TYB
NASA Tests New Heat Source Fuel for Deep Space Exploration
Jul 22, 2025
To explore the unknown in deep space, millions of miles away from Earth, it’s crucial for spacecraft to have ample power.
NASA’s radioisotope power systems (RPS) are a viable option for these missions and have been used for over 60 years, including for the agency’s Voyager spacecraft and Perseverance Mars rover.
These nuclear batteries provide long-term electrical power for spacecraft and science instruments using heat produced by the natural radioactive decay of radioisotopes.
Now, NASA is testing a new type of RPS heat source fuel that could become an additional option for future long-duration journeys to extreme environments.
Historically, the radioisotope plutonium-238 (plutonium oxide) has been NASA’s RPS heat source fuel of choice, but americium-241 has been a source of interest for the past two decades in Europe.
In January, the Thermal Energy Conversion Branch at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and the University of Leicester, based in the United Kingdom, partnered through an agreement to put this new option to the test.
One method to generate electricity from radioisotope heat sources is the free-piston Stirling convertor. This is a heat engine that converts thermal energy into electrical energy.
However, instead of a crankshaft to extract power, pistons float freely within the engine. It could operate for decades continuously without wear, as it does not have piston rings or rotating bearings that will eventually wear out.
Thus, a Stirling convertor could generate more energy, allowing more time for exploration in deep space.
Researchers from the University of Leicester — who have been leaders in the development of americium RPS and heater units for more than 15 years — and NASA worked to test the capabilities of a Stirling generator testbed powered by two electrically heated americium-241 heat source simulators.
“The concept started as just a design, and we took it all the way to the prototype level: something close to a flight version of the generator,” said Salvatore Oriti, mechanical engineer at Glenn.
“The more impressive part is how quickly and inexpensively we got it done, only made possible by a great synergy between the NASA and University of Leicester teams.
We were on the same wavelength and shared the same mindset.”
The university provided the heat source simulators and generator housing.
The heat source simulator is the exact size and shape of their real americium-241 heat source, but it uses embedded electric heaters to create an equivalent amount of heat to simulate the decay of americium fuel and therefore drive generator operation.
The Stirling Research Lab at Glenn provided the test station, Stirling convertor hardware, and support equipment.
“A particular highlight of this (testbed) design is that it is capable of withstanding a failed Stirling convertor without a loss of electrical power,” said Hannah Sargeant, research fellow at the University of Leicester.
“This feature was demonstrated successfully in the test campaign and highlights the robustness and reliability of an Americium-Radioisotope Stirling Generator for potential future spaceflight missions, including long-duration missions that could operate for many decades.”
The test proved the viability of an americium-fueled Stirling RPS, and performance and efficiency targets were successfully met.
As for what’s next, the Glenn team is pursuing the next version of the testbed that will be lower mass, higher fidelity, and undergo further environmental testing.
“I was very pleased with how smoothly everything went,” Oriti said of the test results. “Usually in my experience, you don’t accomplish everything you set out to, but we did that and more.
We plan to continue that level of success in the future.”
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/nasa-tests-new-heat-source-fuel-for-deep-space-exploration/
https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-science/programs/radioisotope-power-systems/
NASA Goddard Center Director Makenzie Lystrup Set to Depart
Jul 21, 2025
On Monday, NASA announced Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is set to leave the agency on Friday, Aug. 1.
As center director of Goddard, a role she has held since April 2023, Lystrup also was responsible for guiding the direction and management of multiple other NASA field installations including Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, Katherine Johnson Independent Verification & Validation Facility in West Virginia, the White Sands Complex in New Mexico, and the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Texas.
“Having served in a variety of science and aerospace civilian and government roles in her career, Makenzie has led development of, and/or contributed to a variety of NASA’s priority science missions including successful operations of our James Webb Space Telescope and Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer, as well as development of the agency’s Roman Space Telescope, and more,” said Vanessa Wyche, acting NASA associate administrator.
“We’re grateful to Makenzie for her leadership at NASA Goddard for more than two years, including her work to inspire a Golden Age of explorers, scientists, and engineers.”
Throughout her time at NASA, Lystrup led Goddard’s workforce, which consists of more than 8,000 civil servants and contractors.
Before joining the agency, Lystrup served as senior director for Ball’s Civil Space Advanced Systems and Business Development, where she managed new business activities for NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other civilian U.S. government agencies as well as for academia and other science organizations.
In addition, she served in the company’s Strategic Operations organization, based in Washington where she led Ball’s space sciences portfolio.
Prior to joining Ball, Lystrup worked as an American Institute of Physics – Acoustical Society of American Congressional Fellow from 2011 to 2012 where she managed a portfolio including technology, national defense, nuclear energy, and nuclear nonproliferation.
Lystrup also has served on boards and committees for several organizations to include the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, International Society for Optics and Photonic, the University of Colorado, and the American Astronomical Society.
She was named an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow in 2019 for her distinguished record in the fields of planetary science and infrared astronomy, science policy and advocacy, and aerospace leadership.
Lystrup also served as an AmeriCorps volunteer focusing on STEM education.
Lystrup holds a bachelor’s in physics from Portland State University and attended graduate school at University College London earning her doctorate in astrophysics.
She was a National Science Foundation Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Research Fellow spending time at the Laboratory for Atmospheric & Space Physics in Boulder, Colorado, and University of Liege in Belgium.
As a planetary scientist and astronomer, Lystrup’s scientific work has been in using ground- and space-based astronomical observatories to understand the interactions and dynamics of planetary atmospheres and magnetospheres – the relationships between planets and their surrounding space environments.
Following Lystrup’s departure, NASA’s Cynthia Simmons will serve as acting center director. Simmons is the current deputy center director.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-goddard-center-director-makenzie-lystrup-set-to-depart/
https://www.nasa.gov/people/cynthia-simmons/
NASA Shares How to Save Camera 370-Million-Miles Away Near Jupiter
Jul 21, 2025
An experimental technique rescued a camera aboard the agency’s Juno spacecraft, offering lessons that will benefit other space systems that experience high radiation.
The mission team of NASA’s Jupiter-orbiting Juno spacecraft executed a deep-space move in December 2023 to repair its JunoCam imager to capture photos of the Jovian moon Io.
Results from the long-distance save were presented during a technical session on July 16 at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Nuclear & Space Radiation Effects Conference in Nashville.
JunoCam is a color, visible-light camera. The optical unit for the camera is located outside a titanium-walled radiation vault, which protects sensitive electronic components for many of Juno’s engineering and science instruments.
This is a challenging location because Juno’s travels carry it through the most intense planetary radiation fields in the solar system.
While mission designers were confident JunoCam could operate through the first eight orbits of Jupiter, no one knew how long the instrument would last after that.
Throughout Juno’s first 34 orbits (its prime mission), JunoCam operated normally, returning images the team routinely incorporated into the mission’s science papers.
Then, during its 47th orbit, the imager began showing hints of radiation damage. By orbit 56, nearly all the images were corrupted.
Long Distance Microscopic Repair
While the team knew the issue may be tied to radiation, pinpointing what, specifically, was damaged within JunoCam was difficult from hundreds of millions of miles away.
Clues pointed to a damaged voltage regulator that is vital to JunoCam’s power supply. With few options for recovery, the team turned to a process called annealing, where a material is heated for a specified period before slowly cooling.
Although the process is not well understood, the idea is that the heating can reduce defects in the material.
“We knew annealing can sometimes alter a material like silicon at a microscopic level but didn’t know if this would fix the damage,” said JunoCam imaging engineer Jacob Schaffner of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, which designed and developed JunoCam and is part of the team that operates it.
“We commanded JunoCam’s one heater to raise the camera’s temperature to 77 degrees Fahrenheit — much warmer than typical for JunoCam — and waited with bated breath to see the results.”
Soon after the annealing process finished, JunoCam began cranking out crisp images for the next several orbits.
But Juno was flying deeper and deeper into the heart of Jupiter’s radiation fields with each pass. By orbit 55, the imagery had again begun showing problems.
“After orbit 55, our images were full of streaks and noise,” said JunoCam instrument lead Michael Ravine of Malin Space Science Systems. “We tried different schemes for processing the images to improve the quality, but nothing worked.
With the close encounter of Io bearing down on us in a few weeks, it was Hail Mary time: The only thing left we hadn’t tried was to crank JunoCam’s heater all the way up and see if more extreme annealing would save us.”
Test images sent back to Earth during the annealing showed little improvement the first week. Then, with the close approach of Io only days away, the images began to improve dramatically.
By the time Juno came within 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of the volcanic moon’s surface on Dec. 30, 2023, the images were almost as good as the day the camera launched, capturing detailed views of Io’s north polar region that revealed mountain blocks covered in sulfur dioxide frosts rising sharply from the plains and previously uncharted volcanos with extensive flow fields of lava.
Testing Limits
To date, the solar-powered spacecraft has orbited Jupiter 74 times. Recently, the image noise returned during Juno’s 74th orbit.
Since first experimenting with JunoCam, the Juno team has applied derivations of this annealing technique on several Juno instruments and engineering subsystems.
“Juno is teaching us how to create and maintain spacecraft tolerant to radiation, providing insights that will benefit satellites in orbit around Earth,” said Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
“I expect the lessons learned from Juno will be applicable to both defense and commercial satellites as well as other NASA missions.”
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/juno/nasa-shares-how-to-save-camera-370-million-miles-away-near-jupiter/
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/juno/
SpaceX / NASA TRACERS MISSION
July 22, 2025
SpaceX is targeting Tuesday, July 22 for Falcon 9’s launch of NASA’s TRACERS mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The 57-minute launch window opens at 11:13 a.m. PT. If needed, a backup opportunity is available on Wednesday, July 23 at the same time.
Also on board this mission is SEOPS’ Epic Athena, Skykraft’s Skykraft 4, Maverick Space Systems’ REAL, Tyvak’s LIDE, and York Space Systems’ Bard.
A live webcast of this mission will begin about 15 minutes prior to liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. You can also watch the webcast on the new X TV app.
This is the 16th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched Crew-7, CRS-29, PACE, Transporter-10, EarthCARE, NROL-186, Transporter-13, and eight Starlink missions.
Following stage separation, the first stage will land on Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
There is the possibility that residents of and visitors to Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura counties may hear one or more sonic booms during the launch, but what residents experience will depend on weather and other conditions.
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=tracers
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/tracers/2025/07/21/nasa-satellites-encapsulated-for-tracers-launch/
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/tracers/2025/07/18/nasas-tracers-mission-targeting-launch-on-july-22/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wwhK6OBfac
Bone and Robotics Research Informing Future Missions as Crew Nears Departure
July 21, 2025
The Expedition 73 crew kicked off the week studying how to live and work in space during long-term missions including staying healthy in weightlessness and operating planetary robots from a spacecraft.
The seven International Space Station (ISS) residents also replaced flight hardware and continued preparing for a crew swap beginning at the end of the month.
Scientists studies into the long-term effects of reduced gravity on an astronaut’s body enable NASA and its international partners to plan safe and successful missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
Crews move around in microgravity with minimal effort; however, this affects their bodies in a similar way to how patients on Earth confined to bedrest experience. As a result, bones and muscles atrophy without daily exercise and proper nutrition.
Just one of many human research investigations taking place on the orbital outpost, the Bone on ISS study explores an astronaut’s bone health before, during, and after a spaceflight.
Station commander Takuya Onishi from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and Flight Engineer Nichole Ayers from NASA began their Monday with this experiment.
Onishi assisted Ayers as she performed a blood draw then processed the samples for spinning in a centrifuge. The samples were stowed in a science freezer for later analysis.
Results may provide insights into how an individual’s bones adjust to microgravity and help treat space-caused bone loss as well as Earthbound aging conditions.
NASA Flight Engineer Anne McClain spent her day on the CIPHER suite of 14 human research experiments tracking multiple aspects of a crew member’s health in space.
She processed her blood and urine samples for preservation and analysis for more insight into bone health and cardiovascular issues.
The knowledge gained may prepare an astronaut for different gravity environments such as the Moon or Mars and lead to advanced care for patients on Earth.
McClain, along with Onishi and Roscosmos Flight Engineer Kirill Peskov, spent time packing personal items for the ride back to Earth planned for early next month inside the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
Ayers began packing her gear last week. NASA Flight Engineer Jonny Kim explored ways to control robotic vehicles on a planetary surface from an orbiting spacecraft.
Working with engineers on the ground, Kim set up a laptop computer inside the Columbus laboratory module and tested space-to-ground robotic controlling methods.
The experiment tests a variety of technologies including consoles, touchscreens, haptics, and virtual reality goggles that may benefit future space exploration.
Results may also inform missions to asteroids and operations in disaster zones or inhospitable areas on Earth. Kim later partnered with Onishi and Ayers replacing flight hardware in the Tranquility module.
Roscosmos Flight Engineer Alexey Zubritsky assisted Peskov on Monday helping him get ready to end his stay aboard the orbiting lab.
Zubritsky set up biomedical hardware and applied sensors measuring Peskov’s blood flow as he wore the experimental lower body negative pressure suit.
The data is being collected to test the suit’s ability to pull fluids from the upper body and counteract space-caused head and eye pressure.
The suit operations may also help a crew member adapt quicker to the return to Earth’s gravity.
Zubritsky then inventoried a variety of computer and electronics hardware while Peskov reviewed Dragon departure procedures on a computer tablet.
Veteran Flight Engineer Sergey Ryzhikov videotaped his workout session on the advanced resistive exercise device helping researchers keep crews fit and healthy in space.
He spent the rest of his shift replacing electronics and fire protection hardware and cleaning ventilation systems throughout the space station’s Roscosmos segment.
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2025/07/21/bone-and-robotics-research-informing-future-missions-as-crew-nears-departure/
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 to Discuss Station Mission, Upcoming Return
Jul 21, 2025
Media are invited to hear from NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 during a news conference beginning at 10:40 a.m. EDT, Friday, July 25, from the International Space Station.
NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov will discuss their upcoming return to Earth on the agency’s YouTube channel.
Media interested in participating must contact the newsroom at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston no later than 5 p.m., Thursday, July 24, at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov.
To ask questions, media must dial into the news conference no later than 10 minutes prior to the start of the call. A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is online.
Crew-10 joined the Expedition 72 crew when arriving to the station in March.
Throughout Expedition 72 and into Expedition 73, the crew aboard the space station contributed to hundreds of experiments, including testing expanded capabilities of existing hardware for pharmaceutical production in space, investigating how cells sense gravity, which is an important aspect of space biology, and examining the effects of microgravity on protein yields in microalgae, a potential source for life support, fuel, and food on long-duration missions.
The crew will depart the space station after the arrival of Crew-11 and a handover period. Ahead of Crew-10’s return, mission teams will review weather conditions at the splashdown sites off the coast of California prior to departure from station.
The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which provides reliable access to space, maximizing the use of the station for research and development and supporting future missions beyond low Earth orbit by partnering with private companies to transport astronauts to and from the space station.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasas-spacex-crew-10-to-discuss-station-mission-upcoming-return/
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/crew-10/
Humongous parachute for European Mars landing mission tested successfully
Mon 21 Jul 2025 // 18:29 UTC
The European Space Agency (ESA) conducted a successful parachute test for the ExoMars Mars landing rover earlier this month, even as uncertainty looms over US involvement in the project.
The parachutes, which are designed to slow the descent of the ExoMars lander, have caused more than a few headaches for the development team. In 2019, a drop of the 35m parachute from about 35km up resulted in a test failure.
There were concerns that further setbacks would delay the mission, but as it turned out, the parachutes didn't hold things up – the system was successfully qualified in 2021. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, however, did.
ESA suspended the mission as it rethought its plans without Roscosmos' involvement.
In 2024, ESA and NASA inked an agreement to get the long-delayed Rosalind Franklin rover to the red planet. Then, Trump took office, and the proposed NASA budget cuts made it uncertain whether the space agency could contribute as planned.
Most recently, the US Senate Committee on Appropriations offered hope, restoring "not less than $73,900,000" for the mission [PDF] - just slightly less than the cost of moving the Space Shuttle between museums.
So testing the parachutes was a welcome distraction from the wrangling over the mission's future. The Register understands that the activity had long been planned and budgeted for outside of whatever squabbling might be happening in the US.
The test dropped a dummy ExoMars descent module from an altitude of almost 30 km, and its parachutes were successfully deployed.
There are two main parachutes: a first stage that is 15m wide, and a variant of the parachute used for the successful ESA Cassini-Huygens mission to Titan, Saturn's largest moon. The second is a 35m monster – and will be the largest parachute ever to open over Mars.
"Using two parachutes allows us to design a strong, medium-sized parachute to decelerate the probe through supersonic speeds and then a much larger, lightweight parachute for the final descent," said John Underwood, principal engineer at Vorticity, the UK company entrusted with parachute design and test analysis.
While the parachutes will scrub off a considerable amount of velocity, retro-rockets will be fired 20 seconds before touching down in order to avoid creating a surprise crater on the surface. Nobody needs another Schiaparelli incident.
The successful test took place at the Swedish Space Corporation's Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, northern Sweden, on 7 July.
Luca Ferracina, ESA's system engineer for the ExoMars landing module, said, "We are running this campaign to confirm our readiness for Mars, and to verify that the parachutes are still performing as expected after the long storage."
The move is a prudent one, and one that we fervently hope is a precursor to this mission, which one space agency insider called "snakebit," will finally reach Mars.
It would be a shame if the closest the carefully crafted ExoMars parachute system got to the red planet was almost 30km above the Arctic Circle. ®
https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/21/esa_exomars_chute_test/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31mEiv6eCPk
https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/21/hubble_astronaut_budget_fears/
NASA veteran warns Hubble faces death by a hundred cuts
Mon 21 Jul 2025 // 17:57 UTC
Dr John Grunsfeld, former astronaut, NASA chief scientist, and retired associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, was talking to The Register in the wake of the proposed cuts to NASA's budget and, in particular, the proposal to reduce the agency's science budget by almost half.
At the time of writing, it appears that the US Congress has rejected the full extent of the cuts. After we spoke with Grunsfeld, the US Senate Appropriations Committee voted to approve its version of NASA's 2026 funding legislation, retaining 2025's $7.3 billion.
The Planetary Society's Chief of Space Policy, Casey Dreier, said: "This is huge news for NASA science, and a complete rejection of the White House's draconian proposal."
However, plenty of wrangling remains before the budget is finalized and the House and Senate funding bills reconciled.
"When that will happen is anyone's guess," said Dreier, "but likely not until the fall." The deliberations have the effect of creating short-term uncertainty in a community accustomed to working in the long term.
Grunsfeld's five Space Shuttle missions included three to service the Hubble Space Telescope. His last flight, STS-125 in 2009, was the final mission to the Hubble, and included the installation of the Wide Field Camera 3.
The observatory, which recently celebrated its 35th anniversary, is not slated for immediate termination, but, according to Grunsfeld, it is at risk of death by a hundred smaller cuts, many of which are already underway.
"If you look at the Hubble budget," he says, "it's currently $93.3 million. It's been that number – roughly – for the last 15 years.
"People love Hubble. The science community rallies behind it. The American public rallies behind it, and we've been able to convince the Senate and the House to keep the same number as last year."
That's great – until you factor in inflation. Taking that into account, according to Grunsfeld, means "we're already down about 30 percent in funding for Hubble."
While the proposed budget doesn't terminate Hubble, it does reduce funding for the mission. On the other hand, July 17's House Committee on Appropriations report [PDF] includes "not less than" $98.3 million for Hubble. The final figure has yet to be settled on.
Grunsfeld says: "What I've been told from people at the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute and Goddard Space Flight Center is that they've been told to reduce the size of their workforce and to start turning off instrument modes to make operations less complex in anticipation of turning Hubble off."
The idea is that by deactivating a mode, the people responsible for maintaining the software and the scientists who use those modes won't be needed.
If enough of those people aren't required, then the support staff behind them won't be needed. And so it goes on. "They're just trying to whittle away at it," explains Grunsfeld.
The cuts, according to Grunsfeld, could extend to the team that works on upgrades to the telescope operating software itself. "Occasionally, onboard, we upload new software," he says.
"So for instance, one of the big developments was, 'How can we operate on only one gyro?' Yeah, which is what we're operating on."
1/2
The Hubble Space Telescope officially transitioned to single-gyro mode in 2024, extending its operational life by a few more years.
Gyros are used to point the telescope, and the observatory has six of these devices, which were replaced during the last servicing mission. However, three have since failed, and a fourth was showing signs of degradation.
Switching to using just one gyro carries some limitations (the observatory needs more time to slew and lock onto a scientific target), but it will also extend Hubble's useful life.
"Now, that took a big software effort, lots of testing on the ground. You don't want to send that software up, and then Hubble looks through into the Sun, you know? And that's the end of Hubble, because somebody made a sign error.
"So it's a delicate business, and my understanding is that, because of the budget cuts, they said, 'Get rid of the Software Group. We'll just live for the rest of public life with the current software.'"
Which means that the next time something needs to be fixed, there might not be anybody around to deal with it.
Grunsfeld started out by building a detector for X-ray astronomy and flying it on a balloon flight as an undergraduate.
"Today," he says, "the balloon program is incredibly more capable … it's an incredibly cost-effective way of doing cutting-edge science in advance of the hundreds of millions of dollars it takes to put up a small astrophysics spacecraft."
And yet, the proposal would eliminate the program's $49 million annual budget. Why? "I have no idea," says Grunsfeld.
"Because somebody probably saw a balloon project and thought, 'NASA shouldn't be doing balloons.' They're a space agency?
Somebody probably just said 'We're going to kill it because we think it's stupid' without actually knowing what it is."
Some of those cuts seem to be already underway in one form or another. "We still don't know what will happen," says Grunsfeld.
"What's unfortunate is, in the meantime, the administration is moving ahead with layoffs and pushing out NASA employees.
"They're using a reduction in force method where they say, 'Hey, if you retire now, you know, you get your benefits right away,' or whatever it happens to be.
And so I think some relatively large numbers, like 9 percent of the workforce, have already left or indicated that they'll leave, and this tends to be the most senior people with the most knowledge.
"And so it's a real brain drain."
2/2
Chinese-born California researcher pleads guilty to stealing space-based missile tech
July 22, 2025, 20:36:25 IST
The US Justice Department said Monday (July 21) that a Chinese-born US researcher admitted guilt to stealing trade secrets, including technology for detecting nuclear missile launches.
The man, identified as a 59-year-old Chenguang Gong, is a resident of San Jose, California.
Gong was charged with transferring over 3,600 files from his employer, a research and development company, to his personal storage devices.
In a central California district court, Gong pleaded guilty to one count of theft of trade secrets, facing up to 10 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for September 29.
Having become a US citizen in 2011, Gong briefly worked as an engineer in 2023 at a Los Angeles-area research and development company, which was not named, the Justice Department stated.
The stolen files included blueprints for infrared sensors used in space-based systems to detect nuclear missile launches and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles, per the Justice Department.
Additionally, Gong took blueprints for sensors enabling US military aircraft to detect incoming heat-seeking missiles and deploy countermeasures.
“The files Gong transferred include blueprints for sophisticated infrared sensors designed for use in space-based systems to detect nuclear missile launches and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles, as well as blueprints for sensors designed to enable US military aircraft to detect incoming heat-seeking missiles and take countermeasures, including by jamming the missiles’ infrared tracking ability,” the Justice Department wrote in a press release.
Between 2014 and 2022, while employed at various major US technology companies, Gong applied to join Chinese government-funded “Talent Programs,” the Justice Department noted.
These programs aim to recruit individuals with “expert skills, abilities, and knowledge of advanced sciences and technologies” to bolster China’s economy and military capabilities.
“Gong also transferred files containing trade secrets relating to the development of “next generation” sensors capable of detecting low observable targets while demonstrating increased survivability in space, as well as the blueprints for the mechanical assemblies used to house and cryogenically cool the victim company’s sensors.
This information was among the victim company’s most important trade secrets that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” the department noted.
https://www.firstpost.com/world/chinese-born-california-researcher-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-space-based-missile-tech-ws-e-13910404.html
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/engineer-pleads-guilty-stealing-chinese-governments-benefit-trade-secret-technology-designed
Viasat to demonstrate communications tech for DIU's Hybrid Space Architecture initiative
July 22, 2025
CARLSBAD, California. Viasat was selected by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to prototype and demonstrate communications technologies for the Hybrid Space Architecture (HSA) initiative, the company announced in a statement.
HSA seeks to integrate civil, commercial, and military space assets into a unified network to improve operational resilience and situational awareness for U.S. and allied forces, the statement reads.
Viasat’s participation will focus on demonstrating intelligent network maneuverability through its software-defined networking platform, NetAgility.
The platform is designed to support dynamic, real-time routing across multi-orbit, multi-vendor satellite networks by leveraging mission and network situational awareness to optimize communications pathways, the company says.
These capabilities are intended to enable seamless interoperability across commercial and government networks, aligning with U.S. Space Force strategic objectives, according to the statement.
Demonstrations will occur across several combatant commands, including Indo-Pacific, European, Central, and Southern Commands, with initial events planned for later this year.
The HSA effort is led by DIU in coordination with U.S. Space Systems Command and other Department of Defense stakeholders.
https://militaryembedded.com/comms/communications/viasat-to-demonstrate-communications-tech-for-dius-hybrid-space-architecture-initiative
https://www.viasat.com/
David Broadbent Appointed to Lead Combined SES Space & Defense Organization
Jul 22, 2025
SES Space & Defense is pleased to announce the appointment of David Broadbent as President and CEO, effective July 17, 2025, as designated by the SES Space & Defense Proxy Board.
His appointment coincides with the completion of SES’s acquisition of Intelsat, marking a significant step in the integration of the two organizations.
David Broadbent
As part of the acquisition, SES has combined the government and defense divisions of both companies under one integrated organization, SES Space & Defense.
“I’m honored to lead this newly integrated organization at such a pivotal moment,” said David Broadbent, President and CEO, SES Space & Defense.
“Our focus moving forward is to harness the combined strengths of our people, capabilities, and technology to deliver mission-driven outcomes for our government mission partners.
As a unified team, we are uniquely positioned to provide a secure and resilient multi-orbit strategy that advance national security objectives, protect sovereignty, and ensure uninterrupted access to critical communication infrastructure.”
David Broadbent has over 20 years of leadership experience in the satellite communications and defense sector.
He joins SES Space & Defense from Intelsat, where he most recently served as President of Government Solutions, responsible for the company’s global government business.
Prior to his time at Intelsat, David spent 21 years at Raytheon Technologies in a variety of senior business leadership roles, including serving as President of the company’s Space Systems business unit.
“David Broadbent brings the strategic vision and operational discipline essential to advance our government business,” said Billy Bingham, Chairman of the Board of Directors, SES Space & Defense.
“With a career defined by success across both U.S. and international government markets, he has consistently translated mission needs into innovative, effective solutions.
David’s deep expertise in SATCOM, defense technology, and government solutions positions him to accelerate SES’s mission of delivering secure, resilient, and forward-leaning space capabilities.”
Broadbent succeeds David Fields, who has led SES Space & Defense with distinction for the past three years.
“David Fields has been an integral part of our organization since SES acquired DRS Global Enterprise Solutions in 2022,” said Billy Bingham.
Under Fields’ leadership, SES Space & Defense was formed, setting a new benchmark for excellence in delivering secure, mission-critical comms.
Through his vision, integrity and commitment, Fields built a trusted brand and a mission-driven culture that continues to serve our customers.
On behalf of the Board and the entire organization, we extend our sincere gratitude to David for his lasting contributions to our team, our partners, and the mission.”
https://www.newsbreak.com/the-associated-press-510077/4124458974305-david-broadbent-appointed-to-lead-combined-ses-space-defense-organization
https://sessd.com/
Scientists use X-rays to remotely measure magnetic reconnection in near-Earth space
July 22, 2025
The magnetosphere, formed by Earth's magnetic field, acts as a protective shield that deflects solar wind—the flow of charged particles constantly streaming from the sun toward our planet.
This magnetic barrier protects our atmosphere and the technology we increasingly depend on in near-Earth space, such as communication satellites.
However, the magnetosphere isn't impenetrable, as a fundamental process called "magnetic reconnection" can temporarily strip this barrier during intense solar wind and cause violent energy fluctuations in near-Earth space.
As human activity in this region increases, understanding and forecasting such space weather becomes critical.
A key to understanding these breaches lies in measuring what's known as the "reconnection rate," which quantifies energy efficiency in magnetic reconnection processes.
For decades, scientists have attempted to measure this rate using various methods, including spacecraft flying directly through reconnection zones and observations of solar flares by remote imaging.
However, these traditional approaches provide only local snapshots of the magnetic reconnection process or are limited by specific, often unsteady conditions.
Obtaining a comprehensive and consistent picture that bridges the gap between local and global reconnection rates remains a challenge.
Against this backdrop, a research team led by Associate Professor Yosuke Matsumoto from the Institute for Advanced Academic Research at Chiba University, Japan, is testing an innovative approach using soft X-ray imaging to measure the reconnection rates.
The study, co-authored by Mr. Ryota Momose from Chiba University and Prof. Yoshizumi Miyoshi from Nagoya University, was made available online on June 23, 2025, and was published in Volume 52, Issue 12 of the journal Geophysical Research Letters on June 28, 2025.
Soft X-ray emission occurs through a charge exchange process between the heavy ions in the solar wind and the hydrogen neutral atoms originating from Earth.
In this study, the researchers propose leveraging the soft X-rays that are naturally emitted when solar wind particles interact with the boundaries of the magnetosphere to remotely measure reconnection rates across much larger regions than previously possible.
The team conducted advanced computer simulations on the Fugaku supercomputer, combining high-resolution global magnetohydrodynamic simulations of Earth's magnetosphere with a model of soft X-ray emission.
From the simulations, they analyzed how reconnection-related X-rays can be viewed from a satellite positioned at a lunar distance during intense solar wind conditions.
This vantage point roughly matches that of an upcoming X-ray imaging satellite like GEO-X, which is scheduled for launch in the near future.
After analyzing the simulation results, the researchers found that the brightest X-ray emissions form distinct cusp-shaped patterns that directly reflect the magnetic field structure around reconnection zones.
By measuring the opening angle of these bright regions, they calculated the global reconnection rate to have a value of 0.13, which closely matches theoretical predictions and previous laboratory measurements.
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-scientists-rays-remotely-magnetic-reconnection.html
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL114342
Hubble spots interstellar invader Comet 3I/ATLAS for the first time
July 22, 2025
The Hubble Space Telescope has caught its first glimpse of comet 3I/ATLAS. The comet is just the third object humanity has observed entering the solar system from beyond its limits.
Prior to 3I/ATLAS, the previous two "interstellar invaders" were 1I/'Oumuamua, spotted in 2017, and 2I/Borisov, detected in 2019.
Both have now left the solar system, though other interstellar bodies are predicted to dwell undetected in our cosmic backyard.
As Space.com reported on July 11, recent research suggested that 3I/ATLAS could be even more exciting than initially perceived, as its trajectory through the solar system indicates it comes from a region of the Milky Way older than our 4.6 billion-year-old solar system.
With an estimated age of 7 billion years, that would make 3I/ATLAS the oldest comet we've ever seen.
Astrophysics undergrad student astrafoxen alerted his followers to the Hubble images of 3I/ATLAS via this Bluesky feed.
"Hubble Space Telescope images of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS are out! These were taken 5 hours ago. Plenty of cosmic rays peppering the images, but the comet's coma looks very nice and puffy.
Best of luck to the researchers trying to write up papers for this… " the post reads.
One such paper is already available, albeit as a preprint. Describing optical and near-infrared spectroscopy performed on 3I/ATLAS, the research reveals that:
"3I/ATLAS is an active interstellar comet containing abundant water ice, with a dust composition more similar to D-type asteroids than to ultrared trans-Neptunian objects."
D-type asteroids are space rocks packed with organic molecule-rich silicates and carbon with water ice in their interiors. The arrival of 3I/ATLAS into the solar system has initiated an exciting period for astronomers.
Since the solar system interloper was spotted on July 1, 2025, by the ATLAS survey telescope, an array of other instruments have attempted to get in on the act by spotting the comet.
One project that will be trying to get a good look at 3I/ATLAS is the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which observes the universe near and far with the largest digital camera ever built.
That is fitting, as the comet from beyond the solar system was actually first spotted as scientists were preparing to make observations with Rubin.
The new observatory, which released its first images of the cosmos on June 23, 2025, is expected to discover between 5 and 50 interstellar objects as they zip through the solar system during the observatory's decade-long Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).
In the meantime, 3I/ATLAS can enjoy the undivided attention of astronomers aiming to study interstellar bodies with a view to painting an intimate picture of planetary systems beyond our own.
The Hubble images of 3I/ATLAS are available to download from this database.
https://www.space.com/astronomy/asteroids/hubble-spots-interstellar-invader-comet-3i-atlas-for-the-first-time
https://archive.stsci.edu/proposal_search.php?id=17830&mission=hst
https://mast.stsci.edu/search/ui/#/hst/results?proposal_id=17830
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:bxxv3ty2lwpzyivx3axvq3fy/post/3luiwnar3j22o
SpaceX aborts satellite launch 11 seconds before liftoff
July 22, 2025
SpaceX aborted the launch of two communications satellites just before liftoff on Monday evening (July 21).
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with two of SES' O3b mPOWER internet spacecraft was set to launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:27 p.m. EDT (2127 GMT) on Monday.
But it didn't quite happen: SpaceX called an abort just 11 seconds before liftoff. The launch window extended for another 90 minutes or so, but the company soon decided to stand down for the day.
"Standing down from today’s launch of the @SES_Satellites O3b mPOWER mission and now targeting tomorrow, July 22 for liftoff. Vehicle and payload remain healthy," SpaceX said via X on Monday evening.
At the time of this article's publication, the company had not yet explained what caused the abort.
The two-hour launch window on Tuesday opens at 5:12 p.m. EDT (2112 GMT). SpaceX will stream the action live via its website and X account, beginning about 15 minutes before liftoff.
Luxembourg-based SES' mPOWER constellation consists of eight satellites in medium-Earth orbit, all of which have been launched by SpaceX.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacex-aborts-satellite-launch-11-seconds-before-liftoff
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=mpower-d
These 3 popular skywatching star clusters may be branches of the same family tree
July 21, 2025
Three of the most popular targets for astronomers of all skill levels are the Seven Sisters (the Pleiades), the Hyades and the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC), which is the central "star" in Orion’s Sword.
Now, scientists have discovered that these celestial bodies may have more in common than once thought.
The star clusters may share a common origin mechanism, they say, despite the fact that the three clusters are all different ages and are located at different distances from Earth.
This new research suggests looking at the three star clusters is like looking at three snapshots taken of the same person at three different stages of their life, from infancy to old age.
The youngest of these open clusters is the ONC at 2.5 million years old. Located around 1,350 light-years away and packed with thousands of young stars embedded in the stellar cloud that created them, it is one of the most active star-forming regions in the Milky Way.
Located 444 light-years from Earth, the Pleiades is less densely packed than the ONC, but it is much more ancient at 100 million years old.
However, the Hyades, located 151 light-years away, has fewer stars that are even more thinly spread out and is around 700 million years old.
Yet, as diverse as these star clusters seem, the team's new research suggests they share a particular kind of ancestor.
"Our highly precise stellar dynamics calculations have now shown that all three star clusters originated from the same predecessor," team member and University of Bonn researcher Pavel Kroupa said in a statement.
Star clusters on the same cosmic family tree
The team compares the varied ages and conditions in these three star clusters to looking at the same human being through photos that document the stages of their life.
The densely packed ONC is the baby, the more dispersed Pleiades is the adolescent, and the Hyades is the elderly person.
Though the three clusters didn't form from the same molecular cloud of dense gas and dust, they can be compared to the same person being born three times in different parts of the globe.
"From this, we can learn that open star clusters seem to have a preferred mode of star formation," Kroupa explained. "It appears that there is a preferred physical environment in which stars form when they evolve within these clouds."
The question is: How does a cluster like the ONC develop into one like Pleiades and then age into a cluster like the Hyades?
Kroupa and colleagues, including team leader Ghasem Safaei from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences, set about answering this question with computer simulations.
Star clusters grow old gracefully
The team's simulations revealed the forces acting between stars in a cluster.
This allowed the scientists to model the life cycle of such a collection of stars from a gas-rich, dense infancy through gradual expansion and gradual gas and star loss over the course of 800 million years.
The results obtained by the team closely reflected the changes in structure and composition between the phases we see exemplified by the ONC, the Pleiades and the Hyades.
"This research shows that it is entirely plausible that star clusters such as the ONC follow a development path that transforms them into systems like Pleiades and later on Hyades," Hosein Haghi, study team member and a researcher at the University of Bonn, said in the statement.
The team's results indicated that clusters like the ONC can lose up to 85% of their stellar population and yet hang on to coherent structures when they reach ages similar to that of the Hyades while passing through a stage that resembles the Pleiades.
The team's research also suggests that the fact these three clusters appear close together in the night sky over Earth, despite being widely separated in the cosmos, may be more than a mere coincidence.
This positioning could, in fact, be related to the way star clusters form and evolve in relation to our galaxy.
"This research gives us a deeper understanding of how star clusters form and develop and illustrates the delicate balance between internal dynamics and external forces such as the gravitational pull of the Milky Way," team member Akram Hasani Zonoozi of the University of Bonn said in the statement.
Beyond the research's importance for our understanding of star clusters and their evolution, the team's work demonstrates the power of combining simulations with astronomical observations.
https://www.space.com/astronomy/these-3-popular-skywatching-star-clusters-may-be-branches-of-the-same-family-tree
https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/news/134-2025
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/541/2/1753/8202867
Trio of stripy glaciers merging in 'Earth's highest battleground' are part of a major anomaly scientists don't fully understand — Earth from space
July 22, 2025
This intriguing astronaut photo shows a trio of "anomalous" ice masses merging in the heart of central Asia.
The stripy glaciers are bucking a global trend by gaining volume, despite the effects of human-caused climate change.
The aerial image shows the Lolofond glacier (top) and Teram Shehr glacier (bottom) merging with the Siachen glacier (center), along with a smaller unnamed tributary glacier.
The ice masses are located in the Karakoram mountain range, a largely uninhabited area situated alongside the Himalayas in the Kashmir region, where the borders of India, Pakistan, China, Afghanistan and Tajikistan meet.
Siachen is Earth's second-longest glacier outside of Greenland and Antarctica, and is around 47 miles (76 kilometers) long and 2.2 miles (3.5 km) across at its widest point, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.
The glacier starts around 19,000 feet (5,800 meters) above sea level, while its end, or terminus, sits at an altitude of around 11,800 feet (3,600 m).
Each of the glaciers in the photo is made up of parallel striations, or lines, known as moraines, which are folds of ice rich in dust and rock that get trapped in between merging glaciers, according to the National Park Service.
There is a particularly thick and dark moraine where Teram Shehr and the smaller unnamed glacier merge with Siachen.
Eagle-eyed readers may be able to spot some other unusual features in the image, including a green-hued lake and two large chunks of white ice trapped in a moraine within Siachen (both located near the far left of the photo).
Unlike most of Earth's glaciers, which are rapidly losing their ice as a result of climate change, the Karakoram glaciers have expanded slightly in volume over recent decades.
"These gains — known as the 'Karakoram anomaly' — are yet to be fully explained, and scientists question how long they will persist," Earth Observatory representatives wrote.
Some researchers believe that the anomaly can be explained by local weather patterns, while others argue that the dust and dirt in the glaciers' moraines help to insulate the ice from warming temperatures, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Neither explanation is fully accepted by the scientific community.
Siachen is disputed territory, claimed by both India and Pakistan. Both countries have had a military presence near the glacier's summit since 1984 and have clashed on multiple occasions.
As a result, the Siachen glacier holds the title of Earth's highest battleground, according to Guinness World Records (GWR).
Around 2,000 soldiers have died during the conflict, but almost all of them were killed by "extreme weather conditions," according to GWR.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/trio-of-stripy-glaciers-merging-in-earths-highest-battleground-are-part-of-a-major-anomaly-scientists-dont-fully-understand-earth-from-space
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/space-force-congress-growing-crunch-launch-facilities/
Space Force, Congress Look to Address Growing Crunch on Launch Facilities
July 21, 2025
Lawmakers and Space Force officials alike are preparing for long-term changes to how the Pentagon manages space launches amid surging demand and aging infrastructure, recent legislation and strategy documents show.
Both the Senate and House armed services committees included provisions in their respective versions of the 2026 defense policy bill directing studies on the Space Force’s two main ranges at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., and Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., as well as on the possibility of adopting new launch sites.
Meanwhile, USSF released a new document, the “Principles for Space Access Resourcing Decisions Annex,” that it says will guide its investments and allocations for launch.
The annex states that the service is “committed to supporting the space access industry to the maximum extent practicable” but will prioritize national security-related launches when “needs exceed resources.”
Not too long ago, the Space Force’s two ranges hosted a few launches per year, mostly for government payloads.
But the cadence of launches has exploded to accommodate the rise of reusable rockets, the growth of the commercial space industry, and company and government plans to build constellations of hundreds or thousands of satellites for missions like communications and surveillance.
The Space Force oversaw a record 144 launches from its ranges in 2024, including 93 from Florida and 51 from California.
Officials expect that number to jump even higher in 2025: Vandenberg is slated to host more than 70 launches, and the Eastern Range, which includes NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, expects more than 150.
“We did a total of about 10 launches, and that was a lot,” Charles A. Galbreath, a retired Space Force colonel who now works as a senior fellow at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said of his time as Vandenberg’s deputy launch group commander from 2012 to 2014.
“To think that there’s going to be 70-plus launches out of Vandenberg is just mind-blowing.”
The majority of these launches support commercial missions, not government ones; companies ranging from major players like SpaceX to smaller startups like Relativity Space already lease government-owned launch facilities or plan to do so.
But Galbreath and the Space Force annex document argue that the service should retain control of the schedule for all launches so federal missions won’t be slowed by commercial ones.
“Are launch operations an inherently government or an inherently military function?” Galbreath said.
“Not necessarily, but there will come a time when we’ve got to be able to say, ‘This is going to be the mission that flies, and this is the set of priorities, and this is when it has to go.’
And so if we completely get out of it, it may limit our ability to do that.”
Upgrades
Given the surge in launches, leaders have noted the need to upgrade the infrastructure at Vandenberg and Cape Canaveral, where decades of rocket launches and severe weather have taken their toll.
Congress recently provided the Space Force with $1.3 billion through 2028 for its “spaceport of the future” program, plus another $80 million for satellite data-processing services at Vandenberg. Work has already started on that initiative.
1/2
Lawmakers have not forgotten about the effort—the House Armed Services Committee included language in its 2026 draft policy bill requiring the Department of the Air Force to report back on the program each year through 2031, including a full list of projects and an estimate of any additional funds needed. Such improvements could include processing facilities, storage facilities, and improved utilities to support more launches per year.
The Space Force, for its part, indicated in its annex document that it will look to companies to bear some of the cost of maintaining an in-demand launch enterprise.
“The demand for operational support and infrastructure sustainment and modernization exceeds USSF resources,” the document states.
“Therefore, the USSF transparently engages with stakeholders to arrange equitable cost-sharing of multi-use resources and balanced input on public/private infrastructure investment.”
New Sites
While upgrades to existing launch facilities have started, they may not be enough to accommodate the surging demand that is expected to keep growing in the years ahead.
The Space Force, in its annex document, notes that “demand for launch complexes at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Vandenberg Space Force Base could exceed availability.”
Similarly, the House Armed Services Committee wrote in language accompanying its defense policy bill that it is “aware that the increased launch cadence may overstress current range infrastructure that is unique and restricted by geography due to hazard areas, overflight, and target orbital locations.”
To address the issue, the House panel is interested in having the Pentagon launch from state-owned locations, specifically citing facilities at Wallops Island, Va., and Kodiak Island, Alaska.
Its bill includes reporting language asking for the Secretary of the Air Force to provide a briefing with “information regarding state-owned and -operated spaceports that support, or can support, national security space missions.”
Galbreath also supports diversifying the number of sites, and not just to increase the rate at which each can churn out launches.
“From a resilience perspective, having additional launch sites, I think, is going to become critically important,” he said.
In a research paper published last October, he cited natural disasters or enemy attack as risks that could significantly impact operations at Vandenberg or Cape Canaveral—risks that the Space Force acknowledges as well.
“Launch sites are not sanctuaries from adversary threats,” the service wrote in its resourcing decisions document.
Galbreath said he supports a “both/and” approach to launch—upgrading existing facilities and infrastructure while investing in new sites.
It’s an approach the Senate Armed Services Committee endorsed in its 2026 defense policy bill while directing the Space Force to conduct a “comprehensive” study of launch.
“As national security space launch demand continues to increase, driven by both defense and commercial sector growth, the committee believes it is critical to ensure that existing sites, including Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Vandenberg Space Force Base, remain capable, efficient, and resilient,” it wrote in a report accompanying the bill.
“The committee also supports the consideration of alternate or complementary launch locations that could enhance strategic flexibility, reduce congestion, and support future mission requirements.”
2/2
First look: Xingdong Era (RobotEra) L7 humanoid on ERA-42 VLM
July 22, 2025
https://www.robotera.com/en/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhjDHQ9XI2c
Hunter Biden says he’d invade El Salvador
22 Jul, 2025 11:03
The son of former President Joe Biden claimed he would use military pressure to return migrants deported under Trump.
Hunter Biden, son of former US President Joe Biden, has said he would threaten El Salvador with military action to force the return of foreign nationals deported there during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Speaking in an interview published on Monday with YouTuber Andrew Callaghan, Biden criticized Trump-era immigration policies and urged Democrats to adopt a more aggressive approach, even in the face of anti-immigrant sentiment among American voters.
”[If I were president] I would pick up the phone and call the fcking president of El Salvador and say, ‘You either fcking send them back or I’m going to fcking invade.’ It's a fcking crime what they're doing,” Hunter Biden said.
He referred to both Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele as “dictator thugs,” and described the high-security prison in Tecoluca – a centerpiece of El Salvador’s anti-gang crackdown – as a “concentration camp” where “if you’re not dead, you would want to be dead.”
The Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies, which include mass deportations of suspected gang members, have sparked controversy and led to multiple protests against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Critics say many deportees were denied due process, while Trump supporters maintain the measures were necessary to protect the public.
Over the course of a three-hour interview, Biden praised his father’s legacy while condemning Democratic officials who suggested the party should soften its immigration stance following Trump’s return to the White House in 2024.
”All these Democrats say, you have to talk about and realize that people are really upset about illegal immigration? F*ck you!” he said, emphasizing the economic contributions of undocumented workers, particularly in low-wage sectors.
Advocacy groups have long noted that fear of retaliation or deportation prevents many undocumented laborers from challenging exploitation and contributes to suppressed wages across the US economy.
https://www.rt.com/news/621803-hunter-biden-salvador-migrants/
Five civilians killed in Ukrainian attacks on buses – officials
22 Jul, 2025 13:32
At least five civilians have been killed and several others injured in a series of Ukrainian drone strikes on vehicles in Russia’s Kherson Region over the past 24 hours, according to regional officials.
On Monday, Kherson Region Governor Vladimir Saldo said three civilians were killed when a Ukrainian drone struck a private bus in the Golopristansky district in the region’s south.
He added that three more civilians were “gravely injured” and were taken to a local hospital.
In another incident in the same district, Saldo said an artillery shell hit a passenger car, injuring two civilians, who were also hospitalized.
Two more civilians were wounded in the town of Nova Kakhovka to the north of Golopristansky district, in what Saldo described as a “terrorist attack” that struck another civilian vehicle.
Separately, the city administration of Nova Kakhovka said a minibus was damaged in a Ukrainian drone strike, with two people dying at the scene.
Another victim of the strike was hospitalized, officials said, releasing a picture of a badly damaged vehicle, with a blurred body lying on the ground nearby.
Russian officials have repeatedly accused Ukrainian forces of attacking civilian targets in frontline areas.
In February, officials in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region reported that a school bus was attacked by a Ukrainian drone, injuring the driver and five children.
In November, local authorities said four people were killed and 17 injured when a Ukrainian artillery strike hit a passenger bus in Kherson Region.
https://www.rt.com/russia/621819-five-civilians-killed-ukraine-drone/
https://t.me/SALDO_VGA/8591