dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

Anonymous ID: 002a8a Oct. 3, 2026, 9:42 a.m. No.25101672 🗄️.is 🔗kun

Thanks Bakes

Japan's Hayabusa2 asteroid probe's last working ion engine malfunctions

October 2, 2026

TOKYO (Kyodo) – Japan's Hayabusa2 space probe has suffered a malfunction in the last of its working ion engines, an official of the country's space agency said Friday, adding that it aims to continue the asteroid mission by combining the probe's remaining operational functions.

The problem arose in mid-August, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will assess whether the probe, which is on an extended mission after returning samples from asteroid Ryugu to Earth, will be able to reach its new asteroid target 1998 KY26 in 2031 as planned, the official said.

Each of the probe's four ion engines normally uses its own ion source to eject ions and a neutralizer to emit electrons, with both components needed for one to operate.

JAXA hopes to keep the probe operating through "cross operation" – using the ion source of one engine with the neutralizer of another.

The operations team has tested the method and confirmed that the cross circuit combination works. This is the same method that was applied on the original Hayabusa probe and enabled it to return to Earth despite engine problems.

Launched in December 2014, Hayabusa2 delivered a capsule containing 5.4 grams of samples from asteroid Ryugu to Earth in 2020 before beginning its extended mission using its remaining fuel.

Having been in space for nearly 12 years, signs of deterioration had already been observed in the probe's key equipment, including its engines, when it made a close flyby of asteroid Torifune in July.

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20261002/p2g/00m/0sc/038000c

other space objects

https://www.flightglobal.com/aerospace/2026/10/uae-space-agency-unveils-asteriod-probe/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN_wBYRAtkQ (Dobsonian Power: The Asteroid Cover-Up & LIVE Neptune Watch)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3F3lciFOZU (Ray's Astro: What's Happening to Saturn? | Its 10-Sided Shape Is Facing Earth)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJJU5zucb0s (Sen4K: 15 Minutes of Earth From Space 🌍 | Hurricanes, Typhoons, Moonrise & Stunning 4K Views)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaaFTpvm3xI (John Lenard Walson: #TrumpSpaceAcademy President Donald Trump's Golden Dome)

Station Crew Expands as NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 Prepares to Depart

October 2, 2026 2:14PM

The Expedition 75 crew slept in Friday and spent the rest of the day relaxing following the Oct. 1 arrival of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 mission.

The four new crew members, who arrived after a record-setting 7-hour, 55-minute Dragon spacecraft flight from Florida, bring the number of people living aboard the International Space Station to 11.

NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov will spend the next few days getting used life to in weightlessness and familiarizing themselves with station systems.

On Saturday, Oct. 3, Crew-13 will spend the day unpacking Dragon, transferring standard safety gear into its spacecraft, and discussing emergency roles and responsibilities.

On Sunday, Oct. 4, the departing Crew-12 crew members will officially transfer their mission responsibilities to their new crewmates.

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir also will hand over command of the space station to Roscosmos cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov during a change-of-command and farewell ceremony beginning at 10:20 a.m. EDT.

The crew’s farewell remarks and change-of-command ceremony will stream through a variety of platforms.

Learn where to watch online: https://www.nasa.gov/live

The homebound Crew‑12 crew members have spent the past several days packing cargo, configuring Dragon systems, and testing their pressure suits in preparation for their return.

NASA and SpaceX continue to monitor weather conditions off the California coast, with additional departure weather briefings planned over the weekend.

Weather permitting, Meir, NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev could begin their trip home as early as Monday, Oct. 5.

NASA will share more information and issue an advisory for Crew‑12’s return to Earth following the upcoming weather briefings.

https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2026/10/02/station-crew-expands-as-nasas-spacex-crew-12-prepares-to-depart/

moar

https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/news/selected-historical-asf-datasets-moving-request-only-access

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-astronaut-christina-koch-to-join-nfl-fans-in-philadelphia/

https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/quesst/2026/10/02/nasas-x-59-completes-record-six-flights-in-one-week/

https://science.nasa.gov/earth/natural-disasters/wildfires/nasa-campaign-explores-clouds-spawned-by-wildfires/

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-team-nasa-explore-potential-lunar.html

moar

https://www.collectspace.com/news/news-100326a-milton-windler-apollo-flight-director-obituary.html

https://www.twz.com/air/former-sr-71-engineer-talks-nasas-blackbird-revival-program

https://news.rice.edu/news/2026/rice-researchers-use-nasa-ai-model-improve-hurricane-risk-estimates

https://www.boeing.com/features/2026/09/nasa-boeing-update-starliner-contract-and-set-launch-window-for-next-mission

Team selected for NASA program to explore potential lunar cave

October 2, 2026

NASA has selected a Planetary Science Institute–led proposal to investigate whether a potentially large underground cave extends beyond the opening of a lunar pit.

Such a cave may one day provide a safe haven for astronauts to escape the radiation and extreme temperature swings present at the lunar surface.

Led by PSI associate director and senior scientist Than Putzig, the selected project is the Geophysical Instruments for Marius Lunar pit Investigation, or GIMLI.

PSI is partnering with Honeybee Robotics, which will build much of the equipment and instrumentation for the effort.

The equipment and instrumentation will be carried on a lander and rover provided through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.

The PSI work will be carried out in partnership with the Norwegian Space Agency.

"GIMLI represents the type of ambitious planetary science that PSI was built to pursue," said PSI director and CEO Amanda Hendrix.

"Than and his team are taking a scientific question we've been studying from orbit and have developed a way to investigate it directly on the moon.

We're excited to have PSI leading this effort and to be partnering with NASA and Honeybee Robotics to learn more about the moon and its volcanic past."

Observations from lunar orbit have provided compelling evidence that caves and lava tubes may exist under the moon's surface.

GIMLI's research will focus on the Marius Hills pit (MHP), a large hole in one of the moon's most volcanically diverse regions.

Like other lunar pits, MHP may serve as an opening to these underground spaces, which may have formed during ancient volcanic activity.

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>>25101734

GIMLI will allow scientists to investigate MHP directly from the lunar surface.

"It's long been a desire of mine to reintroduce intentional active-source seismic methods to planetary science, as it has essentially not been done since the Apollo astronauts conducted the first seismic surveys on the moon," shared Putzig.

"Combining that method with ground-penetrating radar and gravity measurements makes it all the more exciting, as these methods together will allow us to get a much better understanding of subsurface properties—including the anticipated detection of a lava tube extending away from the Marius Hills pit."

GIMLI will use tools including ground-penetrating radar, seismic sensors and a gravimeter to look beneath the surface, with cameras providing imagery of the surface and pit walls.

Together, these instruments will search for an underground void extending from MHP and, if one exists, help determine its size.

Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company, is providing project management services and building the instrumentation for the active-source seismic system, gravimeter and cameras.

They will also work to integrate all instruments onto the lander and rover and, together with PSI, will lead their operations on the lunar surface.

Even if GIMLI does not find a cave or lava tube beneath the surface, the results and data could still help answer an important question: How did the pit form?

Measurements of the surrounding subsurface could help answer questions about the origin of MHP, as well as provide a better understanding of the geology and volcanic history around the site.

The GIMLI team will also look beyond the pit itself. The geographic area has a long history of volcanic activity, and MHP walls expose layers of regolith and lava flows that are usually hidden underground.

Studying those layers could reveal how lava traveled on the moon and whether long periods of time separated eruptions.

Lunar pits are of interest for more than the geology preserved in their walls. The interiors of any potential underground spaces could also preserve a history of the volcanic processes that shaped the moon.

"Confirming a substantial lava tube would give us an insight into how volcanism operated on the moon," explained Gareth Morgan, PSI senior scientist and deputy principal investigator on the GIMLI program.

"Lava tubes are a common feature of basaltic volcanism on Earth, so identifying them on the moon means we could use knowledge of such terrestrial caves to better understand lunar history."

Beyond PSI and Honeybee Robotics, the team includes co-investigators from Boise State University, Johns Hopkins University, the Lunar and Planetary Institute and the University of Oslo, with the ground-penetrating radar being provided by the Norwegian Space Agency.

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US space factory platform signs first customer to screen drugs in microgravity

Oct 03, 2026 09:49 AM EST

An automated laboratory designed to study diseases and screen drugs in microgravity has secured a place on a new US orbital manufacturing platform built to return research samples to Earth.

Outpost Technologies on October 2 said that Exobiosphere has become the first announced commercial customer of its Space Factories platform. Under the agreement, Exobiosphere’s Orbital High-Throughput System, or OHTS, will fly aboard Outpost’s CarryAll spacecraft.

The booking comes ahead of Outpost’s planned orbital mission in 2028. The companies aim to combine repeatable access to microgravity with sample return, allowing researchers to analyze their experiments after they reach Earth.

An automated drug laboratory in orbit

Exobiosphere, a space biotechnology company headquartered in Luxembourg, is developing OHTS to support disease modeling, drug screening, and other orbital biology workflows.

The automated laboratory is intended to help researchers investigate diseases and evaluate potential treatments in microgravity.

Under the agreement, OHTS becomes the first customer research and manufacturing module slated to fly on Space Factories. CarryAll vehicles are intended to provide transportation and support the expansion of those activities.

Returning biological samples is a central part of the approach. Researchers need access to those samples for further testing, validation, and development on Earth.

Repeatable return could help Exobiosphere shorten experimental cycles and advance promising findings toward practical applications.

“Microgravity accelerates biology in ways we simply can’t reproduce on Earth, and demand from researchers and pharmaceutical companies to run experiments in orbit already far exceeds the capacity of the International Space Station,” said Kyle Acierno, co-founder and CEO of Exobiosphere.

Shared spacecraft infrastructure

Space Factories combines reusable, free-flying CarryAll spacecraft with standardized containers and shared services. These include power, thermal management, data, and safety interfaces.

The design allows customers to develop their own research or manufacturing modules while using a common spacecraft platform. Outpost says the expensive, complex infrastructure is built once and reused across missions, with the innermost module tailored to each customer.

For Exobiosphere, that customized module is OHTS. The surrounding platform is intended to manage orbital operations, protect products, and support their return.

“That’s exactly what we built Space Factories to serve: Exobiosphere brings the science, and we provide the standardized platform to fly it, operate it, and bring the results home. Their OHTS is a perfect first module,” said Jason Dunn, co-founder and CEO of Outpost.

Bringing research back to Earth

Outpost is developing the CarryAll vehicle family to host payloads in orbit and return cargo ranging from 200 kilograms to 10 metric tons.

The vehicles are designed to accommodate anything from a single experiment module to a larger commercial manufacturing payload. Their planned pressurized, ISS-compatible environment is intended to support sensitive research and technology payloads.

Outpost also plans reusable returns, precision landings, and flexibility in landing destinations, giving customers a potential route from initial experiments to larger manufacturing operations.

The agreement arrives as the International Space Station approaches its planned decommissioning in 2030. As commercial orbital platforms emerge, Outpost is positioning sample and product return as a core service for companies that need both access to space and analysis on Earth.

https://interestingengineering.com/space/microgravity-drug-research-space-factory-platform

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/exobiosphere-to-become-the-first-commercial-customer-of-outposts-new-space-factories-bringing-microgravity-drug-discovery-to-orbit-and-back-302897385.html

moar general space

https://spacenews.com/more-than-600-soldiers-join-armys-new-space-operations-career-field/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260930225456.htm

https://www.space.com/astronomy/galaxies/scientists-connect-cosmic-fingerprints-of-the-universes-first-stars-with-megatron-simulation

https://www.space.com/entertainment/space-movies-shows/the-day-the-earth-stood-still-at-75-a-sci-fi-classic-whose-timeless-themes-still-resonate-today

NASA Spox

@NASASpox

It was a big week in low Earth orbit at @NASA!

🧑‍🚀 Crew-13 reaches the ISS

🛰️ Crew-14 announced

🚀 Starliner prepares to fly again

🌕 Artemis III SLS booster stacking completed

✈️ X-59 hits Mach 1.53

Here’s what’s new in your NASA Minute!

1:49 PM · Oct 2, 2026

https://x.com/NASASpox/status/2106124556205252700

moar

https://x.com/NASAUniverse/status/2106416495991370082

https://x.com/NASAUniverse/status/2106416503767679005

https://x.com/NASA_Marshall/status/2106383770697839064

https://x.com/NASAhistory/status/2106406421248041062

Anil Menon

@astro_anil

2h

A tale of two windows. Here is a look outside from Crew-13’s SpaceX Dragon windows.

One faces port toward Earth and the other starboard toward Earth. Timelapse is sped up.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman

@NASAAdmin

Looking good buddy

8:06 AM · Oct 3, 2026

https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2106400381811179843

moar

https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2106421269193539690

https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2106419124914332079

https://x.com/NASAJohnson/status/2106385547052609915

https://x.com/Space_Station/status/2106111979693756895

United States Space Force

@USSpaceForce

Service members in harm’s way will see special-pay increases.

Effective Oct. 1, Hostile Fire Pay doubled to $450 per month, while Imminent Danger Pay increased to $275 per month.