthcare and childcare or other quality-of-life issues.”
Flosi also emphasized the need for divesting excess infrastructure to maximize resources for critical areas.
He pointed out while the Air Force has reduced its fighter squadrons and personnel over the past three decades, much of its infrastructure remains unnecessary and costly.
“Over the last 30 years, the Air Force has reduced 60% of its fighter squadrons and 40% of its end strength, but only 15% of our installations.
Today, roughly 30% of Air Force infrastructure exceeds what is needed. These facilities continue to draw funding and manpower but offer little to no value to the mission or Airmen,” Flosi stated.
“I learned no matter how much work we do to improve quality of life, we will not get our desired effect as an Air Force if we don’t focus on excess infrastructure.”
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He further stressed the funds saved from divesting infrastructure could be reinvested into taking care of Airmen.
“We've done the analysis, and while it is expensive to demolish, we know it's about a 10 to one return on investment,” Flosi said.
“Over time, it’s a really good use of taxpayer dollars to get rid of excess infrastructure and consolidate and focus our resources on the infrastructure we really need to take care of our Airmen, especially in the early stages in their careers.”
Flosi's testimony underscored the continued focus on prioritizing the overall readiness of the Air Force, ensuring Airmen have access to the best possible support systems so they can remain focused on mission success.
Bentivegna emphasized the growing importance of the space domain in an increasingly complex global security environment.
He highlighted the critical role Guardians play, stating, "Our Guardians stand as the invisible front line, ensuring our nation's continued access to, and freedom to operate in, space."
He noted the Space Force's contributions to national security despite representing only 3% of the defense budget, citing examples such as providing missile warning data during an Iranian missile attack and tracking over 47,800 orbiting objects.
“As our Space Force Truths state, the U.S. Space Force’s capabilities are critical to the Joint Force and the American way of life,” Bentivegna said.
Bentivegna underscored the need for investment in the "human weapon system," advocating for quality-of-life programs that "Elevate the Journey" for Guardians.
He expressed support to working on the recommendations from the 14th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, including updating basic allowance of housing methodology and improving Cost of Living Allowance calculations.
He also expressed faith that the recommended Quality-of-Life Review would provide the required data to improve access to childcare, healthcare and spouse employment opportunities.
"Service members do not choose to stay in uniform because it's easy," Bentivegna stated. "They do so because it’s challenging but they understand the rewards of service are priceless.
Quality of life investments…will attract and retain the talent the nation demands." He further stressed the importance of "Quality-of-Service" investments, such as world-class training and development, to "Cultivate the Warfighter."
“To meet the Joint Force’s evolving needs and to stay ahead of strategic rivals, our ability to develop the force-for Guardians by Guardians-must also mature,” Bentivegna said.
“As the capacity for us to scout, train and educate space-minded warfighters beyond our current end strength increases, we will require appropriations and infrastructure investments.
These initiatives will help Create the Future of Spacepower and build a more lethal force for generations to come.”
He concluded by emphasizing three key takeaways: the Space Force’s critical role despite its small budgetary footprint; that the service’s ability to evolve as necessary has been hindered operating under continuing resolutions for 51% of its existence; and the imperative for significant investment in the force's growth and development.
The committee members expressed bipartisan support for addressing the quality-of-life concerns raised by both senior enlisted leaders and acknowledged the need for further discussion and action in the coming weeks as Congress works on the annual defense budget.
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https://www.starcom.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/4152147/developing-a-combat-credible-force-starcom-at-the-40th-space-symposium/
Developing a Combat-Credible Force: STARCOM at the 40th Space Symposium
April 11, 2025
At this week's 40th Space Symposium, leaders from Space Training and Readiness Command made it clear: the U.S. Space Force isn’t just refining how it trains Guardians – it’s leveraging the development of Guardians—officer, enlisted, and civilian—to further the service’s combat credibility.
Brig. Gen. Matthew Cantore, deputy commander of STARCOM, joined a panel on the evolution of the space cadre alongside leaders from the Royal Air Force, U.S. Army and U.S. Navy.
The Space Force is realizing a vision from decades ago, when space expertise was scattered across the military and lacked a dedicated focus.
“If you go back a number of years, we had a variety of space experts across the U.S. military, and within the United States Air Force, we had a subset – a major command – that was focused on space,” Cantore said.
“But it certainly was just one of a variety of specialties the larger Air Force had.”
He referenced the early 2000s Rumsfeld Commission report, which called for greater focus on space as a warfighting domain.
That report helped lay the foundation for the creation of the Space Force and the deliberate structure STARCOM is building today, bringing officers, enlisted, and civilian Guardians together to achieve a common purpose: to secure our nation’s interests in, from, and to space.
“Our officers are our primary joint planners… our enlisted are the service’s primary warfighters… and our civilians give us opportunities for longevity [and] increased technical specification where needed,” Cantore said.
Maj. Gen. Timothy Sejba, commander of STARCOM, echoed that structure during a separate panel focused on workforce development.
He emphasized how Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman’s guidance on specific Guardian roles became a foundation for the service’s new direction.
“That was actually very foundational in all of our minds,” Sejba said. “Because for many years, in some cases, we used some of our workforce probably interchangeably – and probably not as efficiently as we should have.”
With just 15,000 members, Sejba said, deliberate development is not optional. “There’s not a lot of room for overlap,” he said. “You have to make sure you’re hiring the right talent and developing them to perform those roles for the service.”
That development starts early. Sejba highlighted the Space Force’s year-long Officer Training Course at Peterson Space Force Base, which began in September 2024. Every new officer cycles through four months each of space operations, intelligence, and cyber.
The first cohort is currently wrapping up the intelligence block and preparing to begin cyber. “They're going to understand the threat – not just for space, but for cyber as well,” Sejba said.
“They're going to understand how that threat materializes… both against the space segment from a space operations standpoint, but also from a cyber operations standpoint and against the ground infrastructure.”
Cantore, speaking on enlisted development, pointed to the Vosler Academy Fellowships as a complete rework of traditional leadership courses.
“They are completely rebuilt, retooled, giving a unique experience for our NCOs and specialists… and the results thus far have been fantastic,” he said.
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Sejba noted that enlisted Guardians are being trained with more technical depth than ever. “They’re going to perform roles on an ops floor that maybe in the past would have been done by an officer,” he said.
The same intentionality extends to civilian Guardians. Sejba described recent pilot courses in Los Angeles and Colorado Springs designed to give new civilian hires a clear understanding of the service and their place in it.
“It was an overwhelming success,” he said. A third iteration is scheduled for the National Capital Region later this month.
“We need to make sure Guardians have the opportunity to interface with leaders at various levels… so they can make this not just a short-term experience, but a long-term career dedicated to supporting our nation,” Cantore said. “And we will.”
Innovation and foresight are also embedded into how STARCOM prepares for future conflict. “My Delta 10 team at Patrick Space Force Base is responsible for doing a lot of that high-end wargaming – understanding what the situation could be in the five- to fifteen-year range from now,” Sejba said.
He pointed to Schriever Wargame, the CSO’s Title 10 wargame, as one of the Space Force’s key tools to avoid operational surprise.
“We have that [SW25] this coming August,” he said. “Just like in the past, we'll have almost 500 participants… almost 200 of those from our allied partners with at least 10 nations.”
Sejba also underscored how industry is reshaping innovation. “There is innovation happening everywhere you turn,” he said.
“Ten years ago, we probably would have had a couple dozen companies that we would have turned to fairly regularly. Now… we are going to hundreds of companies every time that we need a new proposal.”
That focus extends to advanced education. STARCOM’s Intermediate Level Education and Senior Level Education programs support field grade officers in deepening their strategic expertise.
“Our ILE/SLE program that we have for our majors and our lieutenant colonels… that Johns Hopkins University model is what I think we need to scale,” Sejba said.
Through a partnership with the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), STARCOM offers Guardians a graduate-level alternative to traditional military education, combining joint warfighting concepts with deeper exposure to global strategy and security policy.
“I was just talking to a colonel yesterday who, on the Air Force side, there are folks fighting to get into that school because of how unique it is,” he said.
He pointed to academic institutions that have historically supported the nation’s space enterprise, especially those located near major launch and research hubs, as examples of the kind of infrastructure the Space Force can leverage to grow technically proficient Guardians.
“We’re not going to do all the education ourselves – and I don’t think we need to,” Sejba added. Both panels emphasized that STARCOM isn’t just refining training, but reshaping how the Space Force prepares for the realities of competition and conflict in space.
Yemen launches new missile, drone attack on U.S. aircraft carrier in Red Sea
Apr 11, 2025, 8:09 PM
Tehran, IRNA – The Yemeni Armed Forces have announced a new missile and drone strike targeting the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea.
On Friday, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, spokesperson for the Yemeni army, said that the naval, missile, and drone units were actively conducting operations against “enemy naval forces” in the region, with the USS Harry S. Truman being a key target.
Saree reported that multiple cruise missiles and drones had been launched in recent hours to target U.S. warships in the northern Red Sea.
He said the operation was a direct response to the U.S. campaign of airstrikes on Yemen and crimes committed against the Yemeni people.
https://en.irna.ir/news/85800273/Yemen-launches-new-missile-drone-attack-on-U-S-aircraft-carrier
Norway joins Drone Coalition
17:15 11.04.2025
Norway has officially joined the international Drone Coalition, the country's Defense Ministry announced.
" Norway is now officially a part of the international drone coalition led by Latvia and UK. Together we are building a strong alliance to support Ukraine," the ministry said on X.
It is noted that the minister of defense Tore O. Sandvik prepared the necessary documents in Brussels on Friday morning.
As reported, the Drone Coalition was officially launched as part of the work of the Contact Group on Ukraine's Defense in February 2024.
https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/1063284.html
Drone footage shows wildfire blazing in the hills above Cumbernauld
April 11, 2025
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has urged the public to "act responsibly" as an extreme wildfire warning remains in place across the country.
Firefighters worked through the night to tackle a number of blazes across Scotland, including one at Glen Rosa on the Isle of Arran.
In Lanarkshire, three fire engines remain at the scene of a wildfire which broke out on Thursday evening at Fannyside Loch near Cumbernauld.
Wildfire warnings have been issued at the highest level for Friday and Saturday following a long period of dry weather.
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cpdz4jjg6x0o
Drone tried to smuggle drugs and phones worth £200,000 into HMP Whitemoor
Fri 11 April 2025 at 1:00 am GMT-7
A man has been jailed for his part in a plot to smuggle drugs and mobile phones into HMP Whitemoor after a drone carrying the goods crashed.
Simon Woodall, 32, was linked to the plot after his DNA was found on the drone’s cargo, including drugs and mobile phones worth more than £200,000.
The crashed drone was found on November 13, 2023, by a dog handler conducting patrols at the prison near March.
The package it was carrying, which weighed more than 6kg, contained items including cannabis, 41 smart phones, 20 pieces of paper laced with spice and four pots containing steroid tablets.
Woodall’s fingerprints were found on the drone (Image: Cambridgeshire Police) A vehicle linked to Woodall was seen in the area and was scrapped in the days following the incident.
This attempt followed a previous incident in August 2023 where a man driving a van was stopped by police on the A1, near Catterick, in North Yorkshire.
The man had the address for HMP Durham in a sat nav app and a drone in the back of the vehicle, along with a package containing cannabis, tobacco and steroids.
Woodall’s fingerprints were found on the drone and a phone number linked to him in the man’s contact list.
The drone was carrying a package containing cannabis, 41 smart phones, and 20 pieces of paper laced with spice (Image: Cambridgeshire Police) At about 4am on February 12 last year, police received a call from HMP The Mount, in Hertfordshire, after Woodall was spotted by CCTV operators acting suspiciously in a wooded area near the prison.
When officers arrived, he tried to dispose of his mobile phone and was arrested.
Woodall, of Yorke Avenue, Brierley Hill, West Midlands, admitted two counts of conspiring to convey prohibited items into a prison.
On Monday April 7 at Peterborough Crown Court he was jailed for 30 months.
DC Tom Adams said: “We’re working hard with prison staff to tackle the issue of smuggling, and we take the matter extremely seriously.
“This was a large package containing drugs and mobile phones that could have caused significant issues within the prison and been used in criminality.
“I’m pleased the attempt was unsuccessful and Woodall has now found himself behind bars.”
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/drone-tried-smuggle-drugs-phones-080000609.html
Russian military airfield reportedly targeted in mass drone attack
April 9, 2025 9:11 AM
Russian air defenses intercepted 158 Ukrainian drones across occupied Crimea and several Russian regions overnight on April 9, including as far south as North Ossetia, Russia's Defense Ministry claimed.
Independent Telegram channel Astra reported that drones targeted the military airfield in Mozdok, from where MiG-31K carriers of Kinzhal hypersonic missiles are deployed.
Social media posts showed images of smoke rising near the area. Astra said it geolocated one image to a site roughly 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) from the air base.
Russian authorities did not acknowledge any strike on the Mozdok airfield itself. Regional head Sergey Menyaylo said air defenses "repelled" the attack in the Mozdok district.
Menyaylo claimed there were no casualties or visible damage but confirmed that a drone attack alert had been implemented.
The Kyiv Independent could not verify all the claims. The Ukrainian military has yet to comment on the attacks.
Explosions were also reported in Taganrog in Rostov Oblast, Tikhoretsk, Sloviansk-on-Kuban, Krymsk, Saratov, and Engels, according to the Russian media and local authorities.
The airports of Vladikavkaz and Grozny, the capitals of Russia's republics of North Ossetia and Chechnya, were reportedly closed because of the attack.
North Ossetia is located roughly 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from Ukraine's border. It borders Georgia to the south and lies along the Caucasus Mountains.
Kyiv has regularly used long-range drones to target Russian military and industrial infrastructure deep behind the front lines.
On March 20, the Ukrainian military confirmed that a successful drone strike had hit the Engels-2 airbase in Saratov Oblast.
https://kyivindependent.com/mass-drone-attack-on-russia/
Indian Army drone crashes at Jammu Air Base, IAF personnel critically injured
Updated: April 11, 2025
Jammu: An Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel was critically injured after a drone belonging to the Indian army crashed into an IAF tower at the high-security technical airport in Satwari area of Jammu.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) — a Heron MK2 — was reportedly on a reconnaissance mission in connection with an ongoing “anti-militancy” operation when it lost control during landing and struck the Air Force installation.
The impact of the crash left Naik Surinder Pal of the Defence Security Corps (DSC) seriously injured. He was immediately rushed to the Military Hospital in Satwari, where his condition remains critical.
A senior Indian official confirmed the incident, saying, “One UAV—Heron MK 2 of the Indian Army crashed at Air Force Station during a routine sortie.
A DSC personnel identified as Naik Surinder Pal has been seriously injured in the accident. He has been admitted to Military Hospital in Satwari.”
https://kmsnews.org/kms/2025/04/11/indian-army-drone-crashes-at-jammu-air-base-iaf-personnel-critically-injured.html