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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
July 25, 2025
Twelve Years of Kappa Cygnids
Meteors from the Kappa Cygnid meteor shower are captured in this time-lapse composite skyscape. The minor meteor shower, with a radiant not far from its eponymous star Kappa Cygni, peaks in mid-August, almost at the same time as the much better-known and better-observed Perseid meteor shower. But, seen to have a peak rate of only about 3 meteors per hour, Kappa Cygnids are vastly outnumbered by the more popular, prolific Perseid shower's meteors that emanate from the heroic constellation Perseus. To capture dozens of Kappa Cygnids, this long term astro-imaging project compiled meteors in exposures selected from over 51 August nights during the years 2012 through 2024. Most of the exposures with identified Kappa Cygnid meteors were made in August 2021, a high point of the shower's known 7-year activity cycle. All twelve years worth of Kappa Cygnids are registered against a base sea and night skyscape of the Milky Way above Elafonisi Beach, Crete, Greece, also recorded in August of 2021.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Robotics, Exercise Studies Improving Space Missions as Crew Swap Nears
July 24, 2025
Thursday’s research aboard the International Space Station explored ways to control robots on a planetary surface and how microgravity affects exercise and digestion.
The Expedition 73 crew is also in the middle of its preparations to welcome a new crew then split up.
Human exploration of the solar system may include commanding robots on asteroids, the lunar surface, and Mars from an orbiting spacecraft.
NASA Flight Engineer Jonny Kim tested space-to-ground robotic controlling methods on a laptop computer such as consoles, touchscreens, haptics, and virtual reality goggles in coordination with engineers in Earth.
Results may provide safer methods of planetary exploration besides labor-intensive spacewalks and inform operations in disaster zones or inhospitable areas on Earth.
Living and working in weightlessness long-term requires daily workouts to maintain muscle and bone health ensuring crews stay fit and healthy.
Aerobic and cardiovascular conditioning in microgravity are also important especially for more strenuous tasks such as spacewalks and the return to Earth’s gravity after months or even years.
Station Commander Takuya Onishi of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and NASA Flight Engineer Nichole Ayers took turns pedaling on the Destiny laboratory module’s exercise cycle for just one of many exercise investigations on the orbital outpost.
They wore electrodes and breathing gear measuring their heart and breathing rate as researchers on the ground monitored in real time.
Results will help doctors track an astronaut’s health and develop improved space workout programs.
NASA Flight Engineer Anne McClain worked out on the advanced resistive exercise device, that mimics free weights on Earth and is in the Tranquility module, while wearing the sensor-packed Bio-Monitor headband and vest.
The biomedical device is designed to comfortably monitor and collect a crew member’s heath data as they go about their daily activities.
Afterward, she removed the wearable devices and downloaded her blood pressure data for review by specialists on the ground.
At the end of their shift, McClain, Ayers, and Onishi joined Roscosmos Flight Engineer Kirill Peskov and called down to flight controllers at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California, for a conference.
The quartet coordinated with controllers from both SpaceX and NASA preparing to end a five-month stay in space and return to Earth next month inside the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft.
The four NASA SpaceX Crew-10 crewmates also practiced Earth reentry techniques on computer tablets and have already begun packing personal items and cargo inside Dragon for the ride home.
They will gather at 10:40 a.m. EDT on Friday for a news conference and discuss their upcoming departure live on YouTube.
Waiting on Earth to replace Crew-10 is NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission with Commander Zena Cardman and Pilot Mike Fincke, both from NASA, and Mission Specialists Kimiya Yui of JAXA and Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos.
The Commercial Crew quartet is due to depart NASA’s Johnson Space Center on Saturday and arrive at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to begin their countdown to a launch inside Dragon atop the Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than 12:09 p.m. EDT on Thursday, July 31.
Flight Engineers Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky joined each other for stomach scans with an ultrasound device after their breakfast on Thursday.
The cosmonauts were exploring how microgravity affects the digestion system to understand potential space-caused biochemical changes.
The duo then split up as Ryzhikov tested electrical cables in the Nauka science module and Zubritsky photographed Earth landmarks in multiple wavelengths.
Peskov prepared computer hardware for a software update to add remote control functionality to the European robotic arm.
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2025/07/24/robotics-exercise-studies-improving-space-missions-as-crew-swap-nears/
NASA Sets Coverage for Agency’s SpaceX Crew-11 Launch, Docking
Jul 24, 2025
NASA will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station.
Liftoff is targeted for 12:09 p.m. EDT, Thursday, July 31, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The targeted docking time is approximately 3 a.m., Saturday, Aug. 2.
Watch agency launch coverage on NASA+, Netflix, Amazon Prime and more. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will carry NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov to the orbiting laboratory for a science mission.
This is the 11th crew rotation mission and the 12th human spaceflight mission for NASA to the space station supported by the Dragon spacecraft since 2020 as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
The deadline for media accreditation for in person coverage of this launch has passed. The agency’s media credentialing policy is available online. For questions about media accreditation, please email: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov.
Media who need access to NASA live video feeds may subscribe to the agency’s media resources distribution list to receive daily updates and links.
NASA’s mission coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):
cont.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-sets-coverage-for-agencys-spacex-crew-11-launch-docking/
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2aBZuCeDwlSoxUrYsYWZr6NBTTKGir8U
First Rocket Launch from Cape Canaveral
Jul 24, 2025
The Bumper V-2 launches from Cape Canaveral in this July 24, 1950, photo.
In the 75 years since this milestone, this facility has seen thousands of rockets take to the skies, destined for Earth orbit, the Moon, planets, and even beyond.
From Cape Canaveral and from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida nearby, astronauts launched on the first pioneering crewed missions, headed for Moon landings, and helped to build the International Space Station.
NASA Kennedy, a premier multi-user spaceport with about 100 private-sector partners and nearly 250 partnership agreements, is still the agency’s main launch site.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission, part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, will launch from NASA Kennedy no earlier than 12:09 p.m. EDT, Thursday, July 31.
The Crew-11 mission members – NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov – are in crew quarantine before their voyage to the orbital laboratory.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/first-rocket-launch-from-cape-canaveral/
NASA Welcomes Senegal as Newest Artemis Accords Signatory
Jul 24, 2025
Senegal signed the Artemis Accords Thursday during a ceremony hosted by NASA at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, becoming the latest nation to commit to the responsible exploration of space for all humanity.
“Following a meeting between Senegal President Faye and President Trump, today, NASA built upon the strong relations between our two nations as the Senegalese Agency for Space Studies signed the Artemis Accords,” said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy.
“With Senegal as the 56th signatory, I am proud to further President Trump’s strong legacy of global cooperation in space.”
Director General of the Senegalese space agency (ASES) Maram Kairé signed the Artemis Accords on behalf of Senegal.
Jonathan Pratt, senior bureau official for African Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, and Abdoul Wahab Haidara, ambassador of Senegal to the United States, also participated in the event.
“Senegal’s adherence to the Artemis Accords reflects our commitment to a multilateral, responsible, and transparent approach to space,” said Kairé.
“This signature marks a meaningful step in our space diplomacy and in our ambition to contribute to the peaceful exploration of outer space.”
The Artemis Accords signing ceremony took place two weeks after President Trump’s meeting in Washington with Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and other countries of Africa focused on U.S.-Africa engagement.
Astronomers from Senegal have supported NASA missions by participating in multiple observations when asteroids or planets pass in front of stars, casting shadows on Earth.
In 2021, NASA also collaborated with Kairé and a group of astronomers for a ground observation campaign in Senegal.
As the asteroid Orus passed in front of a star, they positioned telescopes along the path of the asteroid’s shadow to estimate its shape and size.
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will approach Orus in 2028, as part of its mission to explore Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.
In 2020, during the first Trump Administration, the United States, led by NASA and the U.S. Department of State, joined with seven other founding nations to establish the Artemis Accords, responding to the growing interest in lunar activities by both governments and private companies.
The accords introduced the first set of practical principles aimed at enhancing the safety, transparency, and coordination of civil space exploration on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
Signing the Artemis Accords means to explore peaceably and transparently, to render aid to those in need, to ensure unrestricted access to scientific data that all of humanity can learn from, to ensure activities do not interfere with those of others, to preserve historically significant sites and artifacts, and to develop best practices for how to conduct space exploration activities for the benefit of all.
More countries are expected to sign the Artemis Accords in the months and years ahead, as NASA continues its work to establish a safe, peaceful, and prosperous future in space.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-welcomes-senegal-as-newest-artemis-accords-signatory/
https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-accords/
Hubble Spies Swirling Spiral
Jul 25, 2025
The swirling spiral galaxy in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is NGC 3285B, which resides 137 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra (the Water Snake).
Hydra has the largest area of the 88 constellations that cover the entire sky in a celestial patchwork. It’s also the longest constellation, stretching 100 degrees across the sky.
It would take nearly 200 full Moons, placed side by side, to reach from one side of the constellation to the other.
NGC 3285B is a member of the Hydra I cluster, one of the largest galaxy clusters in the nearby universe. Galaxy clusters are collections of hundreds to thousands of galaxies bound to one another by gravity.
The Hydra I cluster is anchored by two giant elliptical galaxies at its center. Each of these galaxies is about 150,000 light-years across, making them about 50% larger than our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
NGC 3285B sits on the outskirts of its home cluster, far from the massive galaxies at the center. This galaxy drew Hubble’s attention because it hosted a Type Ia supernova in 2023.
Type Ia supernovae happen when a type of condensed stellar core called a white dwarf detonates, igniting a sudden burst of nuclear fusion that briefly shines about 5 billion times brighter than the Sun.
The supernova, named SN 2023xqm, is visible here as a blueish dot on the left edge of the galaxy’s disk.
Hubble observed NGC 3285B as part of an observing program that targeted 100 Type Ia supernovae.
By viewing each of these supernovae in ultraviolet, optical, and near-infrared light, researchers aim to disentangle the effects of distance and dust, both of which can make a supernova appear redder than it actually is.
This program will help refine cosmic distance measurements that rely on observations of Type Ia supernovae.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-spies-swirling-spiral/
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 Pre-Departure News Conference
July 25, 2025
Live 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 host a news conference on NASA's SpaceX Crew-10 mission before their upcoming return to Earth.
Crew-10 contributed to hundreds of scientific experiments, including testing hardware for producing pharmaceuticals in space, investigating how cells sense gravity, and examining the effects of microgravity on 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 short 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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0S5pyINVfc
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/nasas-spacex-crew-10/
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/nasas-spacex-crew-11/
https://www.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/how-nasa-is-testing-ai-to-make-earth-observing-satellites-smarter/
How NASA Is Testing AI to Make Earth-Observing Satellites Smarter
Jul 24, 2025
A technology called Dynamic Targeting could enable spacecraft to decide, autonomously and within seconds, where to best make science observations from orbit.
In a recent test, NASA showed how artificial intelligence-based technology could help orbiting spacecraft provide more targeted and valuable science data.
The technology enabled an Earth-observing satellite for the first time to look ahead along its orbital path, rapidly process and analyze imagery with onboard AI, and determine where to point an instrument.
The whole process took less than 90 seconds, without any human involvement.
Called Dynamic Targeting, the concept has been in development for more than a decade at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The first of a series of flight tests occurred aboard a commercial satellite in mid-July.
The goal: to show the potential of Dynamic Targeting to enable orbiters to improve ground imaging by avoiding clouds and also to autonomously hunt for specific, short-lived phenomena like wildfires, volcanic eruptions, and rare storms.
“The idea is to make the spacecraft act more like a human: Instead of just seeing data, it’s thinking about what the data shows and how to respond,” says Steve Chien, a technical fellow in AI at JPL and principal investigator for the Dynamic Targeting project.
“When a human sees a picture of trees burning, they understand it may indicate a forest fire, not just a collection of red and orange pixels.
We’re trying to make the spacecraft have the ability to say, ‘That’s a fire,’ and then focus its sensors on the fire.”
Avoiding Clouds for Better Science
This first flight test for Dynamic Targeting wasn’t hunting specific phenomena like fires — that will come later. Instead, the point was avoiding an omnipresent phenomenon: clouds.
Most science instruments on orbiting spacecraft look down at whatever is beneath them. However, for Earth-observing satellites with optical sensors, clouds can get in the way as much as two-thirds of the time, blocking views of the surface.
To overcome this, Dynamic Targeting looks 300 miles (500 kilometers) ahead and has the ability to distinguish between clouds and clear sky.
If the scene is clear, the spacecraft images the surface when passing overhead. If it’s cloudy, the spacecraft cancels the imaging activity to save data storage for another target.
“If you can be smart about what you’re taking pictures of, then you only image the ground and skip the clouds.
That way, you’re not storing, processing, and downloading all this imagery researchers really can’t use,” said Ben Smith of JPL, an associate with NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office, which funds the Dynamic Targeting work.
“This technology will help scientists get a much higher proportion of usable data.”
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How Dynamic Targeting Works
The testing is taking place on CogniSAT-6, a briefcase-size CubeSat that launched in March 2024.
The satellite — designed, built, and operated by Open Cosmos — hosts a payload designed and developed by Ubotica featuring a commercially available AI processor.
While working with Ubotica in 2022, Chien’s team conducted tests aboard the International Space Station running algorithms similar to those in Dynamic Targeting on the same type of processor.
The results showed the combination could work for space-based remote sensing.
Since CogniSAT-6 lacks an imager dedicated to looking ahead, the spacecraft tilts forward 40 to 50 degrees to point its optical sensor, a camera that sees both visible and near-infrared light.
Once look-ahead imagery has been acquired, Dynamic Targeting’s advanced algorithm, trained to identify clouds, analyzes it.
Based on that analysis, the Dynamic Targeting planning software determines where to point the sensor for cloud-free views.
Meanwhile, the satellite tilts back toward nadir (looking directly below the spacecraft) and snaps the planned imagery, capturing only the ground.
This all takes place in 60 to 90 seconds, depending on the original look-ahead angle, as the spacecraft speeds in low Earth orbit at nearly 17,000 mph (7.5 kilometers per second).
What’s Next
With the cloud-avoidance capability now proven, the next test will be hunting for storms and severe weather — essentially targeting clouds instead of avoiding them.
Another test will be to search for thermal anomalies like wildfires and volcanic eruptions. The JPL team developed unique algorithms for each application.
“This initial deployment of Dynamic Targeting is a hugely important step,” Chien said. “The end goal is operational use on a science mission, making for a very agile instrument taking novel measurements.”
There are multiple visions for how that could happen — possibly even on spacecraft exploring the solar system.
In fact, Chien and his JPL colleagues drew some inspiration for their Dynamic Targeting work from another project they had also worked on: using data from ESA’s (the European Space Agency’s) Rosetta orbiter to demonstrate the feasibility of autonomously detecting and imaging plumes emitted by comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
On Earth, adapting Dynamic Targeting for use with radar could allow scientists to study dangerous extreme winter weather events called deep convective ice storms, which are too rare and short-lived to closely observe with existing technologies.
Specialized algorithms would identify these dense storm formations with a satellite’s look-ahead instrument.
Then a powerful, focused radar would pivot to keep the ice clouds in view, “staring” at them as the spacecraft speeds by overhead and gathers a bounty of data over six to eight minutes.
Some ideas involve using Dynamic Targeting on multiple spacecraft: The results of onboard image analysis from a leading satellite could be rapidly communicated to a trailing satellite, which could be tasked with targeting specific phenomena.
The data could even be fed to a constellation of dozens of orbiting spacecraft. Chien is leading a test of that concept, called Federated Autonomous MEasurement, beginning later this year.
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NASA Just Snapped A Rare Solar Eclipse From Space — See The Photos
Jul 25, 2025, 07:01am EDT
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has captured the moon eclipsing the sun in an event only observable from its position in space.
At the height of the event on Friday, July 25, around 62% of the sun was covered by the moon. The SDO, which is solar-powered, coped with the drop in sunlight by having its batteries fully charged before the eclipse occurred.
Key Facts
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The SDO sees several eclipses — or lunar transits — each year. This one was a deep partial eclipse, which lasted about 35 minutes. The SDO studies the sun's atmosphere in various wavelengths of light.
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The spacecraft is in a geosynchronous orbit around Earth, matching Earth’s rotation, and positioned 22,238 miles (35,789 kilometers) above a ground station in White Sands, New Mexico.
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SDO has an almost constant but slightly different view of the sun than we do from Earth’s surface, but there are times when its orbit passes behind the Earth, causing an eclipse from its point of view.
On July 25, SDO passed passed behind both the moon and the Earth on the same day, accotSDO.
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The next solar eclipse visible from Earth will be a partial solar eclipse on Sept. 21, when up to 80% of the sun will be blocked by the moon as seen from New Zealand, Tasmania in Australia, the Indian Ocean, and Antarctica.
Observers will need to wear solar eclipse glasses at all times, and all cameras and telescopes will need solar filters.
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The next total solar eclipse visible from Earth will occur on Aug. 12, 2026, for parts of Greenland, western Iceland, and northern Spain. The maximum totality will be 2 minutes and 18 seconds off Iceland.
Europe’s ‘fake’ Total Solar Eclipses In Space
The European Space Agency's Proba-3 mission — the world’s first precision formation flying mission — last month captured the first images of an artificial total solar eclipse from space.
Proba-3 is a pair of satellites that fly in formation with millimeter precision, with one blocking the sun with an occulter disk and casting a shadow on a telescope on the satellite behind it.
That allows it to image the sun’s corona — the sun's outer, hotter but more tenuous atmosphere — which is only visible during a total solar eclipse.
Although SDO can also see the corona, Proba-3 can see much farther into it, revealing what's going on close to the Sun's photosphere.
That's important because it's there that the solar wind, solar flares and coronal mass ejections are produced. Proba-3 can produce a total solar eclipse lasting six hours once every 19.6-hour orbit.
Apollo 11’s Solar Eclipse In Space
Exactly 56 years ago this week, the crew of NASA's Apollo 11 mission — the first to put astronauts on the moon — saw a total solar eclipse.
On Jul. 19, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins photographed a total solar eclipse on their way to the moon.
Aldrin had seen a total solar eclipse from space before, on Nov. 11, 1966, during the Gemini 12 mission with Jim Lovell.
The crew of Apollo 12 — Pete Conrad, Alan Bean and Dick Gordon — also saw a total solar eclipse from space on Nov. 24, 1969.
When Is The Next Total Solar Eclipse In North America?
The next total solar eclipse in the contiguous U.S. will occur on Aug. 22, 2044.
The path of totality will begin in Greenland, travel through Canada’s Northwest Territories (with maximum totality close to Great Bear Lake, at 2 minutes and 4 seconds) and finish with an eclipsed sunset from Montana, South Dakota and North Dakota.
Another total solar eclipse will occur across the U.S. a lunar year later, on Aug 10, 2045.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2025/07/25/nasa-just-snapped-a-rare-solar-eclipse-from-space—see-the-photos/
Controversial ‘arsenic life’ paper retracted after 15 years — but authors fight back
24 July 2025
A controversial paper1 claiming that an extraordinary microorganism can thrive on the toxic element arsenic has been retracted by the journal Science, nearly 15 years after its original publication.
Some scientists are celebrating the move, but the paper’s authors disagree with it — saying that they stand by their data and that a retraction is not merited.
In Science’s retraction statement, editor-in-chief Holden Thorp says that the journal did not retract the paper when critics published take-downs of the work because, back then, it mostly reserved retractions for cases of misconduct, and “there was no deliberate fraud or misconduct on the part of the authors” of the arsenic-life paper.
But since then, Science’s criteria for retracting papers have expanded, he writes, and “if the editors determine that a paper’s reported experiments do not support its key conclusions”, as is the case for this paper, a retraction is now appropriate.
“It’s good that it’s done,” says microbiologist Rosie Redfield, who was a prominent critic of the study after its publication in 2010 and who is now retired from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
“Pretty much everybody knows that the work was mistaken, but it’s still important to prevent newcomers to the literature from being confused.”
By contrast, one of the paper’s authors, Ariel Anbar, a geochemist at Arizona State University in Tempe, says that there are no mistakes in the paper’s data.
He says that the data could be interpreted in a number of ways, but “you don’t retract because of a dispute about data interpretation”.
If that’s the standard you were to apply, he says, “you’d have to retract half the literature”.
Arsenic and old lakes
The original ‘arsenic life’ study was released by Science on 2 December 2010 — and quickly raised eyebrows.
Living things rely on a host of common elements, including carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur, to build biomolecules such as DNA, proteins and lipids.
For example, phosphorus — found mostly as the phosphate ion, PO43− — is essential to the structure of DNA and RNA and to the function of the energy-transporter molecule ATP.
The authors of the Science paper postulated that there might be organisms on Earth that don’t need all these elements.
They sampled the arsenic-rich sediment of California’s Mono Lake and found a member of the Halomonadaceae family of bacteria that, they concluded after multiple types of analysis, could use that normally toxic element in the place of phosphorus.
After the paper was published, chemists and biologists took aim at it in journal submissions and on social media.
Chemists said that if arsenic were incorporated into DNA’s backbone, the bonds would be so unstable that they would fall apart in water in less than a second2.
Microbiologists, including Redfield, pointed out flaws in the work, such as that the bacterium’s growth medium contained enough phosphate contamination that, despite the team’s effort to prove that the organism could live on arsenic, it was probably still phosphate-dependent.
“There were very, very powerful reasons to think that the result must be wrong,” Redfield says.
In May 2011, Science published eight technical comments, one of them from Redfield, criticizing the paper3–10, alongside a response from the authors rebutting the comments11.
The next year, the journal published two studies12,13, including one from Redfield’s laboratory, attempting — and failing — to reproduce the results using bacterial samples from the arsenic-life team.
But Science did not retract the paper. Until now.
Poisoned chalice?
In February this year, The New York Times published a story about Felisa Wolfe-Simon, the lead author of the study, which was released while she was a NASA astrobiology research fellow based at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California.
The story reported that Wolfe-Simon, after having her career derailed by the negative attention she received over the paper, has received short-term funding to pursue new research. It brought the controversy back into the light.
Thorp told Nature: “We reached a point where the inquiries [about whether we’d retract the paper] continued, and we decided it was better to come up with a resolution that would, at least from our perspective, be the last word on this.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02325-z
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu5488
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/science/arseniclife-felisa-wolfe-simon-retraction.html
We could totally use it, Mr Prez
Thales Alenia Space and Italian Space Agency to develop first human outpost on the moon
25 Jul 2025 10:31PM
Aerospace group Thales Alenia Space (TAS) and Italian Space Agency ASI said on Friday they have signed a contract to develop the first human lunar outpost, an important step in the NASA-led Artemis moon exploration programme.
The Artemis project views the lunar surface as a testing ground for later missions to Mars. It has grown into a multi-nation effort involving dozens of private companies - among them Elon Musk's SpaceX - at the forefront of an emerging global space race.
TAS - a joint venture between French aerospace company Thales and Italy's Leonardo - said the so-called Multi-Purpose Habitation module, a crucial element for a future permanent human presence on the moon, will launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in 2033.
"The future lunar module is part of a long-term investment vision that Italy has implemented, enabling (the country) to play an increasingly leading role in the new space race," ASI President Teodoro Valente said in a statement.
The module will deliver "a secure, comfortable and multifunctional habitat module for astronauts, fully compatible with other systems and components", the statement added.
Even when a human crew is not present, the module will be able to conduct scientific research experiments and have the capability to move on the moon's surface.
It will be designed for a minimum lifespan of 10 years, with the first development phase focusing on technologies that will be subjected to the moon's harsh environmental conditions, high radiation levels, reduced gravity and pervasive dust.
Under the two-year agreement, TAS will be the prime contractor, working with aerospace logistics and technology group ALTEC, which it owns with ASI, as well as other Italian industries.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/thales-alenia-space-and-italian-space-agency-develop-first-human-outpost-moon-5258926
https://www.thalesaleniaspace.com/en/press-releases/thales-alenia-space-signs-contract-italian-space-agency-asi-develop-first-human
India must triple its satellites, build space station by 2035: Isro chief
Updated : Jul 25 2025 | 4:55 PM IST
India needs to nearly triple its satellite fleet in orbit over the next three years, Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) Chairman V Narayanan said on Friday while delivering the GP Birla Memorial Lecture on Indian Space Programme – Accomplishments, Challenges and Future Perspectives.
During his address, as reported by PTI, Narayanan said the current count of 55 satellites would need to rise sharply to meet national needs.
"The requirement is huge. The demand is so much that we have to build satellites. We are working towards that," he said.
Narayanan laid out an ambitious vision for India’s space future, projecting that the country would be on par with global space powers by 2040 in terms of technology, application capabilities, and infrastructure.
A key milestone on this trajectory is the construction of India’s first independent space station, with the first module planned for launch in 2028 and the full structure expected to be in orbit by 2035.
12 launch missions in 2025
Isro has lined up 12 launch vehicle missions for 2025, with the most immediate being the highly anticipated launch of the Nasa-Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite.
The $1.5-billion Earth observation satellite is scheduled to lift off aboard the GSLV F16 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on July 30.
NISAR, which will be the world’s first dual-frequency radar imaging satellite, will monitor Earth’s land and ice surfaces with centimetre-level precision, regardless of weather or daylight.
With a 12-meter radar antenna and weighing nearly three tonnes, the satellite is expected to transform global understanding of environmental changes, agriculture, and disaster response.
Building India's space economy
India's space sector is undergoing a major transformation, both in terms of scale and orientation.
From being a primarily service-oriented organisation, Isro is now looking to leverage its research through commercial opportunities, following a favourable policy shift.
According to a Ficci-EY report, as earlier reported by Business Standard, India’s space economy is projected to grow more than fivefold to $44 billion by 2033 from $8.4 billion in 2022.
Communication systems, Earth observation, satellite manufacturing, and navigation services are expected to drive this growth.
Moreover, $11 billion in space technology exports are expected by 2033, while $22 billion in investment will be required over the next decade to meet industry goals.
Communication services are projected to grow to $14.8 billion by 2033 from $4.19 billion in 2022, while Earth observation is expected to jump from $520 million to $8 billion in the same period.
Space private sector, startups get a boost
The private sector is also being brought into the fold in a big way.
With over 300 space-tech startups now part of the ecosystem, the government has committed ₹3,500-₹4,000 crore to boost satellite development, alongside a ₹1,000 crore VC corpus to catalyse private investment.
A total of 52 satellites are planned to be put into orbit over the next five years, as India eyes an 8 per cent share of the global space economy.
In all, ₹25,000 crore is expected to flow to the private sector for satellite manufacturing.
https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/isro-india-triple-satellite-orbit-space-station-2035-v-narayanan-125072500980_1.html
Musk out, Bezos in as President Trump remakes space defense
Jul 23, 2025 11:47 AM EDT
In a dramatic reshaping of the U.S. space defense landscape, the Trump administration is pivoting away from Elon Musk's SpaceX and actively courting Jeff Bezos' Amazon (AMZN) -backed Project Kuiper as part of its ambitious Golden Dome missile defense program.
The $175 billion initiative is being designed to create a multi-layered, space-based shield over the United States.
According to sources speaking to Reuters this week, tensions between President Donald Trump and Musk, which culminated in a high-profile fallout in early June, have accelerated efforts by the White House and Pentagon to diversify beyond SpaceX for large portions of the Golden Dome.
The U.S. has leaned heavily on SpaceX's Starlink and Starshield satellite networks for military communications, but concerns of overreliance on a single provider and Musk's political independence have prompted the strategic shift.
Last week, The Wall Street Journal separately reported that Trump aides had initiated a review of SpaceX's contracts with the government, only to find most were vital to their respective programs.
"Each individual launch is going to get bid," a U.S. official stated this week. "We have to actually give bids to other people [besides SpaceX]."
Amazon's Jeff Bezos steps into the Golden Dome spotlight
Project Kuiper, Amazon's $10 billion satellite constellation, has deployed only 78 of its planned 3,000 satellites, but is increasingly viewed as a rising defense asset.
Though Kuiper initially focused on commercial broadband delivery, defense officials have now opened discussions with Amazon to integrate the system into Golden Dome.
Bezos has downplayed the defense angle, stating earlier this year that Kuiper was "primarily commercial." But he acknowledged that "there will be defense uses for these low-earth orbit constellations, no doubt."
The move highlights a broader push by the Trump administration to involve commercial tech players in national security infrastructure matters, reminiscent of Israel's Iron Dome missile defense program but on a much grander, orbital scale.
SpaceX, traditional defense giants still in play for Golden Dome contracts
SpaceX still retains an edge in one crucial area: launch capabilities. The company launched 81 missions in the first half of 2025, putting it on track to meet its goal of 170 launches for the year.
With over 9,000 Starlink satellites launched to date and a dominant market share in reusable rockets, SpaceX is still expected to win a significant portion of Golden Dome launch contracts.
"Federal acquisition regulations require using the best provider at the best price," Musk wrote on X on Monday, in response to the Reuters report. "Anything else would be breaking the law."
https://www.thestreet.com/technology/musk-out-bezos-in-as-president-trump-remakes-space-defense
But competitors are already vying for their spots in the initiative.
Rocket Lab (RKLB) and Stoke Space have been approached to bid on upcoming launches, and the Pentagon is reportedly in discussions with defense heavyweights Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and L3Harris, all of which have long histories supporting the space and missile defense markets.
Politics collide with Pentagon, Space Force deadlines
The rift has reverberated through federal agencies, with senior Pentagon and Space Force officials now tasked with executing a massive realignment under tight deadlines.
Under orders from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, newly confirmed Space Force General Michael Guetlein must build a team in 30 days, deliver a draft system design in 60 days, and present a full implementation plan within 120 days.
Shortly after Reuters reported the story, the Pentagon acknowledged that the Golden Dome's architecture would indeed be finalized "within the next 60 days."
Last year, Congress allocated $13 billion to Space Force to purchase satellite-based communication services, up from only $900 million in 2023.
The drastic increase in funding signals that Washington views the private sector, and especially satellite networks, as key to 21st-century warfare.
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Is Space Command HQ finally coming to Alabama? ‘Things are really looking good,’ Tuberville says
Jul. 25, 2025, 10:40 a.m.
Alabama officials say they are ready to move forward with bringing U.S. Space Command headquarters to Huntsville after President Donald Trump’s recent promise that he’s “working on it.”
“Alabama is the rightful home of Space Command Headquarters,” Gov. Kay Ivey posted on social media Wednesday. “And we’re ready for this to be made official.”
Ivey shared remarks she made in this year’s State of the State address: “You say we are not innovative, and we will rightfully earn Space Command headquarters.”
U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville joined in the conversation, telling Greg Budell of News Talk 93.1 in Montgomery that “things are really looking good” on Tuesday.
“We had to get the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ done to have the $150 billion put into the defense budget, because it’s going to cost a couple of billion dollars to build Space Command,” he said.
“But I’m very confident that in the very near future we’re going to have a good positive announcement from the president, and hopefully he’ll do it in Alabama,” Tuberville continued.
Alabama representatives have been increasingly confident that Trump would move Space Command headquarters after his election but have grown even more sure after a comment from the president at the White House picnic last month.
“I’m moving it to Alabama. We’re working on it,” Trump told U.S. Rep. Dale Strong in a video posted to X.
Strong represents north Alabama’s 5th Congressional District, where the headquarters would be located at Redstone Arsenal.
He said in May that a relocation of Space Command could mean 1,700 direct jobs and an additional 3,000 spinoff jobs in north Alabama.
“So, this is not about just Redstone Arsenal,” Strong said previously. “This is about north Alabama. It shows what our region does.
It shows what our region has already done for this country, and what we’re going to do. That’s why I’m bullish on the future of north Alabama.”
Trump supported the Air Force’s decision to move the headquarters from Colorado Springs, its interim location, to Redstone Arsenal near the end of his first term in 2021.
But President Joe Biden in 2023 reversed that decision, deciding to retain the headquarters at Colorado.
https://www.al.com/news/2025/07/is-space-command-hq-finally-coming-to-alabama-things-are-really-looking-good-tuberville-says.html
https://x.com/GovernorKayIvey/status/1948140333944205587
Russia Blasts New Iran Satellite Into Space
Updated Jul 25, 2025 at 7:21 AM EDT
Russia has launched a new Iranian communications satellite into orbit with one of its Soyuz rockets. It is another symbol of deepening strategic cooperation between Russia and Iran, a point of concern for U.S.-led Western allies.
The rocket lifted off from the Vostochny launchpad in far eastern Russia, carrying two Russian Ionosphere-M Earth observation satellites, along with Iran's Nahid-2 satellite and 17 smaller Russian satellites.
Newsweek has reached out to the foreign ministries of Iran and Russia for comment.
Why It Matters
The launch underscores deepening technological ties between Russia and Iran amid rising Western pressure on both countries.
It also signals Tehran's continued progress in satellite technology, despite longstanding concerns in the West that advances in its civilian space program may enhance its ballistic missile capabilities.
The timing of the launch—just hours before European nations met with Iranian officials to resume nuclear talks—may also be seen as a calculated show of strength.
These negotiations come at a particularly fraught moment, following a 12-day conflict triggered by Israeli attacks on Iranian targets.
What to Know
The Nahid-2 satellite is the latest in a series of Iranian space projects. Iran's state broadcaster described it as a communications satellite entirely designed and manufactured domestically.
It was launched aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome. The 110-kilogram (242-pound) Iranian satellite is supposed to circle the Earth on a 500-kilometer (310-mile) orbit and has a service lifetime of two years.
How Has the West Responded?
Western governments have long raised alarms over Iran's space program, suggesting its technological gains could be repurposed for ballistic missile development.
The dual-use nature of satellite launch vehicles has been cited as a particular area of concern by officials in Washington and Europe.
Earlier this week, Iran tested its own Qased satellite launch rocket, marking a new phase in its space program.
State media described the launch as an effort to assess "emerging new technologies" and improve the performance of future satellite systems.
Nuclear Talks Resume
Today's launch was announced just ahead of new nuclear talks in Istanbul involving Iran and the so-called E3—Britain, France, and Germany.
This marks the first round of discussions since Israeli strikes on Iranian facilities in mid-June escalated into a brief regional conflict. The U.S. entered that conflict in support of Israel, targeting Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
What People Are Saying
Sina Azodi, Assistant Professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs: "Not only is Iran enhancing its capabilities, but it is also sending a loud political message."
What Happens Next
As nuclear negotiations resume and space activity continues, Western powers are likely to scrutinize Iran's aerospace developments even more closely, particularly those involving international cooperation with Russia.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-iran-rocket-satellite-space-2103966
https://www.space.com/science/scientists-just-made-the-1st-antimatter-qubit-heres-why-it-could-be-a-big-deal
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09323-1
Scientists just made the 1st antimatter 'qubit.' Here's why it could be a big deal
July 24, 2025
Physicists at CERN — home of the Large Hadron Collider — have for the first time made a qubit from antimatter, holding an antiproton in a state of quantum superposition for almost a minute.
This landmark achievement has been performed by scientists working as part of the BASE collaboration at CERN. BASE is the Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment, which is designed to measure the magnetic moment of antiprotons – in essence, how strongly they interact with magnetic fields.
However, while qubits are commonly associated with quantum computing, in this case the antiproton qubit will be used to test for differences between ordinary matter and antimatter.
It will specifically help probe the question of why we live in a universe so dominated by ordinary matter when matter and antimatter should have been created in equal quantities during the Big Bang.
They're opposites of one another, right?
A proton and antiproton have the same mass but opposite charges, for example. In physics, the mirror-image properties between matter and antimatter is referred to as charge-parity-time (CPT) symmetry.
CPT symmetry also says that a particle and its antiparticle should experience the laws of physics in the same way, meaning that they should feel gravity or electromagnetism with the same strength, for example (that first one has actually been tested, and indeed an antiprotons falls at the same rate as a proton).
So, theoretically, when the universe came into existence, there should have been a 50-50 chance of antimatter or regular matter particles being created.
But for some reason, that didn't happen. It's very weird. Even the BASE project found that, to a precision of parts per billion, protons and antiprotons do have the same magnetic moment. Alas, more symmetry.
However, the BASE apparatus has enabled physicists to take things one step further.
Antiproton antics
When matter and antimatter come into contact, they annihilate one another in a burst of gamma-ray photons, so BASE has to keep them apart.
To do so, it uses something called Penning traps, which can hold charged particles in position thanks to the careful deployment of electric and magnetic fields.
BASE has two primary Penning traps. One is called the analysis trap, which measures the precession of the magnetic moment around a magnetic field, and the other is the precision trap, which is able to flip the quantum spin of a particle and measure that particle's oscillation in a magnetic field.
Quantum physics tells us that particles are born in a state of superposition. Take, for instance, the property of quantum spin, which is just one example of the weirdness of the quantum universe.
Despite the name, spin does not describe the actual rotation of a particle; rather, it describes a property that mimics the rotation. How do we know that it isn't a real rotation?
If it were, then the properties of quantum spin would mean particles would be spinning many times faster than the speed of light — which is impossible.
So, fundamental particles like electrons, protons and antiprotons have quantum spin values, even if they are not really spinning, and these values can be expressed either as a whole number or a fraction.
The quantum spin of a proton and antiproton can be 1/2 or –1/2, and it is the quantum spin that generates the particle's magnetic moment.
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Because of the magic of quantum superposition, which describes how all the possible quantum states exist synchronously in a particle's quantum wave-function, a proton or antiproton can have a spin of both 1/2 or –1/2 at the same time.
That is, at least until they are measured and the quantum wave-function that describes the quantum state of the particle collapses onto one value.
That's another bit of weirdness of the quantum world — particles have all possible properties at once until they are observed, like Schrödinger's cat being alive and dead at the same time in a box, until someone opens the box.
In fact, any kind of interaction with the outside world causes the wave function to collapse in a process known as decoherence.
Why this happens is a subject of great debate between the various interpretations of quantum physics.
Regardless, by giving an antiproton that is held firmly in the precision trap just the right amount of energy, BASE scientists have been able to hold an antiproton in a state of superposition without decohering for about 50 seconds — a record for antimatter (this has previously been achieved with ordinary matter particles for much longer durations).
In doing so, they formed a qubit out of the antiproton.
Keep the qubits away!
A qubit is a quantum version of a byte used in computer processing. A typical, binary byte can have a value of either 1 or 0.
A qubit can be both 1 and 0 at the same time (or, have a spin of 1/2 and –1/2 at the same time), and a quantum computer using qubits could therefore, in principle, vastly accelerate information processing times.
However, the antiproton qubit is unlikely to find work in quantum computing because ordinary matter can be used for that more easily without the risk of the antimatter annihilating.
Instead, the antiproton qubit could be used to further test for differences between matter and antimatter, and whether CPT symmetry is violated at any stage.
"This represents the first antimatter qubit and opens up the prospect of applying the entire set of coherent spectroscopy methods to single matter and antimatter systems in precision experiments," said BASE spokesperson Stefan Ulmer, of the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Japan, in a statement.
"Most importantly, it will help BASE to perform antiproton moment measurements in future experiments with 10- to 100-fold improved precision."
Currently, BASE's experiments have to take place at CERN, where the antimatter is created in the Large Hadron Collider.
However, the next phase of antimatter research will be BASE-STEP (Symmetry Tests in Experiments with Portable Antiprotons), which is a device that contains a portable Penning trap, allowing researchers to move antiprotons securely away from CERN to laboratories with quieter, purpose-built facilities that can reduce exterior magnetic field fluctuations that might interfere with magnetic moment experiments.
"Once it is fully operational, our new offline precision Penning trap system, which will be supplied with antiprotons transported by BASE-STEP, could allow us to achieve spin coherence times maybe even ten times longer than in current experiments, which will be a game-changer for baryonic antimatter research," said RIKEN's Barbara Latacz, who is the lead author of the new study.
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