Nice to see a happy colleague ! Orbital launch next ? :) #NS37

Nice pad lift-off shots of our launch :) 📸ESA - S. Corvaja #VA266 #Ariane6 #CSG #Galileo #ESA

I am still shocked at what I wrote 13 months ago LOL: forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?to...

Notice: planet4589.org is moving to a new server. Things may be rocky until the new address propagates through DNS.

@tskelso.bsky.social Sorry for this sudden question, but why are the predicted TLEs for Starlink Group 6-92 not on the @celestrak.bsky.social website? Thanks.

For those looking for the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation hearing today at 10:00 AM EST (12/3/2025) for NASA ADMIN nominee Jared Issacman: www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/11/chai...

The Chinese Orbital Access Armanda Is Coming - Index Threads for my new (and somewhat old, since 2015) Chinese launchers introductory threads, Coming Soon (TM) this December! (Models of ZQ-3, LM-12A & TL-3 by ASPT/Lekword: ​ bilibili.com/opus/1141643...)

thousands of man hours later, one successful mission to Mars. i'm so unbelievably proud to have worked on this thing. this is my rocket 🩵

A 3-tonne Chinese rocket stage (CZ-3B Y67 stage 3, object 44867) launched in Dec 2019 and abandoned in orbit, made an uncontrolled reentry over eastern Florida at about 1120 UTC Nov 8 and was widely observed.

Spacebook.com consolidates a comprehensive set of space object information and metadata. It draws upon a rich set of space object databases and historical archives, including Space-Track.org, CelesTrak, Jonathan McDowell’s (@planet4589.bsky.social) GCAT, and COMSPOC. (1/4)

Via ABC news, Planet imagery showing the change in the view from space of the White House over the past month

Me: "Samson said that while she doesn't see kinetic ASATs as being particularly useful, "we're seeing the line blurred between satellites conducting Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and those that are doing RPOs" www.space.com/space-explor...

Nice review article in Nature Astronomy celebrating 25 years of the Chandra mission www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is the motion of Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) over a period of 53 minutes. #astrophotography

A satellite image of the launch pad at Chabahar Space Base, Iran, taken by Pleiades NEO on September 24, 2025. @soaratlas.bsky.social soaratlas.com/maps/139324?... @armscontrolwonk.bsky.social may be of interest to you

What Is Happening In Chinese Spaceflight, Quarter 4 2025 Issue - What The......?????

I don’t want to undermine the efforts by Blue Origin, but are we really thinking a company struggling to get their rocket flying a 2nd time for a whole year, which is required to get this *crew* lander (based on one that hasn’t even flown yet) to the Moon, can do that in 4 years?

LMAO Avio Group what even is this conglomeration of an Ariane 6/Vega-C rocket motor & you-know-what-must-not-be-named??? It's actually a pretty useful test config except, uh, that's just mini-Starship on top??? There, you need to re-do your homework...

NASA Marshall director steps down The director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center has abruptly stepped down, becoming the third NASA center director to leave in recent months.

F9/Cygnus NG-23: Northrop Grumman's Cygnus XL cargo ship is closing in on the International Space Station, on track for a day-late capture by the lab's robot arm; the freighter's main engine has been working normally after a software update in the wake of two premature shutdowns Tuesday

During a visit to NASA’s Johnson Space Center last March, I was confronted with an environment of fear, uncertainty and discrimination which struck me as a troubling moral issue that also raises serious safety concerns. Read all about it here: www.thespacereview.com/article/5060/1

It's Copernicus Sentinel-1D! 🛰️ The satellite just arrived in French Guiana last week and will soon start to prepare for liftoff! Sentinel-1D will fly onboard an Ariane 6 rocket. 🤝 @esa.int @ec.europa.eu

Guess what's under there 👀

Hmm @rocketksc.bsky.social maybe you should take this to the Evening News department... x.com/CBSEveningNe...

thought i should post this launch video from a few nights back. as the rocket ascended through the cloud layers it refracted into a rainbow blob, which you can just barely see in the video.

SpaceX agrees to acquire EchoStar's AWS-4 and H-block spectrum licenses for up to $8.5B in cash and up to $8.5B in stock, resolving an FCC inquiry into EchoStar (Bloomberg) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

Nice Ariane 6 Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) shots Source: ArianeGroup on the other site.

Personal announcement: I’m now on a somewhat longer term, if not semi-permanent movement to another side of the planet, so tweets posting time may change accordingly. 🙃

MaiaSpace has completed a six-month burst test campaign that pushed multiple subscale propellant tank prototypes to failure. europeanspaceflight.com/maiaspace-co...

RKK Energia, Russia's prime contractor in human space flight, publicly admits that the company is in dire financial straits, with debt eating its budget, demotivated staff and obsolete processes. Only a miracle left to save it, according to Energia's Director General.

With add-ons like ASTRIS, Ariane 6 will be able to: - deliver payloads on orbits farther from Earth (Moon, Mars, asteroid orbits). - offer more ridesharing missions where several small payloads are launched together, even with different destinations.

Whether you want to go far away or remain close by, we have a rocket for you. 🚀 Ariane 62 can launch 4.5 tonnes into GTO or 10.3 tonnes into LEO. 🚀 Ariane 64 will launch 11.5 tonnes into GTO and 21.6 tonnes into LEO. 🚀 Vega-C can launch 2.3 tonnes to a SSO, 3.3 tonnes to LEO and 2.5 tonnes to PO.

Interesting patches for X-37B OTV-8 USSF-36...

While doing a satellite check in on Relativity Space's Terran R factory in Long Beach, I noticed a ~52 meter long transport trailer behind the building. The trailer is similar to what SpaceX uses to transport Falcon 9's around the Space Coast. Taken 2025-08-12 18:40:10 UTC.

Wild story from rural 🇫🇷France: A 🇨🇳Chinese national, Dong H., formerly with the Chinese Academy of Space Technology, was found to have installed a 5-7m antenna in a garden in a restricted area near Aussaguel Teleport, a radioelectric site near Toulouse that sends signals all over the world. 👉

After the X-37B OTV-7 mission, Boeing updated it's PR video, in that video there is a barely 2 second fragment of OTV-2 processing at Vandenberg after landing, apparently Boeing didn't like the weather and went full Bob Ross and added 'happy little clouds'... source: www.boeing.com/defense/auto...

Status of the construction and development of the Third Launch Pad (TLP) at SDSC-SHAR, including timelines achieved and milestones pending. www.reddit.com/r/ISRO/comme...

This @umbra.space SAR satellite image of Gilmour Space's launch site, captured on 2025-07-30 11:32:24 UTC, shows what appears to be the debris of the Eris rocket after TestFlight1.

Analysis done, it is X-37B vehicle 1 (here compared to vehicle 1 during OTV-6 on the right) To note, also in this OTV-8 image (like the OTV-7 landing image) they have removed and blurred certain details. #OTV8 #X37B

Sooo, it seems X-37B OTV-8 is coming up August 21st, on a Falcon 9 from KSC designated USSF-36, analysis on which vehicle will fly on-going as they are playing games with the published image resolution ;-) Source: www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article...

What Is Happening In Chinese Spaceflight, Quarter 3 2025 Issue - What on Earth...?

My new article: thespacereview.com/article/5015/1

I saw this poster on eBay. It was way too expensive. Then I realized which shuttle it was. I did some digging and IBM HQ immediately recalled and destroyed them. Guess they missed one. Whatever, it was my birthday a few days ago. $350 later and this is on the way to my apartment.

A best-effort update from me on the most used rocket families in history towards Earth orbit and beyond, after today's Falcon 9/Starlink Group 12-19 launch hits the 500th launch mark for the Falcon 1/9/Heavy family: (499th aimed at orbit w/o the Crew Dragon In-Flight Abort Test; AMOS-6 not counted)

A galaxy ablaze with young stars 👶⭐ Young blue stars are cocooned in pink gas clouds in NGC 685, a barred spiral captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Our galaxy is also a barred spiral, but a little less than twice in size. Read more 👉 esahubble.org/images/potw2... 🔭

How? How, with a science budget cut in half? With an overall Agency budget cut by a quarter? With healthy missions that are still returning science, and others that will carry out groundbreaking investigations, being terminated? How does this make America great?

One last note, for now: The technical supplement opens with the following: "[this] budget reflects... the Administration's commitment to strengthening America's leadership in space exploration while exercising fiscal responsibility... [W]e aim to shape a Golden Age of innovation and exploration."

There's a whole pile more shit in this 462-page budget, but I have to figure out my flights so I'm taking a break. Other highlights: - no Orion or SLS (including Block 1B) after Artemis III - Gateway is dead - Nancy Grace Roman telescope survives, but Chandra and several others are cut

And, of course, Mars Sample Return is shitcanned. There's a bunch of very good reasons not to do this, but the text in the NASA's technical supplement reads: "It is anticipated that future missions to Mars will return samples for study on Earth." See gif for more