TYB
A dragon made of clouds is singing to Earth
June 24, 2025
What if satellite cloud data could become music? Meet Hakuryu — a dragon born as the European Space Agency's EarthCARE satellite, singing a song of peace for our planet.
EarthCARE is the European Space Agency’s most advanced Earth Explorer launched to date, equipped with instruments that help us understand clouds and aerosols in new and unprecedented ways.
It is a collaboration between ESA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, who designed and developed the satellite’s Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) instrument. JAXA called EarthCARE Hakuryu, which is Japanese for White Dragon.
Hakuryu now lends its name to the title of a groundbreaking immersive installation that creates an audiovisual story from EarthCARE cloud and aerosol data in a way that has never been seen or heard before.
Through data sonification, Hakuryu transforms over thirty types of data into immersive soundscapes and music.
Clouds become choirs as Hakuryu sings to Earth, with voices from notable public, scientific and ESA figures joined by those needing care most - people from the frontline of climate change, displacement and conflict.
Adding to this, data from atmospheric elements such as rain, snow, dust and smoke are rendered as rich environmental sonic textures.
Simultaneously the same data is transformed into clouds, creating a vibrant trail behind an animated white dragon. Viewers slowly fly with Hakuryu, in a beautiful representation of Earth as it moves from day into night on its journey around the sun.
The film you see here comprises one entire EarthCARE orbit around our planet. It is running live all week at ESA’s Living Planet Symposium in Vienna, from 23 to 27 June 2025, as an immersive installation.
Following its debut, Hakuryu will travel the world in a variety of ways soon to be revealed.
More about EarthCARE: https://esa.int/earthcare
More about the EarthCARE DISC: https://earth.esa.int/eogateway/activ…
Visit the artist’s website: https://www.jamieperera.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VsrIXwVg3Q
World’s first quantum satellite computer launched in historic SpaceX rideshare
Updated: Jun 23, 2025 05:48 PM EST
In a historic milestone for quantum technology, a photonic quantum computer has been launched into space for the first time.
Developed by an international team led by Philip Walther at the University of Vienna, the compact system blasted off on June 23 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The processor is set to begin operations around 550 kilometers above the planet.
The launch was part of SpaceX’s Transporter 14 mission, which carried 70 payloads including microsats, cubesats, and reentry capsules.
Among them, the mini quantum computer stands out for its potential to revolutionize space-based data processing and Earth observation.
Built to survive space
Designing a quantum computer to function in orbit posed serious engineering challenges. The Viennese team built the device to withstand extreme temperature swings, radiation, and vibrations of space travel.
During a crucial phase, 12 team members spent four weeks assembling the satellite payload in a clean room at the German Aerospace Center’s Responsive Space Cluster Competence Center in Trauen.
They completed the flight model in just 11 working days.
The satellite is expected to begin transmitting results about a week after orbital entry. “This project has turned us into a ‘space group.’
We now have the know-how to conduct further experiments in space, whether for fundamental quantum physics or practical applications,” said Walther.
Quantum edge in orbit
The main benefit of deploying a quantum computer in space lies in its ability to perform “edge computing.”
This means that data gathered by the satellite, such as forest fire detection, can be processed onboard, eliminating the need to send raw data back to Earth. This process reduces energy consumption and improves response time.
Quantum computers also excel at tasks that challenge classical systems. Using light-based optical systems, the processor carries out operations using the physical principles of interference and diffraction.
This analogue method is especially efficient for computationally intense processes like Fourier transforms or convolutions.
Versatile and efficient
The system is highly adaptable and can be configured for future space missions.
“Furthermore, this mission allows us to test the performance and durability of quantum hardware under extreme conditions—we can investigate how long they remain functional in the harsh environment of space,” Walther explained.
The team sees wide-ranging potential applications, including in climate monitoring, communications, and even foundational quantum research.
“Our findings can contribute to the further development of quantum hardware for commercial and scientific applications, for example in the fields of earth observation, climate research and communication,” Walther added.
Part of a busy SpaceX manifest
The SpaceX Transporter 14 rideshare mission carried a mix of commercial, scientific, and memorial payloads.
These included Capella Space’s Capella-17 radar satellite, Starfish Space’s Otter Pup 2 for docking experiments, and a reentry capsule from Varda Space aimed at manufacturing pharmaceuticals in orbit.
Also onboard was The Exploration Company’s Nyx spacecraft, which is carrying cremated remains and DNA samples in partnership with Celestis.
The Falcon 9’s booster successfully landed on a drone ship in the Pacific, marking its 26th flight. The upper stage completed the satellite deployments in a span of nearly two hours.
https://interestingengineering.com/space/first-quantum-processor-launched-to-space
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1937261094483165614
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1937263247394242649
Deep space asteroid sample contains unexpected ingredient
Mon, June 23, 2025 at 8:30 AM PDT
On December 5, 2020, a small capsule jettisoned from Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft as it made a scheduled flyby over Earth. The payload landed in the Australian outback as planned, capping a 6-year roundtrip journey to survey the asteroid Ryugu.
Since then, researchers including a team at Hiroshima University, have analyzed the unprecedented mineral samples collected from the distant space rock.
But according to their most recent findings, published in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science, one of those minerals defies planetary scientists’ previous theories on Ryugu’s creation.
The consequences may help clarify the solar system’s evolution, and the surprising complexities inside some of its most primitive asteroids.
To understand Ryugu, it’s important to first understand its origins. Researchers believe the half-mile wide, 496-million-ton rock belongs to a parent body that formed 1.8–2.9 million years after the birth of our solar system.
This asteroid family—likely Eulalia or Polana—coalesced from icy mixtures of carbon dioxide and water at the outer edges of the solar system. Over millions of years, radioactive elements decayed and generated heat inside the parent body to likely reach around 122 degrees Fahrenheit.
It’s believed that a catastrophic impact with another asteroid created the carbon-heavy Ryugu, which is composed of rocks similar to the CI chondrite meteorites that frequently streak through Earth’s atmosphere.
But while CI chondrites are commonplace, enstatite chondrites are not. These rare asteroids form under extremely high temperature conditions inside the solar system’s inner region.
Enstatite chondrites contain different minerals such as djerfisherite, a potassium-laden iron-nickel sulfide. Based on everything scientists know about asteroids, Ryugu shouldn’t include an ingredient like djerfisherite—but it does.
“Its occurrence is like finding a tropical seed in Arctic ice,” said Masaaki Miyahara, a science and engineering associate professor Hiroshima University and one of the study’s co-authors.
Miyahara and colleagues spotted Ryugu’s djerfisherite while using field-emission transmission electron microscopy (FE-TEM) to better understand how terrestrial weathering affected the asteroid’s mineral layers.
According to Miyahara, the discovery “challenges the notion that Ryugu is compositionally uniform” and opens new questions about primitive asteroid evolution.
Experts know from past experiments that djerfisherite can be created when potassium-rich fluids and iron-nickel sulfides interact at temperatures over 662 degrees Fahrenheit.
Given their understanding of enstatite chondrites, this led Miyahara’s team to two potential explanations.
“The discovery of djerfisherite in a Ryugu grain suggests that materials with very different formation histories may have mixed early in the solar system’s evolution, or that Ryugu experienced localized, chemically heterogeneous conditions not previously recognized,” explained Miyahara.
Early evidence suggests the latter theory is more likely, but researchers can’t be sure solely based on the currently available information. Regardless, the discovery revealed that the solar system’s earliest eras hosted some unexpected deep space interactions.
Moving forward, the team hopes to conduct isotopic studies on the samples to narrow down the minerals’ origins. Meanwhile, the sample’s delivery probe Hayabusa2 is currently en route for a 2031 rendezvous with its next asteroid—a small, rapidly spinning rock known as 1998 KY.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/deep-space-asteroid-sample-contains-153000143.html
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/maps.14370
https://rollcall.com/2025/06/23/houston-we-still-have-a-problem-shuttle-move-blocked-by-byrd-rule/
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/AD3D04CF-52B4-411F-854B-44C55ABBADDA
Houston, we still have a problem: Shuttle move blocked by ‘Byrd rule’
June 23, 2025 Updated at 5:54pm
Texas Republicans have had a rough go of it over the past few days in the “Byrd bath” process that determines what’s eligible for inclusion in the filibuster-proof reconciliation package.
Late Sunday, the Senate parliamentarian advised that a $10 billion fund to reimburse border states, primarily Texas, for costs associated with security and immigration enforcement as previously drafted was a violation of the so-called Byrd rule and would be subject to a 60-vote point of order if left in the bill as is.
Prior guidance from Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough late Friday left $250 million for the fire-damaged Coast Guard station on South Padre Island “Byrded out” of the bill.
But for sheer symbolism and emotional attachment in the Lone Star State, the deepest cut may be a smaller one: axing $85 million to transfer the space shuttle Discovery to a final resting place near Houston’s Johnson Space Center.
Currently on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., getting the Discovery — which, at 39 orbital missions, was the most prolific of the U.S. shuttles — moved to Texas is a top priority for GOP Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn.
They introduced legislation in April to direct the transfer, and Cruz, who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee with jurisdiction over NASA, had circulated new language designed for inclusion in his panel’s title of the “big, beautiful” reconciliation bill.
Cornyn — who, according to recent polls, could have a tough time fending off Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the GOP Senate primary — was on hand at Johnson Space Center’s visitor center on Friday to tout his efforts to move the shuttle as part of the budget bill.
“We are here because we are going to bring the iconic space shuttle Discovery back home,” Cornyn said in a local news clip that his office posted Friday on the social platform X, hours before the parliamentarian’s advisory became public.
GOP Rep. Randy Weber of Texas was also at the Friday event at Space Center Houston, the official visitor complex for Johnson Space Center, and said he would introduce the House version of the Cornyn-Cruz bill.
New language circulated
Cruz’s initial release of his panel’s reconciliation text included $10 billion for NASA, an add not found in the House-passed version.
Included in the Senate package is $1 billion for NASA infrastructure improvements at several “manned spaceflight centers” — incidentally all in GOP-leaning states, a fact not lost on panel Democrats who criticized the plan.
Johnson Space Center would get $300 million of the $1 billion under the original Commerce draft.
The new addition to the text, which was reviewed by the parliamentarian but hasn’t been released publicly, would set aside another $85 million for construction of a facility near Johnson to house an unnamed space vehicle.
That vehicle must have “flown into space,” “carried astronauts” and be “selected with the concurrence of a nonprofit entity” designated by NASA, according to the draft language seen by CQ Roll Call.
The unnamed space vehicle would be transferred to Johnson Space Center “to be placed on public exhibition at a nonprofit entity not more than 5 miles from” the facility.
The separate bill from Cornyn and Cruz would specifically direct transfer of the Discovery to a nonprofit within 5 miles of Johnson. Space Center Houston is located within a mile of the facility.
It’s operated by a nonprofit called the Manned Space Flight Education Foundation, according to its website. Local media outlet KHOU 11 reported that Space Center Houston is ready to receive the Discovery if and when it comes.
When asked at Friday’s event how much the project would cost, Cornyn replied, “We’ll let you know.”
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Included within the $85 million is $5 million to transport the shuttle, which the KHOU 11 broadcast said may happen by barge.
The report also said Space Center Houston officials expect that the shuttle could be delivered within 18 months, which matches the draft bill language’s “not later than 18 months” time frame.
The contents of the package remained in flux as of Monday, and anything deemed out of compliance with the Byrd rule could potentially be resuscitated in a format that passes muster.
But the window is closing as Senate GOP leaders and the White House want to get the bill passed fast, as soon as this week.
And based on MacDonough’s opinions and past precedents, the rule typically weeds out anything in a reconciliation bill that smacks of an earmark for one intended recipient, or that looks like a sweeping policy change being jammed through under the guise of budget tweaks.
A Cornyn spokesperson said they were working with the parliamentarian to address Byrd rule issues raised on both the Texas border reimbursement fund and the shuttle transfer provisions.
Cruz staff didn’t comment on next steps, nor did aides to Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, whose Northern Virginia constituents would maintain ready access to the Discovery if the Byrd violation sticks.
Obama-era roots
The process actually began sooner when the Bush administration began looking ahead to the end of the shuttle program, and it kicked into gear after a 2008 NASA reauthorization law was enacted.
By the time the 2010 law passed, President Barack Obama’s NASA already was in the planning stages.
In 2011, the Obama administration announced where the retired shuttles would be displayed:
The Atlantis went to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida; the Endeavour went to California Science Center in Los Angeles; the Smithsonian transferred the Enterprise from Udvar-Hazy in Virginia to New York City’s Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum; and the Discovery was moved to Udvar-Hazy.
Ever since, some Texas lawmakers have cried foul that Johnson Space Center didn’t get one of the space program’s most important relics because of a political decision by the Obama administration.
“Those of us who’ve been in this battle from the beginning still remember the sting of the Obama administration’s misguided decision to snub Houston, the home of Mission Control and the beating heart of America’s space program, in favor of locations with far less connection to NASA’s legacy,” Weber said in a statement after Friday’s event in Houston.
At the time, then-NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr., a former astronaut who piloted the Discovery’s mission to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990, said choosing the locations was a “very difficult decision.”
He said it ultimately came down to facilities that would “provide the greatest number of people with the best opportunity to share in the history and accomplishments of NASA’s remarkable space shuttle program.”
A 2011 report by the NASA inspector general’s office acknowledged that the selection process favored sites where the shuttles “would be viewed by the largest number of people rather than the location’s ties to the Shuttle Program or to NASA more generally.”
But the report found no evidence of political influence being brought to bear or violation of the law’s selection criteria. Bolden, who founded a consulting firm after leaving NASA in 2017, wasn’t immediately available for comment on Monday.
The Discovery debate was set in motion under a 2010 law reauthorizing NASA, after the Obama administration had announced the end of the space shuttle program.
The law called for retiring the remaining shuttles and making them available for display under a competitive procedure developed by NASA. The Smithsonian, which already had possession of the Enterprise, would determine the test shuttle’s new location.
The law directed NASA to give “priority consideration” to plans “which would provide for the display and maintenance of orbiters at locations with the best potential value to the public.”
Selection criteria included locations that “can advance educational opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines, and with an historical relationship with either the launch, flight operations, or processing of the Space Shuttle orbiters or the retrieval of NASA manned space vehicles, or significant contributions to human space flight.”
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https://www.space.com/astronomy/earth/nothing-short-of-spectacular-esas-biomass-satellite-releases-1st-views-of-earth-from-orbit-photos
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/Biomass/Biomass_satellite_returns_striking_first_images_of_forests_and_more#msdynttrid=7Q-mAQrr-QSl86nbL1msVbzGhS1S1Ipy7cSOcxDHN8c
'Nothing short of spectacular': ESA's Biomass satellite releases 1st views of Earth from orbit
June 23, 2025
An exclamation of awe, excitement and cheers erupted today at ESA's Living Planet Symposium as a striking new window into Earth's forests, deserts and glaciers opened with the release of the first images from ESA's Biomass satellite.
Unveiled at the Living Planet Symposium 2025 in Vienna, the images mark a major milestone in our understanding of how Earth stores carbon — and how climate change is transforming ecosystems.
Just two months after launch, ESA's Biomass mission is already delivering on its promise, offering a glimpse into the potential of its novel radar system.
Although the mission is still in its commissioning phase, the early images are already showing the satellite's capabilities.
"These first images are nothing short of spectacular — and they're only a mere glimpse of what is still to come," said Michael Fehringer, ESA's Biomass Project Manager, in a statement.
"As is routine, we're still in the commissioning phase, fine-tuning the satellite to ensure it delivers the highest quality data for scientists to accurately determine how much carbon is stored in the world's forests."
ESA leaders are already praising the efforts of the many scientists behind the program.
"It was extremely emotional because it was the work of hundreds of people," Simonetta Cheli, Simonetta Cheli, ESA's Director of Earth Observation Programmes, told Space.com in an interview.
"It's very symbolic of the effort behind the scenes and the potential that this mission has."
Biomass first images
Bolivia — Tropical forests and the Beni River
This first image captures a vibrant region of Bolivia where rainforest meets riverine floodplains. Bolivia has suffered significant deforestation, primarily due to agricultural expansion.
In the image, different colors highlight distinct ecosystems: green for rainforest, red for forested wetlands and floodplains, and blue-purple for grasslands. The dark snaking line of the Beni River — free-flowing and undammed — cuts through the landscape.
"It shows the beauty of our Earth and what we can do to protect it," said Cheli in a press conference following the Biomass image release at the Living Planet Symposium, Vienna.
Bolivia — Biomass vs Sentinel-2 comparison
In this paired image, the same Bolivian landscape is shown as seen by Biomass and by Copernicus Sentinel-2.
Though they may appear visually similar, only Biomass, with its penetrating P-band radar, captures the full vertical forest structure beneath the canopy.
This makes it far more effective at measuring forest biomass and carbon content. While Sentinel-2 is limited to surface features, Biomass unlocks a 3D view of forests vital for accurate carbon accounting.
Brazil — Northern Amazon Rainforest
This striking view over northern Brazil was the first image returned by Biomass. The satellite's radar reveals subtle terrain and vegetation differences across the Amazon rainforest.
Red and pink tones indicate forested wetlands and floodplains, especially along rivers, while the green regions depict dense forest and more rugged topography in the north.
The image hints at Biomass' potential to monitor forest health and structure across remote, ecologically critical areas of the Amazon Basin.
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Indonesia — Halmahera's volcanic rainforests
This image features the mountainous Halmahera rainforest in Indonesia, revealing complex topography shaped by volcanic forces. Mount Gamkonora, still active, is visible near the northern coast.
Despite dense vegetation, Biomass' radar can penetrate the canopy to expose the contours of volcanoes and the surrounding forest floor.
It's a striking example of the satellite's power to map both biomass and terrain, crucial for understanding the landscape dynamics of tectonically and volcanically active regions.
Gabon — Forests and the Ivindo River
In this image, Biomass peers into the heart of Africa's Congo Basin, capturing Gabon's dense forests and the winding Ivindo River, an ecological lifeline.
The river and its tributaries appear clearly against a rich green background representing unbroken rainforest.
Chad — Sahara Desert structure
Here, Biomass reveals hidden structures beneath the sands of the Sahara in northern Chad, including parts of the Tibesti Mountains.
Its P-band radar can penetrate up to five meters below the desert surface, exposing the shapes of ancient riverbeds and geologic formations long buried beneath arid terrain.
This capability opens new frontiers in paleoclimate research and groundwater mapping, especially in extreme environments once considered too opaque for remote sensing.
Antarctica — Nimrod Glacier and Transantarctic Mountains
The final image showcases the frozen landscape of Antarctica, where the Nimrod Glacier flows into the Ross Ice Shelf alongside the Transantarctic Mountains.
Biomass' radar can see into the ice, hinting at its ability to track internal ice structures and flow velocities.
Unlike shorter-wavelength radar missions, Biomass may unlock key data about ice sheet dynamics and stability, critical for understanding future sea-level rise in a warming world.
While these early results aren't yet calibrated for scientific analysis, they confirm that Biomass is on track to meet — and possibly exceed — its ambitious goals.
With a mission designed to span five years, Biomass will provide consistent, global coverage of Earth's forested regions, contributing vital data for climate models, conservation efforts, and carbon accounting.
As the satellite transitions into full operational mode, scientists are eagerly anticipating the datasets that could transform how we monitor — and protect — the living lungs of our planet.
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Former NASA astronaut Terry Virts announces campaign for Texas Senate seat
June 23, 2025
Former NASA astronaut Terry Virts is running for one of Texas' United States Senate seats, he announced today (June 23).
Virts, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, F-16 pilot and two-time crew member of the International Space Station (ISS), announced his candidacy Monday in a video posted to social media.
"Trump's chaos must be stopped. The corruption is overwhelming. Our Constitution is under attack," Virts says in the 2-minute clip.
His run aims to challenge the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's bid, who's polling higher than John Cornyn, the Republican Senator currently holding the seat and is up for reelection in 2026.
Virts frames his campaign against a divisive and dysfunctional Washington, where he says leadership is M.I.A.
"After every [NASA] mission, we debrief, no excuses," Virts says, adding, "after the 2024 election disaster, Washington Democratic leadership skipped the debrief."
Virts piloted Space Shuttle Endeavour on the STS-130 mission in 2010, and served as ISS commander in 2015.
He logged more than 212 cumulative days in space before his retirement from NASA, and has since remained in the public light through his books, public speaking and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) outreach.
As Senator, Virts plans to use his experiences in space to emphasize cooperation and problem-solving on Earth. "From orbit, Earth takes your breath away," Virts says at the start of the video.
"But amidst that beauty, danger is never far. You learn fast that chaos is lethal, so you adapt, you solve problems and you lead because your lives depend on it," he said.
Virts is filing as a Democrat, joining a field of early challengers all vying for the seat. While Virts' campaign video highlights Paxton as an opponent, Cornyn has represented Texas in the Senate since 2002 and has become a fixture on the national stage.
If elected, Virts wouldn't be the first astronaut to enter into politics. Bill Nelson flew aboard Space Shuttle Columbia as a payload specialist in 1986, served in the U.S. Senate from 2001-2019, and was also appointed as NASA administrator under President Biden.
Mark Kelly flew four space shuttle missions between 2001 and 2011, and was elected as one of Arizona's U.S. Senate members in 2020. And John Glenn, famously the first American to orbit the Earth, served as the U.S. Senator form Ohio from 1974-1999.
Apollo 17 moonwalker Harrison Schmitt served in the U.S. Senate representing New Mexico from 1977 to 1983, and Apollo 13 astronaut Jack Swigert was elected to Congress in Colorado in 1982, but died of cancer before he could take office.
Though his frustrations in the online video are presented through the national lens, Virts is also concentrating on the state he hopes to represent. "This moment demands something different: Honesty, courage and a clean break from the past," Virts said.
"I'll make it my mission to fight for Texans every day: Texas farmers crushed by Trump's insane tariffs, Texas workers buried with rising costs, Texas kids hit with education cuts and Texas communities kicked off Medicaid.
I've risked my life for this country, and I'll fight anyone trying to destroy it."
"I'm an American. First, a Texan. Second, and a common sense Democrat third. It's time for new leadership. I'm Terry Virts I'm running for US Senate and I'm ready for my next mission."
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/human-spaceflight/former-nasa-astronaut-terry-virts-announces-campaign-for-texas-senate-seat
https://x.com/AstroTerry/status/1937101647391736111
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/virts-tw_0.pdf
https://www.terryvirts.space/
A hidden asteroid family may share Venus' orbit: 'It's like discovering a continent you didn't know existed'
June 24, 2025
Astronomers are investigating a little-known and largely unseen group of asteroids that quietly orbit the sun alongside Venus — and there may be many more of them than we thought.
"It's like discovering a continent you didn't know existed," Valerio Carruba of the São Paulo State University in Brazil, who led the analysis, told Space.com. "It's very likely there are other asteroids we don't observe today."
These space rocks, known as "Venus co-orbital asteroids," are a special class of asteroids that move in lockstep with the planet, sharing its orbit around the sun.
To date, only about 20 have been confirmed — but a new study conducted by Carruba and his colleagues suggests many more may be lurking just out of sight.
Most Venus co-orbital asteroids are exceptionally difficult to detect from Earth. They appear close to the sun in the sky, an area where ground-based telescopes have limited visibility. Even under ideal conditions, their rapid motion makes them tricky to track.
Only one of the known Venus co-orbital asteroids follows a nearly circular orbit; the others move on more elongated paths that sometimes bring them closer to Earth, making them easier to detect.
However, Carruba's team believes this pattern may reflect observational bias, not the actual makeup of the population.
"It's impossible to say for sure," he said, "but I suspect we will find hundreds of asteroids around Venus."
To test this idea, Carruba's team ran computer simulations modeling the orbits of hundreds of hypothetical Venus co-orbital asteroids, projecting their paths up to 36,000 years into the future.
They found that many of these objects can remain gravitationally bound to Venus' orbit for an average of about 12,000 years.
Of note, the orbits of the objects appeared chaotic, meaning small shifts over time can push them onto different paths, including some that bring them close to Earth.
There's no cause for concern right now; none of the known asteroids pose any threat, and the timescales involved span many thousands of years.
"The likelihood of one colliding with Earth any time soon is extremely low," Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. who was not involved with the new study, told National Geographic.
"There isn't too much to be worried about here."
In a study published earlier this year in the journal Icarus, Carruba's team analyzed the orbital evolution of the 20 known Venus co-orbital asteroids.
Their simulations showed that three of these objects — each measuring between 1,000 and 1,300 feet (300 to 400 meters) across — could eventually pass within about 46,500 miles (74,800 kilometers) of Earth's orbit.
In some cases, this gradual shift onto a near-Earth trajectory could take up to 12,000 years. Keeping track of such objects and understanding how they move is crucial for building a more complete picture of near-Earth space, the new study argues.
"We should know about these objects," said Carruba. "They are very interesting dynamically — I think that would be a reason to continue to study them."
Because Venus' asteroids are so difficult to spot from Earth, Carruba's team explored how we might do better from other vantage points.
Their simulations showed that a spacecraft orbiting closer to Venus would have a much better chance of detecting these fast-moving asteroids.
The upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which just released its first images on June 23,, could also help.
Although it's not specifically built to focus on the inner solar system, its special twilight observing campaigns might be able to catch some of these hidden asteroids.
In fact, the observatory has already identified 2,104 new asteroids in its initial datasets.
Further into the future, a proposed mission concept called CROWN could offer an even more targeted approach.
The mission concept envisions a fleet of small spacecraft operating near Venus' orbit, designed specifically to search for asteroids in the inner solar system.
These efforts "may be able to discover a lot of these objects, if they exist," said Carruba.
https://www.space.com/astronomy/asteroids/a-hidden-asteroid-family-may-share-venus-orbit-its-like-discovering-a-continent-you-didnt-know-existed
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.15968
https://www.space.com/astronomy/the-rubin-observatory-found-2-104-asteroids-in-just-a-few-days-it-could-soon-find-millions-more
https://rubinobservatory.org/
The Rubin Observatory found 2,104 asteroids in just a few days. It could soon find millions more
June 23, 2025
It was weirdly emotional on Monday (June 23) as several grainy white specks streaked across my computer screen while ambient rhythms buzzed in the background.
Those specks were part of a film that played during the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's highly anticipated first image release conference — and they each represented an asteroid that had just been discovered.
It felt like witnessing something hugely profound, and there are two reasons why.
First of all, to put it simply, with just a few nights of data, the Rubin Observatory team was able to identify 2,104 never-before-seen asteroids in our solar system — seven of which are categorized as near-Earth objects.
(No, none are expected to strike our planet. Don't worry). For context, there are approximately a million known asteroids in our cosmic neighborhood; over the next few years, Rubin could very well hike that figure up to five million.
"This is five times more than all the astronomers in the world discovered during the last 200 years since the discovery of the first asteroid," Željko Ivezić, Deputy Director of Rubin's Legacy Survey of Space and Time, said during the conference.
"We can outdo two centuries of effort in just a couple of years." This is astonishing in itself — talk about an exemplary first impression — but there's still that second thing that makes Rubin's new asteroid data incredible.
They can be formatted as movies.
Welcome to Hollywood, asteroids
For some context about Rubin, this observatory is our brilliant new ground-based eye on the universe, and is located at the El Peñón peak of Cerro Pachón in Chile.
It has the ability to image giant swaths of the sky using the world's largest digital camera — and when I say giant, I mean giant.
One of its first presented images, for instance, features a bunch of glowing, hazy galaxies of all shapes and sizes.
It's difficult not to daydream when looking at a couple of lovely lavender spirals that represent realms comparable to our entire Milky Way.
But what you see below in this image is only 2% of the full Rubin view:
The plan is for Rubin to capture such massive, high-resolution images of the southern sky once every three nights for at least the next 10 years.
You can therefore consider it to be a super-fast, super-efficient and super-thorough cosmic imager. Indeed, those qualities are perfect for spotting some of the smallest details trailing through the space around our planet: asteroids.
"We make movies of the night sky to see two things: objects that move and objects that change brightness," Ivezić said. "Objects that move come in two flavors. Stars in our galaxy move, and they move slowly. Much faster objects are asteroids."
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Zooming into a tiny portion of one of Rubin's images, Ivezić pointed out that there are actually invisible photobombers present. He was talking about the asteroid streaks Rubin's software so kindly removed from the main attraction (I mean, look at that spiral).
However, the fact that those asteroids can be removed from an image means they can be precisely isolated to begin with, making it possible to really focus on them if you want to — something that isn't always possible with zippy, fleeting space objects.
In fact, it's tremendously difficult to record an asteroid at all. "Asteroids, they disappear after you get one picture of them," Ivezić said, calling Rubin's ability to image small objects orbiting the sun "unprecedented."
In the Rubin image Ivezić called out to showcase the observatory's asteroid-tracking capabilities, the asteroid streaks are seen in different colors.
This is because each corresponds to one exposure used to create the final image. You can think of it as different images stitched together to create a final view of the asteroids' trajectories.
And to take things a step further, if you slap a few of these datasets together, you can indicate asteroid motion against the more static background of stars and galaxies — like a movie.
This feature of Rubin should be huge not only because it'd allow scientists to better study asteroid movements and discover new near-Earth objects, but also for humanity's efforts in planetary defense.
Another tool to protect Earth
Over the last couple of years, scientists have really started to question how we can protect our planet if an asteroid were headed our way.
NASA's wildly successful DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission — which sent a spacecraft on a death mission to crash into an asteroid and see if the object's trajectory can be changed — was arguably the feat that brought planetary defense to the public eye.
It'd also be remiss not to mention all the recent anxiety surrounding Asteroid 2024 YR4, which was potent enough to even penetrate the jokes of a random comedy show in New York City I went to around the time it was making headlines.
2024 YR4 briefly had a head-turning likelihood of hitting our planet before that likelihood shot down to nil.
There was even a hearing about asteroid safety in May, held by the U.S. House Committee on Space, Science and Technology, during which U.S. Representatives expressed their concern that asteroid defense may be impacted by President Trump's major science funding cuts.
All of this is to say that I imagine a state-of-the-art asteroid detector is very welcome in the scientific community right now. To really illustrate the ultimate promise of Rubin's asteroid adventures, Ivezić brought up a simulation of all asteroids expected to orbit our sun.
"This blue donut is a simulation of all asteroids we expect there," he said. "All of these new discoveries are found in this one narrow slice of this big donut. In two or three years, after we start LSST later this year, we will sweep around and discover all of the millions of asteroids."
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Space Inventor Launches First Danish Arctic Satellite
June 23, 2025
BIFROST is a Danish-Swedish surveillance satellite originally developed by Space Inventor. Since then, Terma, Gatehouse SatCom, DTU, and Swedish Unibap Space Solutions have joined the development project, which is financially supported by DALO (Danish Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organisation) under the Danish Ministry of Defence and FMV (Swedish Defence Materiel Administration) under the Swedish Ministry of Defence.
After seven years of development, the satellite launched into orbit on 23 June from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The launch is initiated by the Danish and Swedish Defence ministries as part of the Danish government’s Space Strategy for Research and Innovation 2025–2035, introduced in 2024.
The strategy highlights the Arctic as a security policy priority, where space-based technologies play a vital role in supporting the tasks of the military and emergency services.
These include, for example, monitoring navigation in icy waters, search and rescue operations, and enforcing sovereignty across the Kingdom of Denmark.
The satellite represents a pioneering Danish achievement, combining state-of-the-art technologies within artificial intelligence, advanced sensor systems, inter-satellite communication, and modern satellite design.
BIFROST is engineered specifically for the Danish and Swedish Defence forces and will enable space-based surveillance, target identification, and real-time event reporting in the North Atlantic and Arctic regions.
Its purpose is to strengthen AI-supported situational awareness and tactical observations, improving Denmark and Sweden’s capabilities to respond quickly and share data across European and international partnerships.
Space is an increasingly strategic domain for defence policy. This satellite launch clearly demonstrates the potential of space-based technologies to contribute to both Danish and Nordic security and defence.
Denmark is highly invested in the future of the space sector, and these solutions give us the ability to monitor every corner of the Kingdom. The satellite will provide important knowledge to our armed forces.
As space technologies evolve rapidly worldwide, Danish companies continue to show great innovation and ingenuity. I look forward to following this mission closely, says Troels Lund Poulsen, Danish Minister of Defence.
Space Inventor also expresses high expectations for the mission:
Many skilled people have put in countless hours developing the BIFROST satellite, and it highlights the strength of close collaboration between the space industry, academia, and the military in both countries.
With this launch, we are entering orbit on a mission to explore faster and more efficient surveillance of Greenland, the Arctic, and the North Atlantic region.
The satellite is based on Space Inventor’s microsatellite platform, integrating advanced technologies for surveillance and target recognition with artificial intelligence.
This creates new possibilities that neither Denmark nor Sweden have had access to before, says Karl Kaas, founder and CEO of Space Inventor, and initiator of the BIFROST satellite.
The launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base can be rewatched online. Launch time was 23 June.
About BIFROST
The BIFROST satellite is a microsatellite weighing approximately 50 kilograms with a wingspan of five meters. It carries a range of sensors capable of capturing optical images and multispectral data in the infrared spectrum.
With a constellation of 20 such satellites, Denmark and Sweden would be able to monitor Arctic maritime activity 24 hours a day.
https://spacenews.com/space-inventor-launches-first-danish-arctic-satellite/
https://ufm.dk/en/publications/2024/strategy-for-space-research-and-innovation
https://space-inventor.com/
https://spacenews.com/laser-rangefinder-problems-blamed-for-second-ispace-lunar-lander-crash/
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/lro/nasas-lro-views-ispace-hakuto-r-mission-2-moon-lander-impact-site/
Laser rangefinder problems blamed for second ispace lunar lander crash
June 24, 2025
Japanese company ispace says it believes its second lunar lander mission crashed because of problems with a laser rangefinder used to determine altitude during its descent.
At a press briefing late June 23, company executives said a review of the failed landing by its Resilience spacecraft June 5 led it to conclude that the laser rangefinder on the spacecraft suffered a hardware problem of some kind that kept it from providing timely data on the lander’s altitude.
The laser rangefinder was designed to provide altitude data when the spacecraft was at least three kilometers above the surface, triggering engines for the final landing burn.
However, the unit did not provide its first altitude measurement until it was less than 900 meters high.
The lander then attempted rapid deceleration, but by that point it was traveling much faster than planned: 66 meters per second versus the 44 meters per second planned.
The last telemetry received from the lander, at an altitude of 192 meters, showed it was still descending at 42 meters per second.
Images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, released June 20, show the likely crash site for Resilience, about 282 meters south and 236 meters east of the planned landing location. The impact of the lander made a crater 16 meters across.
Yoshitsugu Hitachi, executive vice president of the Japan Engineering Office at ispace, said at the briefing that the company first examined if hardware or software was to blame.
Telemetry revealed no issues with the lander’s software, and also ruled out any issues with its propulsion system.
The company then turned its attention to the laser rangefinder. The reviews found no evidence that the laser rangefinder was improperly installed, he said, leading ispace to conclude that the performance of the unit had degraded in some way compared to pre-flight tests.
Several factors could cause that degradation, including lunar surface conditions that reduced the amount of laser light reflected back to the lander, lower power of the laser, reduced performance at higher velocities or effects from the space environment, such as vacuum or radiation.
“We are currently unable to further narrow them down,” he said through an interpreter of those potential causes, “or whether the anomaly was due to a single factor or a combination of multiple factors.”
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Hitachi emphasized that the cause of the Resilience landing was different from the company’s first mission in 2023, when a software problem caused the lander to think it was near the surface when it was in fact at an altitude of five kilometers, hovering until it exhausted its fuel and crashed. That software worked well on Resilience, he said.
The first lander did not have any problems with its laser rangefinder, but he said that Resilience used a different model because the unnamed supplier of the device no longer made the version used on the initial mission.
Ryo Ujiie, chief technology officer at ispace, said the company was taking two major steps to address the problem that caused Resilience to crash.
One is to enhance the testing plan for the laser rangefinder and related sensors to better see how they operate in the potential conditions experienced on this mission of high lander speed and low surface reflectivity.
The second is consider a different laser rangefinder, as the unit flown on Resilience was not flight proven. The company will also consider augmenting the laser rangefinder with other sensors, such as lidar or cameras to provide terrain relative navigation.
That will work be supported by a new external review board, which will include people such as former engineers from NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA. Ispace also plans work more closely with JAXA on future missions tap into its technical expertise.
Those changes will have no impact on the schedule for the next two missions: Mission 3, featuring a lander built by ispace U.S. for Draper flying a NASA mission, and Mission 4, a Japanese-built lander. Both remain scheduled for launch in 2027.
Ispace expects to incur about 1.5 billion yen ($10.3 million) in additional costs for those missions from measures like obtaining a better laser rangefinder and improved testing.
“We take it very seriously,” Takeshi Hakamada, chief executive of ispace, said of the failed landings of its first two missions. “However, the important part is that we keep trying. There can be some failures, but we keep improving our systems.”
“Our primary goal today was to convey that ispace, as a challenger, is already moving forward towards its next mission,” he said, vowing to regain trust of its customers and other stakeholders.
“We’re committed to demonstrating that ispace will continue to grow undeterred by this setback.”
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https://spacenews.com/ukraine-and-partner-countries-to-raise-funds-for-imagery-satellites-to-lessen-reliance-on-the-u-s/
Ukraine and partner countries to raise funds for imagery satellites to lessen reliance on the U.S.
June 23, 2025
A consortium of Ukrainian, Nordic and eastern European companies is hoping to raise more than 100 million euros ($115 million) to build a constellation of 70-plus imagery satellites that would provide intelligence along Russia’s border.
The move comes as countries in the region at risk of Russia’s aggression are seeking greater independence from the United States and its space intelligence apparatus.
The project’s proponents hope to secure funding from private firms by the end of 2026 and have the full constellation operational by the end of this decade, Eugen Rokytsky, CEO of an industry group colloquially known as Ukrainian Aerospace Clusters’ Alliance, and leader of the project, told SpaceNews in an interview.
The dual-use satellite constellation, dubbed Intermarsat, would be comprised of more than 70 small satellites in sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of about 500 kilometers (310 miles).
It would provide daily revisits across the belt between the Baltic and the Mediterranean Sea, covering countries as far north as Finland and Estonia and as far south as Bulgaria.
Fundraising is expected to start in the coming weeks, Rokytsky said
Since before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, satellite data from American commercial providers and the U.S. government have been indispensable for Ukrainian forces, allowing them to stay abreast of the Russian military’s movements.
But deterioration in the relationships between the Ukrainian government and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has made eastern European leaders wary that this strategic advantage could disappear.
The temporary pause in intelligence data sharing imposed on Ukraine by the U.S. government in March spurred the eastern European space tech scene into action.
The planned constellation would carry optical cameras imaging the planet’s surface with a resolution of about 50 centimeters (20 inches) and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) payloads that see through clouds and in the dark.
A preliminary feasibility study led by the All-Ukrainian Alliance of Innovation Spacetech Clusters concluded that Ukraine and its partners in the northern and eastern European region, including Finland, the Baltic states, Poland, Czechia and Bulgaria, have the domestic technology capabilities to pull off such a project within the next five years.
“The idea is to have the shortest time to market possible,” Rokytsky said. “Multiple countries in the region have advanced, space-proven satellite technologies, including satellite buses, thrusters and electronic equipment that can be readily available.”
Rokytsky declined to specify which companies are expected to do the bulk of the work. However, eastern European space companies have added more robust capabilities in recent years.
Bulgaria’s Endurosat and Lithuania’s NanoAvionics both manufacture small satellite buses and have delivered more than 10 satellites each to customers.
In addition, Czechia’s TRL Space is currently running a crowdfunding campaign to build a high-resolution optical Earth observation (EO) satellite for Ukraine — the first of a planned constellation of five satellites.
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Ukraine’s Earth observation capabilities
Rokytsky said Ukraine has been considering building its own EO satellite constellation since before the 2022 Russian invasion but previously concluded the project was beyond the country’s financial means.
“For civil and security purposes, we need daily revisits over the entire region, and that can only be provided by a constellation of over 70 satellites,” Rokytsky said.
“The budget will exceed 100 million euros and that’s something that no country in the region would be able [to] afford on its own.
But we realized that we could share the cost and the technological expertise with other countries in the region who have similar security concerns.”
Ukraine has launched two EO satellites since its separation from the Soviet Union in 1991.
The Sich 2-1 spacecraft developed by the Dnipro-based state behemoth Yuzhnoye State Design Office orbited the planet between 2011 and 2012.
Its successor, Sich 2-30, reached space in January 2022, about six weeks before Russian tanks crossed Ukraine’s borders.
Throughout the war, Ukraine’s defence forces have been relying mostly on images from spy satellites operated by the U.S. government and American commercial providers such as Maxar Technologies and Planet.
Finland’s SAR satellite operator ICEYE has, too, been a key ally, even selling exclusive access to one of its satellites to Ukraine following a crowdfunding campaign in 2022.
Evolving priorities
Because up-to-date imagery has been readily available in Europe, the appetite for investment in domestic space infrastructure has been low, until recently, Rokytsky said.
But the White House’s recent change of heart has brought about a shift in European investors’ priorities. “Up until late 2024, space has not been a priority for European defense spending,” Rokytsky said.
“But the tide has changed now. We see much more openness on the side of venture funds and also European authorities to discuss these investments, which gives us confidence we will have funding in place to start project development in 2026 with the goal to have the entire constellation in orbit in five years.”
Rokytsky stressed that Nordic and eastern European countries who all feel threatened by Russia must come together to deliver the constellation as their concerns may not be understood by those of European nations farther away from Russian borders.
“The constellation would give the [Nordic and eastern European] micro-region strategic autonomy in receiving detailed and timely information for the execution of defense tasks, logistics and others,” Rokytsky said.
“The idea is to have the whole infrastructure shared and the architecture being developed commonly.”
Rokytsky expects most of the funding to come from private sources, with the consortium then selling services to European governments based on long-term contracts.
The initiative was first presented at a webinar run by the Ukrainian Aerospace Clusters’ Alliance and its European partners on April 16 as part of its Clusters4Defense advocacy campaign.
In its recently published space strategy, the Ukrainian Space Policy Office identified a domestic satellite constellation providing real-time data as a key step in Ukraine’s transformation from a “user of data to a fully-fledged player in the field of space technology.”
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NATO releases Updated Defence Production Action Plan, Commercial Space Strategy and Rapid Adoption Action Plan
Last updated: 24 Jun. 2025 09:04
At their meeting in February 2025, NATO Defence Ministers approved NATO’s Updated Defence Production Action Plan.
They approved NATO’s first Commercial Space Strategy and Rapid Adoption Action Plan at their meeting in June 2025.
On Tuesday (24 June), NATO released public versions of these documents.
The Updated Defence Production Action Plan responds to the need for Allies to produce more and faster, in a rapidly-evolving security environment.
The plan aims to improve Allies’ ability to aggregate demand, deliver cutting edge capabilities, and accelerate the growth of defence industrial capacity and production, including by providing long-term orders and clear demand signals to industry.
Developed in consultation with industry, NATO’s first Commercial Space Strategy will allow the Alliance to integrate commercial solutions more flexibly and at pace, and ensure continuous access during peacetime, crisis and conflict.
The strategy aims to create more business opportunities and cut red tape in NATO’s procurement processes, simplifying how space companies engage with the Alliance, helping to increase commercial diversity, and strengthening partnerships across the Alliance.
NATO’s Rapid Adoption Action Plan substantially accelerates the adoption and integration of new technological products for defence, across all military domains.
Allies commit to expedite adoption procedures, including fast-track procurement, and to allocate adequate resources to that end.
Allies will embrace more acquisition risk in the early stages of development and are set to improve communication of Alliance-wide demand signals.
The plan provides for new testing and experimentation opportunities in operationally-realistic, real world environments by launching the NATO Innovation Ranges and scaling the NATO Task Force X Model.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_236512.htm
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_236518.htm
https://www.ssc.spaceforce.mil/Newsroom/Article-Display/Article/4223678/ussf-guardian-and-nasa-astronaut-col-nick-hague-connects-with-ssc-acquirers
USSF Guardian and NASA Astronaut Col Nick Hague connects with SSC acquirers
June 23, 2025
El Segundo, CA – U.S. Space Force Col. Nick Hague, the first Guardian to launch into space, engaged with the Space Systems Command (SSC) workforce on life aboard the International Space Station, career development as a military member in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) program, and how the complementary intersection between the USSF and NASA in a visit to Los Angeles Air Force Base on June 16, 2025.
Hague is an Astronaut with NASA and is the first USSF Guardian to launch into space, most recently as a commander and pilot of the NASA SpaceX Crew-9 on a Dragon capsule.
The mission to the International Space Station launched on Sept. 28, 2024, and returned on Mar. 18, 2025, spending 171 days in Low Earth Orbit.
As part of SSC’s Guardians Everywhere speaker series, Hague shared his experiences, the intricacies of life on the ISS, and addressed questions from in-person and online participants regarding his time as a service member with NASA.
Later, he participated in a session with more than a dozen members of the SSC interns’ program, which allowed for more in-depth mentorship with the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) cohort of the command’s workforce.
Hague and fellow American crew members conducted more than 150 unique experiments and logged over 900 hours of research aboard the orbiting laboratory.
“Everything floats in space; and when you take away gravity, you get to study these nuanced behaviors, and those really drive the discovery process that helps us understand ourselves and the universe and how we interact with it,” Hague said, noting that one experiment involved processing a sample of his own blood to examine how zero gravity affected his immune system.
Hague also spoke about the complex and coordinated effort it takes from personnel on ground and in orbit for Astronauts to safely conduct maintenance on the ISS while exposed to the vacuum of space, having completed a six-hour spacewalk during his most recent mission.
“There’s a lot of focus in spacewalks on the people wearing the suits outside,” Hague said. “What you don’t see are the hundreds of people on the ground in mission control that are looking at your every move and feeding you the information you need just in time so that you can execute as flawlessly as possible.”
Hague has now logged 374 days in space and 25 hours and 56 minutes of time in four spacewalks.
He also accumulated, as both a flight test engineer and astronaut, more than 10,000 hours in more than 35 aircraft, including 267 combat hours.
He recently was nominated for promotion to the rank of brigadier general.
An International Legacy of Science
Hague said it was “humbling” to be the first Guardian to launch into space. One of the most memorable parts of his time on the ISS was work with an international crew; English and Russian are the two official languages on the station, and everyone who goes to the ISS must be fluent in both languages.
“You get to float around the table and share what’s going on in each other’s lives,” Hague said.
“I voted in space and we were celebrating milestones – here’s Thanksgiving, celebrating Christmas – and even though you come from very different parts of the world, you start to realize that there’s so much in common that we share, and the differences that we bring to the table actually make our team stronger and they become the things you celebrate.”
“The other thing that really changes you is just being able to look down on the Earth,” Hague said. “It’s hard to put into words and to describe how the earth looks from orbit.
The sheer magnitude challenges you: being able to look a thousand miles this way and a thousand miles that way and just take it all in and have it look so big on the display right in front of you – and at the same time, against the backdrop of the universe and how many stars you see in the night sky, it seems so small and so precious.”
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One major change between his first mission to the ISS in 2019 and his most recent mission was a dramatic increase in the number of satellites in LEO, Hague said, describing them as looking like swarms of fireflies, hundreds of them, “and some of them looked really close and I thought of Guardians around the globe, keeping me safe.”
Space debris is harder to see but still leaves its mark on the ISS, Hague said.
“It’s the little things that are maybe the size of a grain of sand, that drill themselves into an aluminum railing that you’re going to grab onto with a rubber glove, and the aluminum’s got all these sharp edges so you can’t grab it because you’ll tear your glove, your suit will leak and then you’ll have to abort the EVA (Extravehicular activity,)” Hague said.
“So imagine: six hours out there, you’re looking at every place you grab, making sure you don’t grab something you’re not supposed to,” Hague said.
“Those impacts are all over the outside of the space station.”
The planned decommissioning of the ISS in 2030 saddens Hague and he hopes something new will replace the space station.
“That is a tremendous legacy when you think about what we were able to accomplish,” Hague said. “It’s more than any one country could accomplish on its own. We had to work together as an international community.”
During his time training with fellow astronauts in Japan, Germany, Russia and Canada, Hague said he discovered, “their commitment and dedication and sacrifices is no greater or deeper than anything I see in Houston; it’s the same.
People are devoting their lives to making this happen, and it’s for this mission that we can only do together: let’s go do science experiments so we can benefit humanity.”
The USSF-NASA Partnership
About 40 percent to 50 percent of the astronaut corps has military experience – either active duty or retired military, Hague said. While NASA handles the civil space mission and USSF is military and focuses on national security, both are necessary and important.
“The civil space mission, the commercial space mission, those sectors don’t exist if we don’t have security in space,” Hague said.
“And that’s why the national security mission in space is so important because it provides that foundational stability in the domain that allows NASA to go on and do its great things.”
“And we leverage those capabilities,” Hague added. “I need Guardians and Airmen to do their jobs to make sure I can launch into space, that I can navigate while I’m in space, that I can stay safe and move the station out of the way of debris in space and then ultimately, help me get back down to the ground safely. So NASA can’t do its mission without Space Force Guardians around the globe doing their mission.”
Life in Zero Gravity
Splashdown on Earth doesn’t really end the mission, Hague said, noting that it took about two months for him to feel “normal” again. On his first mission to the ISS, it took a couple of days for his body to adjust to a zero-gravity environment but on the second, he adjusted within hours.
Because he was floating in zero gravity, he didn’t develop calluses on the bottom of his feet, but on the top, from hooking his feet under railings on the ISS.
He also had to lift weights and do cardiovascular exercise for 2.5 hours every day, to keep his muscles from atrophying and his bone mass from shrinking.
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“The human body is so adaptable to the environment that’s around it,” Hague said. “Whether you realize it or not, you’re adapting to the environment that you push yourself into every day.
So the little micro-decisions about how you’re taking care of yourself accumulate every day. And if you put yourself in the right situations, your body will adapt and stay healthy.
At 50 years old, my body is not set in its ways; it can still adapt to everything that I subjected it to.”
Soft Skills and STEM
Hague, who has a Bachelor of Science in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Air Force Academy and a Master’s degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he considered himself an introvert, but over the years, he figured out how to put himself in situations that challenged him or made him uncomfortable, so he could develop new skills.
The USSF is the newest and smallest service, he noted, and “soft skills” including small team dynamics are important to cultivate.
“Work on how you manage yourself, how you take care of your teammates, how you’re looking out for each other,” Hague said. “All of those ‘soft skills’ are really hard to come by.
When we select astronauts, that’s the thing we’re looking for. And then, once we select people that we really think have it, we spend a lot of time continuing to train because they’re that important.”
Hague noted that he applied three times to NASA to become an astronaut over a 10-year period, and said it was more important for people to follow their passions and choose things that challenge them, rather than try to tailor their career in the hopes of being selected as an astronaut.
NASA selects cohorts more than individuals, and if you don’t get chosen, at least you’ll have a career you enjoyed and can be proud of.
“At the end of the day, eight (astronauts) out of 6,000 (applicants) are pretty low odds, and you don’t want to spend 15 years and five applications and not get selected and then say, ‘Well, for the last 15 years I did a bunch of things I didn’t want to do to try and get this,’ and then you have a bunch of regret,” Hague said.
“Find what you’re passionate about. Go do it and then apply, apply, apply.”
According to Hague, applicants need a technical STEM degree and a master’s level education, noting that the same skillsets that Guardians demonstrate and display in units across the USSF are the same skills that NASA cultivates in its operational teams—painting a perspective of the parallels and intersections between the service and agency.
“The thing I want you to walk away with at the end of the day is that what you do makes it possible for NASA to explore space, makes it possible for us to have a human space flight program,” Hague told the SSC audience.
“You are connected in a way that you may not fully appreciate – you make it possible for us to do those really big, awesome things that NASA has done and plans to do.”
“Guardians guard the American way of life,” Hague said. “Guardians guard our advantage in space. It’s the ultimate high ground – the high ground has been a strategic military value since the beginning of time. And we make sure that our military still has that advantage.”
That definition can seem nebulous and there are so few Guardians compared to other service members; Hague says he’s frequently told, “You’re the first person in the Space Force that I’ve met.”
“Be a loud voice and let people know who you are, and what you do, and why it’s important,” Hague said.
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https://breakingdefense.com/2025/06/us-space-commands-gen-whiting-talks-golden-dome-ew-and-chinas-space-based-kill-chain/
US Space Command’s Gen. Whiting talks Golden Dome, EW and China’s space-based kill chain
June 24, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Gen. Stephen Whiting holds the heavy responsibility of waging war in space for the United States when conflict occurs, from maintaining crucial global communications, to counterspace and offensive space operations to countering jamming and moving America’s military satellites.
The commander of US Space Command is currently visiting Australia, meeting with some Australian companies — though he only mentioned by name Silentium, which offers a space situational awareness system in a container — and holding talks with head of the Australian Defense Force, the head of what’s called Defense Space Command here, and other senior military leaders of the Lucky Country.
Here in Adelaide, the center of Australia’s fledgling space industry, Breaking Defense spoke with Whiting — his only meeting with the press during his six-day trip here — about everything from Golden Dome to the Commercial Augmented Space Reserve to his worries about Beijing’s efforts in space.
This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
GEN. STEPHEN WHITING: Our responsibility with US Northern Command is to develop the requirements document for Golden Dome, and that work is proceeding, and I think, you know, in the next couple of months, we’ll submit that to the Pentagon.
So, very, very happy with the teamwork that we’ve had with Northern Command and the other stakeholders to develop that draft document.
Does that include the NRO, which obviously controls a lot of the most exquisite sensors?
NRO is an important stakeholder, along with others in the intelligence community, but the work with Northern Command is for the Department of Defense only requirements for that system. …
As we think about a world with Golden Dome in the future, where you’re going to have to track all these new threats, you’re going to have to do that from space.
You’re going to have to have the the space based interceptors [SBIs] that the executive order talks about to help hold at risk some of those missiles.
So is it certain that you’ll need them? Because I know some experts have voiced concerns about SBIs and what that’ll do in terms of deterrence.
I think, to to have a successful Golden Dome, you’ll have to have some, some type of space-based interceptors, okay? So I expect that to be part of that architecture, just as it’s called for.
So I just think we’ve got to continue to invest smartly in space to ensure that we can deliver for the joint force and for our allies.
What progress have you made identifying triggers that would cause you to start calling up the commercial space providers up for the Commercial Augmented Space Reserve (CASR).
The CASR, which is the commercial augmented space reserve, so that work is ongoing. The Space Force has advanced CASR into an initial pilot right now that’s really focused on space domain awareness.
So as they continue to add additional missions into the CASR program, then we will develop the triggers that go along with that, and we’ll bake that into our operational plan.
So it’s a bit of an iterative effort between us and the Space Force, but waiting for them to continue right now to to advance into additional mission areas.
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Could you give us a putative example of how it might work?
Maybe I’ll use an analogy of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, which is Air Mobility Command and US Transportation Command‘s program, where, at higher levels of requirements, they can tap into civilian aviation and to leverage those airplanes for moving cargo or troops.
And there’s obviously pre-agreements with those companies that allow the US government to do that.
So that’s that’s kind of what we’re looking at on the space side, that as the Space Force establishes those agreements, that pre-work that has to be done, then as we get into higher states of crisis or conflict at US Space Command, we can then call up that, you know, those companies to provide that additional mission support for us across various missions.
And you guys would sort of be the trigger authority?
Yes, that’s what I expect.
People are getting cut or are accepting buyouts all across the Pentagon, especially I understand, the more senior civilians with greatest knowledge, depending on where you are. How worried are you about people cuts as the civilian workforce and contractors ranks get trimmed?
You know, at our headquarters, at US Space Command, 60 percent of our workforce is government civilians. So our government civilians are absolutely pivotal to our all of our mission areas, and obviously we watch very closely the hiring of those individuals and then those who have chosen to leave.
And we have had people who have taken advantage of the federal government’s programs that have offered early retirement options. And so far, those numbers are such that, you know, I think we can manage that with smart reengineering of work with prioritization of work.
And right now, I’m not overly concerned about the numbers that are departing, but we want to be very smart about how we handle that to make sure that we can continue to execute our highest priority.
How deep is your bench? Is deep enough to replace those people? Do you have a feeling for that?
We certainly know who the people are that are leaving. We know what functions that they’re leaving from.
And now our work is to do that smart reengineering effort, to make sure that, as we look at our remaining resources, do we need to do any repositioning of people, to put them against our highest priorities?
Right now, I’m comfortable with with where we are, and believe we’ll continue to be able to execute our missions.
How worried are you about having reliable SATCOM in the remote areas of the world where a fair amount of conflict is likely to happen, especially given improvements in jamming over the last few years?
Jamming is a principal concern, and we’ve seen the effects of jamming, of satellite communications, of GPS, how that can can spill from affecting military users into commercial aviation and things like that.
So it’s something we’re very focused on. But we’re also now in the midst of a bit of a renaissance, in fact, you might say a real renaissance, where there is more SATCOM available now than there’s ever been from multiple orbits.
SATCOM used to always be provided from geosynchronous orbit, but now we’ve got these large, proliferated, low-earth-orbit [LEO] constellations that can truly deliver broadband internet anywhere on the planet, and that’s a transformational capability.
And we want to make sure that our military forces can leverage all of that capability. And we call that a hybrid architecture, because that really minimizes the impact of any one particular jammer, for example.
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Is the C2 system up to managing that those shifts as you go along?
We have more work to do to continue to modernize that C2 system. And then we also need to continue to roll out across all of the US, Joint Force and our coalition partners, hybrid SATCOM terminals and modems that allow an individual platform, a ship or an aircraft, to leverage multiple bands of SATCOM, multiple orbital regimes of SATCOM, all on the same mission again to provide that deep resiliency.
Going back to jamming. We just saw today [Friday] reports that Iran is jamming ship GPS in the Persian Gulf. Are they jamming GPS? I mean, they have in the past. Are you seeing US systems, or, to your knowledge, European systems, being affected?
I don’t know that answer to the last part of your question about what the specific systems are that are being affected, just because I haven’t looked at that in the last 24 to 48 hours.
Australia is starting to try to build a launch industry. They haven’t done a lot yet, but they’re very excited about it. New Zealand’s been putting NRO payloads into space since, I think 2020. What do these southern hemisphere locations offer you in terms of unique military access to space?
Yeah, on the coverage side, as we think about maintaining track of the almost 48,000 objects that are in orbit. The geography here in Australia is just incredible.
It’s in the southern hemisphere, of course, which the United States is not. It’s on a longitude that is similar to China, you know, as opposed to us on in the continental United States, which is really on the other side of the planet.
So, you know, this partnership with Australia is very vital to help fill in the gaps of our coverage over the southern hemisphere and then this part of the world. But Australia brings, you know, so much more than just that geography, a deeply trusted partner.
I understand DARC has been finished here in Australia and is undergoing operational testing. [DARC is the Deep-Space Advanced Radar Capability. It’s located near Exmouth, in the remote vastness of western Australia.]
In fact, I heard today that program is doing very well, but we still have a little little bit of time to go until it is made completely operational, which is what I’m interested in, because then that’ll be supporting our operations.
But I’m very excited about that capability, because we just see the Chinese continuing and the Russians continuing to field, you know, counterspace capabilities all the way out to geosynchronous orbit. So capabilities like DARC are going to help us to reduce the risk that we have in space because of these threat systems that China and Russia are launching.
When Brig. Gen. Anthony Mastalir was here last year from US Indo-Pacific Command, he said that what worried him most in our region was China’s use of space to complete the kill chain. Do you share that concern?
Yes, that is very concerning. In fact, I’d say China has moved breathtakingly fast in space, and that’s in probably three ways that I would highlight. And the first would be the one you just mentioned.
China has built a targeting system based in space to find, fix, track and target US and allied forces in the Indo-Pacific area of responsibility, and then they use that system to feed over-the-horizon fires to try to hold at risk these capabilities.
The second way that they’ve moved breathtakingly fast is the fielding of a suite of counter-space weapons. This is everything from reversible cyber attacks, SATCOM and GPS jamming, but it also includes things like high-energy lasers as well as direct ascent ASAT rockets, missiles and co-orbital ASATS. Those are satellites they put on orbit that can hold at risk our satellites.
And then the third way they’ve moved breathtakingly fast is they have leveraged all the advantages of space to make their army, the People’s Liberation Army, the People’s Liberation Navy and the People’s Liberation Air Force, more lethal, more precise and more far-ranging, using space-enabled services.
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Iran confirms ceasefire with Israel
24 Jun, 2025 09:06
Iran has agreed to a ceasefire with Israel since Tehran’s military objectives have been achieved, the Iranian Supreme National Security Council has announced.
US President Donald Trump announced earlier that there would be a truce after nearly two weeks of tit-for-tat strikes.
Trump claimed that Israel and Iran had approached him “almost simultaneously, and said, ‘PEACE!’, adding that the Middle East and the whole world would be “winners” in a cessation of hostilities.
Iran’s top security body announced “the national decision to impose the cessation of war on the Zionist enemy [Israel] and its vile supporters” in a statement on Tuesday.
The Iranian military “without any trust to the words of the enemy and with their hands on the trigger, are ready to deliver a decisive and deterring response to any violating act by the enemy,” it warned.
Tehran delivered a “humiliating and exemplary response to the enemy’s cruelty,” including a missile attack on the US base in Qatar on Monday and the latest wave of strikes against Israel.
“The courage and sacrifice” of the Iranian military “forced the enemy into regret and accepting defeat and the unilateral cessation of its aggression,” it added.
A few hours before, Israel also officially confirmed agreeing to the ceasefire. The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would “respond forcefully to any violation of the ceasefire.”
The statement thanked Trump and the US military, which hit targets in Iran on Sunday, for “their support in defense and their participation in eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat.”
Netanyahu’s office also said he held a cabinet meeting to report that “Israel has removed a dual immediate existential threat – both in the nuclear and ballistic missile fields” posed by Iran.
Moscow welcomes the ceasefire between Israel and Iran, and hopes that it will be “sustained,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
“This is what Russia has been calling for from the very beginning of this conflict. So yes, this can and should be welcomed,” Peskov told journalists.
https://www.rt.com/news/620403-israel-iran-ceasefire-announce/
Iranian nuclear scientist and his family killed in Israeli attack – media
24 Jun, 2025 09:26
Top Iranian nuclear scientist Sayyed Mostafa Sadati-Armaki and his entire family have been killed in Israel’s latest strikes on Tehran, Tasnim News Agency reported on Monday.
According to the state-run Iranian outlet, Sadati-Armaki was a member of the “scientific elite.” He was killed along with his wife, three children and in-laws in Israel’s latest strikes on the capital of the Islamic Republic.
Tasnim stated that their deaths came as the Israeli military was deliberately targeting residential areas and civilians that had “nothing to do with military matters.”
The killing of Sadati-Armaki follows Israel’s brutal campaign of targeting Iranian scientists since it launched attacks on the country earlier this month. The IDF has so far reported killing over a dozen nuclear specialists in Iran.
On Tuesday morning, the Iranian media outlet Nour News reported the death of another nuclear scientist - Mohammad Reza Sadighi - who is said to have been killed in an Israeli attack that was carried out before a ceasefire was announced between Tehran and West Jerusalem.
The agency noted that Sadighi was one of the leading experts in his field.
According to Israel’s Channel 9 news outlet, Sadighi became the 17th Iranian nuclear scientist to have been killed by the IDF.
Israel attacked Iran on June 13, claiming that Tehran was on the brink of developing a nuclear bomb, despite the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and US intelligence insisting there was no evidence.
Tehran vehemently rejected Israel’s accusations, saying the strikes were tantamount to a declaration of war, and retaliated by launching its own attacks.
On June 22, the US entered the conflict, deploying B-2 bombers and Tomahawk missiles to strike three Iranian nuclear sites. Tehran responded by attacking a US military base in Qatar.
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump announced that Iran and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire.
Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council has since confirmed the truce, but warned that it is ready to respond to any “violating act by the enemy.”
https://www.rt.com/news/620405-iranian-nuclear-scientist-family/
Hostile Drone Discovered Near Amarnath Yatra Base Camp, Bomb Disposal Squad Rushed To Site
Updated 24 June 2025 at 23:05 IST
Jammu: A hostile drone was discovered near the Amarnath Yatra base camp in Jammu, prompting an immediate response from the security forces.
The drone was recovered on the banks of the Jammu Tawi river, and a police team was immediately dispatched to the spot.
The area has been cordoned off, and a bomb disposal squad has been called in to investigate the matter.
The Amarnath Yatra base camp, located at Bhagwati Nagar in Jammu, serves as the primary departure point for pilgrims embarking on the 32-day journey to the holy cave shrine of Amarnath in the Himalayas.
In the wake of terror threats, security forces have been put on high alert to ensure the safety of the pilgrims.
The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Jammu and Kashmir Police have been working together to provide foolproof security arrangements for the yatra.
The discovery of the hostile drone has raised concerns about the security of the Amarnath Yatra, which is scheduled to begin on July 3.
In recent years, the yatra has been targeted by terrorists, resulting in significant loss of life. In 2000, over 30 people were killed, and 60 were wounded in an attack on the Amarnath base camp.
Similar attacks occurred in 2001 and 2002, resulting in the deaths of 13 and 11 pilgrims, respectively. More recently, a terror attack in Pahalgam in April 2025 killed at least 26 people, mostly tourists.
To ensure the safety of the pilgrims, the security grid in and around the Amarnath Yatra base camp is being augmented with additional measures.
Watchtowers and dedicated check posts are being installed to keep a close watch on any suspicious activity.
Furthermore, the police and paramilitary troops will be deployed round the clock to prevent any untoward incidents.
Additionally, advanced surveillance equipment, including drones and metal detectors, will also be used to enhance security.
Meanwhile, further details regarding the suspicious drone are awaited.
https://www.republicworld.com/india/hostile-drone-discovered-near-amarnath-yatra-base-camp-bomb-disposal-squad-rushed-to-site