TYB
Crew Begins Week Configuring Advanced Physics, Space Tech Demo Hardware
September 29, 2025
Science hardware was the focus on Monday as the Expedition 73 crew configured foam and material physics research gear and installed a space technology demonstration.
Meanwhile, blood circulation studies and cargo operations rounded out the day aboard the International Space Station.
NASA Flight Engineers Mike Fincke and Jonny Kim kicked off their day in the Columbus laboratory module gathering hardware, swapping power cables, and installing foam coarsening samples inside the Fluid Science Laboratory.
The investigation may advance applications for Earth and space industries such as food, medicine, firefighting, and more.
Fincke then moved into the Tranquility module and installed the Voyager Flytrap tech demo inside the NanoRacks Bishop airlock.
Flytrap will test an inflatable capture bag that could be used to capture orbital debris or sample containers returning from Moon and Mars missions.
Flytrap may also promote space mining techniques on small asteroids. The bag will demonstrate its ability to deploy, inflate, and secure space objects while remaining airtight in microgravity.
Kim then took over the NanoRacks airlock operations with NASA Flight Engineer Zena Cardman and configured Bishop for the upcoming Flytrap experiment.
Afterward, Cardman closed Bishop’s hatch and depressurized the airlock. Earlier in her shift, Cardman checked out the seating configuration inside the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft as part of standard emergency preparations.
JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui began his shift in the Kibo laboratory module configuring cables and swapping sample hardware inside the Electrostatic Levitation Furnace.
The experimental research device uses lasers to safely heat materials to ultra-high temperatures as sensors and cameras measure thermophysical properties difficult to obtain in Earth’s gravity.
Yui then moved to the Harmony module and installed a power supply for a spacecraft humidity removal investigation then continued unpacking science and supplies packed in the Cygnus XL cargo craft.
Station Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Alexey Zubritsky took turns on Monday wearing specialized cuffs measuring how blood circulates through a cosmonaut’s arm, wrist, and fingers for a Roscosmos circulatory system investigation.
Ryzhikov also inspected docking module hatch seals and cleaned vent fans. Zubritsky joined Roscosmos Flight Engineer Oleg Platonov and installed a docking mechanism on the Poisk module where the Progress 92 resupply ship is docked.
Platonov later took a fitness test on the Zvezda service module’s treadmill then worked on ventilation system maintenance in the Nauka science module.
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2025/09/29/crew-begins-week-configuring-advanced-physics-space-tech-demo-hardware/
Senators try to halt shuttle move, saying “little evidence” of public demand"
Sep 29, 2025 9:36 AM
A former NASA astronaut turned US senator has joined with other lawmakers to insist that his two rides to space remain on display in the Smithsonian.
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) has joined fellow Democratic senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both of Virginia, and Dick Durbin of Illinois in an effort to halt the move of space shuttle Discovery to Houston, as enacted into law earlier this year.
Kelly flew two of his four missions aboard Discovery.
"Why should hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars be spent just to jeopardize a piece of American history that's already protected and on display?" wrote Kelly in a social media post on Friday.
"Space Shuttle Discovery belongs at the Smithsonian, where millions of people, including students and veterans, go to see it for free."
In a letter sent on the same day to the leadership of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Kelly and his three colleagues cautioned that any effort to transfer the winged orbiter would "waste taxpayer dollars, risk permanent damage to the shuttle, and mean fewer visitors would be able to visit it."
"It is worth noting that there is little evidence of broad public demand for such a move," wrote Kelly, Warner, Kaine, and Durbin.
“Inefficient and unjustifiable”
In the letter, the senators asked that committee chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and vice chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) block funding for Discovery's relocation in both the fiscal year 2026 Interior-Environment appropriations bill and FY26 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill.
The letter is the latest response to a campaign begun by Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, both Republicans from Texas, to remove Discovery from its 13-year home at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, and put it on display at Space Center Houston, the visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas.
Cornyn and Cruz claim that the decision to place Discovery at the Smithsonian was a snub to Houston, which is home to NASA's current astronauts, Mission Control, and the primary training site for NASA's space shuttle program.
"Houston's disappointment in not being selected is wholly understandable," the four senators wrote, "but removing an item from the National Collection is not a viable solution."
In July, Cornyn and Cruz successfully added language to the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" championed by President Donald Trump, which enabled acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy to then identify Discovery for relocation.
The provision also called for $85 million to be made available to transport and display the shuttle in Houston.
"There are also profound financial challenges associated with this transfer," wrote Kelly. Warner, Kaine, and Durbin.
"The Smithsonian estimates that transporting Discovery from Virginia to Houston could cost more than $50 million, with another $325 million needed for planning, exhibit reconstruction, and new facilities."
"Dedicating hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to move an artifact that is already housed, displayed, and preserved in a world-class facility is both inefficient and unjustifiable," the senators wrote.
Risks and rewards
Then there are the logistical challenges with relocating Discovery, which could result in damaging it, "permanently diminishing its historical and cultural value for future generations."
"Moving Discovery by barge or road would be far more complex [than previous shuttle moves], exposing it to saltwater, weather, and collision risks across a journey several times longer," the letter reads.
"As a one-of-a-kind artifact that has already endured the stresses of spaceflight, Discovery is uniquely vulnerable to these hazards. The heat tiles that enabled repeated shuttle missions become more fragile with age, and they are irreplaceable."
Kelly, who previously lived in Houston when he was part of the space program, agrees that the city is central to NASA's human spaceflight efforts, but, along with Warner, Kaine, and Durbin, points out that displaying Discovery would come with another cost: an admission fee, limiting public access to the shuttle.
"The Smithsonian is unique among museums for providing visitors with access to a national treasure meant to inspire the American public without placing economic barriers," wrote the senators.
Under the terms of the act, NASA has until January 4, 2027, (18 months after the bill's enactment) to transfer Discovery to Space Center Houston.
For its part, the Smithsonian says that it owns the title to Discovery and, as the institution is not part of the federal government, the orbiter is no longer the government's to move.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/09/senators-to-appropriators-leave-space-shuttle-discovery-in-smithsonian/
Hubble Surveys Cloudy Cluster
Sep 29, 2025
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image released on Sept. 12, 2025, features a cloudy starscape from an impressive star cluster.
This scene is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy situated about 160,000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa.
With a mass equal to 10–20% of the mass of the Milky Way, the Large Magellanic Cloud is the largest of the dozens of small galaxies that orbit our galaxy.
The Large Magellanic Cloud is home to several massive stellar nurseries where gas clouds, like those strewn across this image, coalesce into new stars.
Today’s image depicts a portion of the galaxy’s second-largest star-forming region, which is called N11. (The most massive and prolific star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Tarantula Nebula, is a frequent target for Hubble.)
We see bright, young stars lighting up the gas clouds and sculpting clumps of dust with powerful ultraviolet radiation.
This image marries observations made roughly 20 years apart, a testament to Hubble’s longevity.
The first set of observations, which were carried out in 2002–2003, capitalized on the exquisite sensitivity and resolution of the then-newly-installed Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Astronomers turned Hubble toward the N11 star cluster to do something that had never been done before at the time: catalog all the stars in a young cluster with masses between 10% of the Sun’s mass and 100 times the Sun’s mass.
The second set of observations came from Hubble’s newest camera, the Wide Field Camera 3.
These images focused on the dusty clouds that permeate the cluster, providing us with a new perspective on cosmic dust.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/hubble-surveys-cloudy-cluster/
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4668-4674: Winding Our Way Along
Sep 29, 2025
Earth planning date: Friday, Sept. 26, 2025
We are continuing through the boxwork region, taking a twisty-turny path along the ridges (many of which are conveniently Curiosity-sized).
One thing we’re keeping an eye out for is our next drill location in one of the hollows. Our most recent drive put us right in the middle of two such hollows, which we’ve named “Laguna Escondida,” and “Laguna Socompa.”
As we’re keeping an eye out for a good spot to drill though, we’re still using our normal suite of instruments to continue our investigation of the boxwork structures.
This week, we’ve had six contact science targets along the tops of the ridges, which have given MAHLI and APXS plenty to do.
ChemCam and Mastcam have also been keeping busy, with several LIBS measurements from ChemCam and mosaics from both, of targets near and far.
We’re not only interested in imaging the hollows to scope out our next drill site but also in continuing to investigate the structure of the ridges, and look further afield at the more distant boxwork structures and buttes around us.
On Monday, I was on shift as the science theme lead for the environmental science theme group (ENV). We’re coming up to the end of the cloudy season in just over a week.
As a result, we’ve been making the most of the clouds while they’re still here with our suite of cloud movies — the shorter suprahorizon and zenith movies, which we use to look at clouds’ properties directly overhead and just over the horizon; a survey to see how the brightness of the sky and clouds change with direction, which consists of nine cloud movies all around the rover; and the cloud altitude observation, which uses shadows cast by clouds to, as its name suggests, infer the height of the clouds.
Once the cloudy season is over the number of water-ice clouds we see above Gale crater decreases dramatically, so we shelve the two longer observations for another year and just use the zenith and suprahorizon movies to monitor cloud activity.
The end of the cloudy season does bring about the start of the dusty season though, where more dust gets lifted into the atmosphere and the lovely view of the crater rim that we’ve been enjoying gets a bit hazier.
We monitor this with our regular line-of-sight and tau observations. We also tend to see more dust-lifting activity, like dust devils, which we keep an eye on with 360-degree surveys and dedicated movies.
With the ever-changing atmosphere, there’s always something for ENV to do.
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/curiosity-blog-sols-4668-4674-winding-our-way-along/
U.S. Army’s aviation research and development hub transfers function
September 29, 2025
For more than six decades, the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center has spearheaded the next generation of U.S. Army missile and aviation technology.
The Center’s Design, Simulation & Experimentation, or DSE, division, co-located at NASA Ames Research Center on Moffett Field, California; NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia; and Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia; leads the Army mission to understand, develop and mature rotorcraft technologies for the Warfighter.
On April 30, 2025, the U.S. Army launched its Army Transformation Initiative, in which Secretary of the Army Hon. Daniel Driscoll and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George mandated that the U.S. Army “must transform now to a leaner, more lethal force by infusing technology, cutting obsolete systems and reducing overhead to defeat any adversary on an ever-changing battlefield.”
As part of this historic reorganization reaching the highest echelons of the U.S. Army, DEVCOM AvMC will transfer its Moffett Field function to Redstone Arsenal, AL, and JBLE, effective June 2026.
“The Center is working closely with DSE to ensure a smooth transition among the 45 employees affected, and no positions will be eliminated,” said Dr. James Kirsch, Director for DEVCOM AvMC.
"This transition of function to the hub of Army Aviation at Redstone will provide unparalleled synergy as we transform aviation capabilities for the future.”
In 1964, the U.S. Army Materiel Command assigned the U.S. Army Aviation Command its first aviation and surface materiel research and development center in Fort Eustis to be known as the U.S. Army Aviation Materiel Laboratories.
Later that year, the new U.S. Army Aeronautical Research Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center opened on Moffett Field.
Moffett offered the U.S. Army two pivotal assets: NASA’s Vertical Motion Simulator facility, built for research into vertical takeoff and landing and the U.S. Air Force’s National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex, the world’s largest aerodynamics test facility.
Most recently, as part of its work for the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft program, DSE completed the initial portion of the sixth simulation in the Advanced Rotorcraft Configurations Testing of Increased Capabilities series on VMS, where a configuration-agnostic version of Mission Adaptive Autonomy with DEVCOM AvMC’s generic tiltrotor model was integrated and tested to inform sensor and pilot-vehicle interface requirements for autonomous high-speed low-level flight.
“Just as the team led development of much of the transformational capabilities in FLRAA, they will play a pivotal role in expanding the Army’s capabilities in the uncrewed aircraft space,” Kirsch said.
“We will focus our investments to complement and expand on industry investments in reliable, affordable and attritable heterogenous teams of uncrewed aircraft for those dirty and dangerous missions for which they are well suited.”
While the Center will continue to use NASA Ames and Langley’s test facilities, this reorganization opens opportunities for partnerships with other governmental test and evaluation capabilities including those at the U.S. Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Complex, located 74 miles north of Redstone Arsenal.
Additionally, Huntsville is home to the second largest research park in the United States and fourth largest in the world, with its Cummings Research Park boasting a mixture of Fortune 500 companies, technology enterprises and the University of Alabama in Huntsville, whose engineering pedigree includes the Rotorcraft Systems Engineering & Simulation Center.
Alabama remains the home of Army Aviation and co-locating DSE will only strengthen the knowledge base and collaboration between its stakeholders.
https://www.army.mil/article/288794/u_s_armys_aviation_research_and_development_hub_transfers_function
devcom.army.mil/
7,000-Kilometer Gravity Anomaly Detected By NASA Over The Atlantic. It Came With A "Geomagnetic Jerk"
September 30, 2025
Researchers looking through data from NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR)'s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) have found an odd gravity anomaly over the Atlantic Ocean.
Attempting to find the cause of the anomaly, the team found it may be associated with a "geomagnetic jerk" detected around the world.
There is still plenty to learn about the Earth's geomagnetic field, the magnetic field that extends from our planet's core and into space, creating the magnetosphere.
One puzzle is the so-called "geomagnetic jerks" that have been detected by observatories, sometimes planet-wide.
"The main part of the geomagnetic field originates in the Earth's outer core and varies on secular time scales.
Geomagnetic jerks are abrupt changes in the trend of this secular variation, i.e., jumps in the second derivative of the main field recorded at magnetic observatories," a paper on the topic explains, adding, "several jerks are known to have occurred in the 20th and 21[st] centuries, the most recent ones in 1991, 1999 and 2003."
In 2007, as that paper delved into, a large and "abrupt change" was detected, a "jerk signal" out of line with seasonal variations.
So far, so weird. Now what about the gravity anomaly? NASA's GRACE is made up of two satellites orbiting the Earth in tandem, and constantly measuring the distance between the two.
When one of them passes over an area of higher mass (for ease, picture a mountain range or a giant reservoir), this speeds up the leading satellite slightly due to gravity.
When it passes over an area of lower mass, the leading satellite slows slightly, allowing scientists to build up a gravitational map of the Earth below.
Gravitational anomalies are the somewhat dramatic name we give to the phenomenon when the measured gravity strength differs from what we expect, given what we know of the mass distribution of the Earth below.
These are discovered fairly regularly, but can still be pretty puzzling. At the Puerto Rico Trench, gravity has been found to be -380 milliGal, making it the biggest negative gravity anomaly on Earth.
Another in the Indian Ocean is where gravity has been found to be lowest compared to what was expected.
Looking through data from GRACE, a team led by geophysicist Charlotte Gaugne Gouranton from Paris Cité University in France found a large anomaly over the Atlantic Ocean, beginning in 2006 and ending in 2008.
Spanning around 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles), the team found that there was a steep gravity gradient, with an area of strong gravity next to an area of weak gravity.
At first, the team attempted to explain the anomaly by modeling the shifting of water and groundwater below that, but soon hit a wall.
"By analyzing time series of GRACE-derived gravity gradients, we have identified an anomalous large-scale gravity gradient signal in the eastern Atlantic ocean, maximum at the beginning of 2007, which cannot be fully explained by surface water sources nor core fluid flows," the team explains in their paper.
The team suggests the cause of the anomaly likely took place at the core-mantle boundary (CMB), where enormous pressure and heat caused the mineral bridgmanite, the most abundant mineral on Earth, to undergo a phase transition, altering its crystalline structure and density.
"We propose that rapid mass redistributions at great depths may result from temporal changes in the depth of the perovskite (Pv) to post-perovskite (pPv) phase transition of the main lower mantle mineral bridgmanite, in the presence of heterogeneities in the deep upwellings of the African LLSVP," the team explains in their paper.
"This leads us to suggest that at least part of this signal could reflect rapid mass redistributions deep in the mantle."
"Because the depth of the Pv-pPv transition is thermally dependent, it may vary temporally as thermal heterogeneities are entrained in the upwelling and downwelling limbs of the convecting mantle," they add.
"When a vertically moving heterogeneity has reached the transition depth corresponding to its temperature, the transformation should take place and create a mass anomaly due to the ~100kg m-3 density difference between the two phases."
The team suggests that this mass redistribution within the mantle could be the cause of the geomagnetic kick seen by observatories around the world, though this remains to be shown and thoroughly investigated.
"How the obtained changes in CMB topography may influence core flow dynamics and the geomagnetic field is now to be investigated," the team concludes, "as well as the existence of other such rapid events in the deep mantle during the GRACE(-FO) observation period and their modeling."
https://www.iflscience.com/7000-kilometer-gravity-anomaly-detected-by-nasa-over-the-atlantic-it-came-with-a-geomagnetic-jerk-80987
Space Weather May Trigger Heart Attacks in Women
Sep 30, 2025 at 11:10 AM EDT
Solar storms—giant bursts of energy from the Sun that disturb the Earth’s magnetic field—may play a role in triggering heart attacks, particularly in women, a new study has found.
Researchers led from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) analyzed hospital records from São José dos Campos, Brazil, between 1998 and 2005—a period marked by high solar activity.
Specifically, the team compared 1,340 heart attack cases (reported among 871 men and 469 women) with data on variations in the strength of Earth’s magnetic field, as measured using the so-called Planetary Index (Kp-Index).
“We classified the days analyzed as calm, moderate, or disturbed. And the health data were divided by sex and age group [up to 30 years old; between 31 and 60; over 60 years old].
It’s worth noting that the number of heart attacks among men is almost twice as high – regardless of geomagnetic conditions.
"But when we look at the relative frequency rate of cases, we find that for women, it’s significantly higher during disturbed geomagnetic conditions compared to calm conditions.
In the 31-60 age group, it’s up to three times higher," said paper author and INPE researcher Luiz Felipe Campos de Rezende in a statement.
"Therefore, our results suggest that women are more susceptible to geomagnetic conditions," Rezende added.
Since the late 1970s, studies in the Northern Hemisphere have hinted that these solar particles might also affect human health, particularly the heart.
Possible explanations include changes in blood pressure, heart rate and even circadian rhythms (the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle). Still, scientists stress that this connection is far from proven.
First of Its Kind in Brazil
“This is the first study on the subject conducted in our latitudes, but it isn’t conclusive. Therefore, the intention isn’t to cause alarm among the population, particularly among women," Rezende said.
There are some limitations to consider: this is an observational study conducted in a single city, using a sample size that isn’t yet ideal for medical questions.
"However, we believe that these findings represent an empirical result of hypothetical significance and relevance that shouldn’t be disregarded in the scientific context.”
The findings also suggest women might be more vulnerable to geomagnetic disturbances than men—something that hasn’t been widely documented before.
“We didn’t find any significant publications on this subject in the literature. It’s a question for future studies,” Rezende added.
Looking Ahead
The Sun operates on roughly 11-year cycles of high and low activity. The current cycle reached its “solar maximum” in late 2024 and early 2025, meaning solar storms are more likely over the next year.
INPE and other space agencies monitor these disturbances, but predicting exactly when they’ll hit remains difficult.
“Scientists around the world have been trying to predict the occurrence of geomagnetic disturbances, but the accuracy, for now, isn’t good.
When this type of service is more advanced – and if the impact of magnetic disturbances on the heart is confirmed – we’ll be able to consider prevention strategies from a public health perspective, especially for individuals who already suffer from heart problems,” Rezende said.
https://www.newsweek.com/space-weather-may-trigger-heart-attacks-women-10803023
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43856-025-00887-7
kek
Whistleblowers Say NASA Is Poised to Kill an Astronaut==
Sep 30, 2025 10:13 AM EDT
NASA whistleblowers claim that President Donald Trump’s drastic changes to the space agency are imperiling safety to such a degree that insiders have become “very concerned that we’re going to see an astronaut death within a few years.”
That’s according to a blockbuster report from the US Senate. “I see safety issues around us all the time,” one whistleblower lamented in it.
The chilling warning comes as a new culture of fear and silence has descended on NASA after Trump officials instituted dramatic staff reductions, along with alleged unilateral budget cuts and the gagging of an important program that allows people to air safety and performance issues without fear of reprisals, according to the report released by Democrats on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
If they want to keep their jobs, NASA workers now know they have to “keep their heads down” if they have any concerns, according to the report.
Though NASA has a robust culture of safety, tragedy has occasionally struck.
Three astronauts were killed during training for the Apollo 1 Moon mission in 1967, seven crew members perished in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, and seven more died when Space Shuttle Columbia was destroyed in 2003.
Those deaths hang heavy over the agency, so seeing the shredding of NASA’s workplace safety is rattling.
The allegations also come at the same time as draconian funding cuts proposed by Trump that would see NASA’s 2026 budget go from $24.8 billion to just $18.8 billion, a decrease of 24 percent.
Congress hasn’t approved these numbers yet, and members have already signaled they want to keep the same funding level for NASA’s 2026 budget.
But Trump officials have usurped Congress’ constitutional authority, according to the report, and have been pressuring NASA to enact the cuts without lawmakers’ approval.
“The Constitution is clear: The executive branch cannot unilaterally impose a president’s desired budget that has not been approved by Congress,” the report states.
These budget reductions — scattershot and with no sense of strategy, according to the report — is also poised to wear away NASA’s science and tech edge just as China is gearing up to overtake America in the realm of space exploration.
The report also found that leaders at NASA have been warned to get on board with the cuts or else; Trump officials are also accused of pushing the cuts and other directives under a cloak of secrecy and with very little communication, fostering fears among staff that any complaints on any issue will be met with silence or they will lose their jobs or position.
The whistleblowers are also concerned that the agency’s Ombuds Program, an independent body meant to resolve safety and other work issues, has been quieted, according to the report, adding to a growing sense of demoralization at the agency.
The program, started in the wake of the Columbia tragedy, was meant to prevent further disasters. Heaven forbid something like that ever happens again — but whistleblowers think it may only be a matter of time.
“No one is coming to save us,” one whistleblower is quoted saying in the report.
https://futurism.com/space/nasa-whistleblowers-budget-astronaut
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/B1CC17F2-50CE-4C0B-89C9-B713FE76E146
NASA's deep-space laser comms demo has left the chat
Tue 30 Sep 2025 // 12:12 UTC
NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) demonstration has completed its final pass, although there is a chance the system might be reactivated in the second half of 2026.
Carried aboard NASA's Psyche mission, DSOC demonstrated how data encoded in lasers could be reliably transmitted, received, and decoded.
On September 2, the final communications pass was made from a distance of 2.34 AU (Astronomical Unit [PDF]) or just under 350 million km (218 million miles).
12.4 Mbps was achieved, although the project's technologist, Abi Biswas, told The Register that this was amid partially cloudy skies. At 2.28 AU, Biswas said 20.8 Mbps was achieved with clear skies.
The goal of DSOC was to demonstrate a method of communication using considerably more bandwidth than traditional radio waves.
Engineers have successfully demonstrated high-bandwidth communication using lasers in Earth and lunar orbit, but by traveling aboard Psyche, which is headed toward a metal-rich asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, DSOC took things further in a very real sense.
The technology worked as advertised or better. At 19 million miles (30 million km) from Earth, DSOC achieved 267 Mbps. At 386 million kilometers (240 million miles), it achieved a sustained downlink data rate of 6.25 Mbps, peaking at 8.3 Mbps.
In comparison, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) can manage [PDF] around 0.5 Mbps at a maximum distance from Earth (250 million miles, or 400 million km), rising to between 3 and 4 Mbps when it is closest (60 million miles, or about 96.5 million km).
DSOC is not the primary method of communication for the Psyche spacecraft, but Biswas told us "the demonstrator is interfaced to Psyche for streaming data, albeit a modest data rate, or 'forward, store and hold' in DSOC memory for 'bursting' down at higher rates."
Biswas added that redundancy in Psyche's communication systems made the need for this "highly unlikely."
As for a chance of resuming the demonstration, Biswas was cautious: "There is no currently approved plan for reactivation though conversations with the sponsor on the subject continue. Minimally, DSOC hardware will be powered on for a short time to monitor instrument status.
"If sponsors can work out funding the earliest opportunities for a few more link demonstrations will be in late summer [or] early fall of 2026 after Psyche completes the Mars flyby in late May 2026."
Biswas also told us discussions are ongoing about using the technology in future missions – engineers and scientists would be delighted with the extra data such a method would provide – but said there were no plans as yet.
DSOC works by using a laser transceiver mounted on the Psyche spacecraft. An uplink laser at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Table Mountain facility transmits a laser beacon to Psyche, helping the transceiver point the optical communications at the correct location on Earth.
The primary downlink station is a 200-inch (5.1-meter) telescope at Caltech's Palomar Observatory in San Diego County.
We asked Biswas how the demonstration had gone: "There were numerous good surprises related to pointing performance resulting in exceedance of predicted performance. There were no bad surprises, as such."
https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/30/nasa_dsoc_demo/
Honda unit to provide fuel cell system to U.S. space firm for lunar testing
Sep 30, 2025 - 12:17
TOKYO - American Honda Motor Co. has agreed to provide its regenerative fuel cell system to U.S. space firm Astrobotic Technology Inc. for lunar testing, as the companies seek to support a prolonged human presence on the Moon, they said Monday.
Under the agreement, Honda's system, designed to produce oxygen, hydrogen and electricity using solar energy and water, will be integrated into Astrobotic's solar-powered system, in the hope of continuously providing power during the long lunar nights.
Honda's fuel cell system can store solar power as hydrogen during lunar daylight and convert it to electricity during the lunar night, the period of darkness that lasts about 14 Earth days. The only byproduct of the fuel cell is water, which can be reused, they said.
Bobby Rolley, Astrobotic's lunar power systems architect, said the partnership is a "major move" toward its vision of enabling "survival through the harsh lunar night and extending mission durations from days to years."
Derek Adelman, chief engineer at American Honda Motor's Space Development Division, said the collaboration "marks a pivotal step toward creating scalable power solutions for long-term lunar surface missions."
Astrobotic, established in 2007 and headquartered in Pittsburgh, has been contracted for two lunar missions and is involved in the development of space exploration and related technologies, including rockets and their engines.
Honda Motor Co., which makes hydrogen-powered vehicles, established the Space Development Division at the American unit in late 2024 to promote technological development and enhance collaboration with the U.S. space industry.
https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/61886
UK Space Agency goes global with 23 new projects
30 September 2025
This is the second round of projects from the successful International Bilateral Fund (IBF), representing a £6.5 million boost for UK companies and universities collaborating internationally on space innovation with partners in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, Lithuania, and the USA.
From autonomous 3D printing and lunar agriculture to orbital threat detection, biotech manufacturing, medical research and deep space radar, these collaborations span life sciences, communications, in-orbit servicing, Earth observation and advanced materials.
They showcase the breadth of expertise across the UK’s vibrant space sector, which employs more than 55,000 people and generates £18.6 billion in annual revenue.
Space Minister Liz Lloyd said:
This £6.5 million boost shows Britain leading the way in space innovation.
From improving mobile coverage to monitoring Earth’s forests, these 23 projects will create jobs, strengthen partnerships with our allies, and keep the UK at the cutting edge of space technology.
It’s an exciting time for our space sector and great news for British businesses reaching for the stars.
The space funding boost, announced during the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Sydney, demonstrates the UK’s commitment to international partnerships and a wide range of areas where the space sector can contribute to economic growth.
As set out in the Government’s Industrial Strategy, the UK Space Agency is increasing bilateral research & development funding with international allies.
The IBF is a critical mechanism for this, providing targeted support for UK-led international collaborations and building capabilities and partnerships across the global space sector.
Today’s announcement follows the agreement between NASA and the UK Space Agency to develop AI models to support future exploration missions, under the Transatlantic Tech Prosperity Deal, as well as the successful launch of the NASA IMAP mission on 23 September, for which UK scientists contributed a key instrument.
Dr Paul Bate, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, said:
These new projects span the full spectrum of UK space expertise, from telecommunications, propulsion and environmental monitoring to cutting-edge technologies that could change how we develop treatments for deadly diseases using microgravity.
By combining home-grown talent with global expertise, we want to strengthen our capabilities, support growth, and ensure the UK remains at the forefront of space innovation.
This announcement comes at a pivotal moment in the evolution of the UK Space Agency, ahead of its integration into the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) from 1 April 2026.
The merger will create a single civil space unit, streamlining strategy, policy, and delivery, building on recent achievements and ensuring the government supports the UK space sector effectively.
UKspace Executive Director, Colin Baldwin, said:
The UK Space Agency’s International Bilateral Fund is going from strength to strength, providing a stimulus for the UK’s space sector to forge new partnerships with organisations around the globe, covering such a broad range of space interests.
We are pleased to see so many of UKspace’s members and partners involved in the selected projects, enabling them to bring their world-class expertise to these exciting collaborations.
Kevin Craven, CEO of ADS, representing businesses in aerospace, defence, security and space, said:
Advancements in space technology make our world smaller, our society more innovative and our lives more prosperous. We are delighted to see the IBF enabling international partnerships to that end.
ADS has worked extensively to champion the UK’s thriving space sector in key strategic markets such as Japan and Lithuania. We look forward to working in close collaboration with government to build on this important work further.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-space-agency-goes-global-with-23-new-projects
Mystery toxic ‘space capsule’ crash lands in farm as bomb squad deployed
Tuesday 30 September 2025 09:04 ED
A mysterious “toxic” space capsule crashed down to earth and landed in a farm in rural Argentina, leaving locals bewildered.
The large cylinder, some 1.7 metres long and covered in feathery black strands of fibre, was found in a field in Puerto Tirol late on Thursday.
A bomb squad was called to the scene after farmer Ramón Ricardo González reported the unusual discovery to police.
Chaco Police chief Fernando Romero told NG Federal that the box was “made of carbon fibre and is very toxic”, adding that the tank was filled with hydrazine, which is primarily used as a rocket fuel.
Responding authorities found the box, apparently scratched and scorched from re-entry, inscribed with a serial number, according to Argentinian outlet Novedades del Sur.
Police enlisted the help of Ruben Lianza, director of Argentina’s Aerospace Research Centre (CIAE), who helped identify the tank and warned it could release toxic dust if touched, Diario Chaco reports.
Photos circulating in local media showed officials on the scene wearing ventilators and protective gear.
Experts said the capsule was likely a lightweight fuel tank known as a ‘composite overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV)’, according to Metro.
Nasa uses such vessels to “contain high-pressure fluids in propulsion”, as well as for science experiments and life support applications.
Police cordoned off the scene in Puerto Tirol and warned residents that more fragments could yet fall from the sky at the advice of the Air Force.
A specialist team was expected to carry out the removal on Friday.
There has been no official confirmation as to whether the capsule is indeed space debris.
Metro cited reports noting the field was beneath the known flight path of a Jielong 3 rocket launched from a sea vessel off the coast of China on Wednesday.
Several residents saw the device fall from the sky before alerting police at around 6:15pm on Thursday, September 25, Radio Rafaela reports.
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/space-capsule-crash-argentina-b2836332.html
https://radiorafaela.com.ar/interes-general/misterio-cayo-un-objeto-metalico-del-cielo-y-genero-alerta-entre-los-vecinos-de-puerto-tirol
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Gaia/Gaia_discovers_our_galaxy_s_great_wave
https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202451668
Gaia discovers our galaxy’s great wave
30/09/2025
Our Milky Way galaxy never sits still: it rotates and wobbles. And now, data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope reveal that our galaxy also has a giant wave rippling outwards from its centre.
We’ve known for about a hundred years that the galaxy’s stars rotate around its centre, and Gaia has measured their speeds and motions.
Since the 1950s, we've known that the Milky Way's disc is warped. Then in 2020 Gaia discovered that this disc wobbles over time, similarly to the motion of a spinning top.
And now it has become clear that a great wave stirs the motion of stars in our galaxy over distances of tens of thousands of light-years from the Sun.
Like a rock thrown into a pond, making waves ripple outwards, this galactic wave of stars spans a large portion of the Milky Way’s outer disc.
The unexpected galactic ripple is illustrated in this figure above. Here the positions of thousands of bright stars are shown in red and blue, overlaid on Gaia’s maps of the Milky Way.
In the left image, we look at our galaxy from ‘above’. On the right, we see across a vertical slice of the galaxy and look at the wave side-on. This perspective reveals that the ‘left’ side of the galaxy curves upward and the ‘right’ side curves downward (this is the warp of the disc).
The newly discovered wave is indicated in red and blue: in red areas, the stars lie above, and in blue areas the stars lie below the warped disc of the galaxy.
Even if no spacecraft can travel beyond our galaxy, Gaia’s uniquely accurate vision – in all three spatial directions (3D) plus three velocities (moving towards and away from us, and across the sky) – is enabling scientists to make these top-down and edge-on maps.
From these, we can see that the wave stretches over a huge portion of the galactic disc, affecting stars around at least 30–65 thousand light-years away from the centre of the galaxy (for comparison, the Milky Way is around 100 thousand light-years across).
“What makes this even more compelling is our ability, thanks to Gaia, to also measure the motions of stars within the galactic disc,” says Eloisa Poggio who is an astronomer at the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) in Italy, and led the team of scientists that discovered the wave.
“The intriguing part is not only the visual appearance of the wave structure in 3D space, but also its wave-like behaviour when we analyse the motions of the stars within it.”
The motions of the stars are made visible with the white arrows in the edge-on image of the Milky Way above.
What can be noticed, is that the wave pattern of the vertical motions (represented by the arrows) is slightly shifted horizontally relative to the wave pattern formed by the star's vertical positions (indicated by the red/blue colours).
“This observed behaviour is consistent with what we would expect from a wave,” Eloisa explains.
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Think of a ‘wave’ performed by a crowd in a stadium. Given that galactic timescales are much longer than ours, imagine seeing this stadium wave frozen in time, much like how we observe the Milky Way.
Some individuals would be standing upright, some would have just sat down (as the wave passed), and others would be preparing to stand up (as the wave approaches them).
In this analogy, the people standing upright correspond to the regions coloured in red in our face-on and edge-on maps.
And, if we consider motions, the individuals with the largest positive vertical motions (represented by the largest white arrows pointing upwards) are those who are just starting to stand up, ahead of the incoming wave.
Eloisa and her colleagues were able to track down this surprising motion by studying the detailed positions and movements of young giant stars and Cepheid stars.
These are types of stars that vary in brightness in a predicable way, which can be seen by telescopes like Gaia over large distances.
Because young giant stars and Cepheids move with the wave, the scientists think that gas in the disc might also be taking part in this large-scale ripple.
It is possible that young stars retain the memory of the wave information from the gas itself, from which they were born.
Scientists do not know the origin of these galactic shakes. A past collision with a dwarf galaxy could be a possible explanation, but they need to investigate further.
The great wave could also be related to a smaller-scale rippling motion seen 500 light-years from the Sun and extending over 9000 light-years, the so-called Radcliffe Wave.
“However, the Radcliffe Wave is a much smaller filament, and located in a different portion of the galaxy’s disc compared to the wave studied in our work (much closer to the Sun than the great wave).
The two waves may or may not be related. That’s why we would like to do more research,” Eloisa adds. “The upcoming fourth data release from Gaia will include even better positions and motions for Milky Way stars, including variable stars like Cepheids.
This will help scientists to make even better maps, and thereby advance our understanding of these characteristic features in our home galaxy,” says Johannes Sahlmann, ESA’s Gaia Project Scientist.
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The Rubin Observatory's upcoming images may stack up to space telescope ones. Here's how
September 29, 2025
A new algorithm capable of transforming ground-based telescope images by removing the blurring effect of the atmosphere to produce as perfect an image as possible has successfully completed tests on the eight-meter Subaru Telescope on Hawaii's Mauna Kea.
The next step is to apply it to images from the Vera C Rubin Observatory when it begins science operations later this year.
The revolutionary algorithm was developed by Johns Hopkins mathematician Yashil Sukurdeep.
"We dubbed our algorithm 'Image MM' because, at its core, it relies on the Majorization–Minimization, or MM, method — an elegant mathematical technique that we've adapted in a new way for exploring the cosmos," Sukurdeep said in a statement.
Ground-based telescopes have always been at a disadvantage compared to space-based observatories such as the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes because light has to pass through Earth's atmosphere to reach them.
The atmosphere distorts light as the result of tiny but ever-present fluctuations in temperature, pressure, the amount of airborne dust and so on. These distortions, which astronomers refer to as "seeing," are what make stars seem to twinkle.
Astronomers are therefore constantly on a quest to improve their ground-based images and get them as close as possible to a telescope's theoretical maximum resolution, known as the Dawes limit.
Adaptive optics are one popular technique, which involves shining a laser into the sky to create an artificial guide star and then performing minute adjustments to the shape of the telescope's optics to match the distortions in the guide star and counteract the effects of the seeing.
"Astronomers already have very sophisticated tools to analyze imaging data from telescopes, but they don't remove all the noise, don't remove all the blur and they don’t deal very well with missing pixel values," said Sukurdeep.
"Our framework can recover a near-perfect image from a series of imperfect observations."
ImageMM works by modeling how light from objects in the night sky travels through the distorting atmosphere, and then applying this model to images.
"Think of the atmosphere as a restless sheer curtain, constantly shifting and shimmering, so the scene behind it always looks blurred," said Sukurdeep. "Our algorithm learns to see past that curtain, reconstructing the still, sharp image hidden behind it."
So far, the ImageMM algorithm has been tested on the Subaru telescope, returning images sharper and more detailed than what was previously possible with the Japanese-owned observatory.
Now the intention is to use it on images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, particularly because one of Rubin's science objectives is to map the distribution of dark matter in the universe by measuring how the mass of the dark matter subtly warps space, causing the images of galaxies to be weakly gravitationally lensed and therefore appear slightly deformed.
The effect of weak gravitational lensing is not as dramatic as the strong lensing that produces wonderful arcs of light stretching around galaxy clusters and multiple images of background galaxies, which means careful observations must be taken in order to detect weak lensing.
ImageMM can sharpen Rubin's already impressive images of galaxies, making measurements of weak lensing more accurate.
"When it comes to billion-dollar ground-based observatories, gaining even just a small degree of depth and quality improvement from these observations can be huge," said Tamás Budavári of Johns Hopkins University.
Although space telescopes will still produce better images, they tend to have narrow fields of view, whereas Rubin has a much wider field of view of 3.5 degrees, or about the angular diameter of seven full moons.
Therefore, using ImageMM to sharpen Rubin's images will give it a huge advantage even if the quality of Hubble's and James Webb's images are greater overall.
"We'll never have ground truth, but we think this is as close as it currently gets to perfect [for ground-based telescopes]," said Sukurdeep.
https://www.space.com/astronomy/the-rubin-observatorys-upcoming-images-may-stack-up-to-space-telescope-ones-heres-how
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/adfb72
Deadly meteor fragments rain down on Earth in 1st 'Greenland 2: Migration' trailer
September 30, 2025
Starring leading man Gerard Butler as John Garrity, the head of his fractured family trying to survive a comet strike on Mother Earth, 2020's "Greenland" was a totally enjoyable asteroid-based disaster flick that had the unfortunate luck of being released by STX Entertainment during an actual global pandemic and stateside theater shutdown.
Directed by Ric Roman Waugh off a brilliant screenplay by Chris Sparling, "Greenland's" solid cast features Morena Baccarin as Garrity's separated wife, and Roger Dale Floyd as their diabetic son.
Despite the ongoing international crisis that year, the film still managed to eke out $52 million off a modest $35 million budget, and now a new trailer for its sequel, "Greenland 2: Migration" has hit.
This harrowing follow-up is slated for a January 9, 2026, release from Lionsgate and STX Entertainment.
Waugh is back as director in a storyline that takes place five years after the initial devastating meteor impact as our survivors attempt to vacate their Greenland bunker amid continued bombardment by meteor fragments.
As seen in this thrilling first look trailer, the Garrity tribe embarks on a dangerous trek across the ocean towards a hopeful sanctuary location that's ironically inside a massive ancient crater in southern France.
But the trip is going to be an extreme test of fortitude, fate, and faith, evidenced by Lionsgate's preview revealing obstacles including a hellish radiation storm, monster waves, meteors pummeling the Earth, and lethal bands of desperate survivors prowling the continent.
The cast also includes Amber Rose Revah, Sophie Thompson, Trond Fausa Aurvag, and William Abadie.
This intense-looking sci-fi sequel penned by Chris Sparling and Mitchell LaFortune is produced by Anton, STX Entertainment, Thunder Road Pictures, and G-base Entertainment.
"Greenland 2: Migration" officially arrives on Jan. 9, 2026. The original "Greenland" is available to stream on HBO Max.
https://www.space.com/entertainment/space-movies-shows/deadly-meteor-fragments-rain-down-on-earth-in-1st-greenland-2-migration-trailer-video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ieN10lX40