Jude and I go adventurous with the Seestar S50 and used the framing feature to do a deep dive into Markarian’s Chain.

NASA Selects Participants to Track Artemis II Mission. www.nasa.gov/technology/s...

Testing systems for #Artemis2 data collection by decoding KPLO in lunar orbit. I'll be using the Ettus B200 referenced with my Stanford Research PRS10 Rb standard which is disciplined with a Bodnar LPE-1420 for the Artemis Doppler gather mission. 🧵⬇️

Artemis II launch preparations are accelerating, with launch windows now being released. We’ll be monitoring the mission closely and sharing updates here as they become available.🧵⬇️ www.nasa.gov/mission/arte...

CHANG'E 6 slipped behind the Moon… and the radio signal didn’t behave the way the textbooks promised. 🤷‍♂️📡🌖🛰️ This thread shows how we confirmed a real lunar occultation without clear Fresnel fringes and why that still matters.🧵⬇️

Chang'e 6 is predicted based on the known state vector to be occulted by the Moon overnight. In a rare moment of luck the predicted occultation will be well placed for observation here! 🤷‍♂️📡🌖🛰️ 🧵⬇️

Unexpectedly clear day on the Sunshine Coast via NOAA 20.

A very late night ISS pass and was able to copy the new test pattern signal. A nice near overhead pass. The optimized 1.8m dish was overkill and it should work in much smaller setups.

Chang'e 6 circumpolar Doppler for the last 24 hours. I have many tall trees north of my antennas so the thermal noise and direct blocking occurred during parts of the day. Should be a good start to update the state vector.

Chang'e 6 is spending a lot of time in coherent lock with ground station(s). Modelling the presently known orbit it will encounter the Moon again on 2025-01-08 at about 12:00 UTC at a distance ~32000km well within the Lunar hill-sphere. 👀

Here’s a new visualization of the Russian TUNDRA/EKS early-warning satellites. Each frame shows apogee latitude/longitude over time (monthly steps), with drift patterns becoming obvious as the constellation evolves. Not a conclusion — a hypothesis to test. 🧵⬇️

Noticed something interesting in the Tundra/EKS constellation. Four birds — Cosmos-2541, 2546, 2552, 2563 — all begin drifting west around the same time. Instead of isolated failures, the behaviour looks coordinated at the constellation level. 🧵⬇️

Recovered NTS-3 today as it slowly drifts eastward at about 1° per day. Based on the EAGLE style bus so its emissions seem to come and go on a periodic basis. More info here: space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/nts...

After days of monitoring the Starlink V2 Mini DTC emissions on ~2010.5MHz, I deployed the 1.8m dish to track a number of the objects this morning. Here's STARLINK-11321 emitting broadband data (4.5MHz) centred on ~1992.5MHz. Every Starlink DTC object I tracked emitted similarly.

A full day of @SpaceX Starlink V2 mini DTC satellites emitting on ~2010.5MHz. The video shows the raw curves then the fit of 649 spacecraft IDs (green) with nominal operational altitudes for this bus class. 🧵⬇️

Unlike the Starshield emissions, Starlink S-band emissions appear to be weaker. But at times there are huge signals like this pass of Starlink 11079 [58708, 2024-002D]. The dark vertical lines indicate the signal was strong enough to overload my preamp front end. 🧵⬇️

Starlink (NOT Starshield) has taken up residence on ~2010.5MHz. Continuous emissions over me. @SpaceX is known to have purchased rights to this spectrum from Echostar. Anyone know if they are authorized to be emitting here yet or at all from space? Sense the plot thicken?

I'd like to thank Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica for his efforts to investigate and report on the Starshield emissions. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

HANDRAYAAN-3 was last reported by Space-Track.org on 2025-06-27. In September it became obvious from asteroid tracking data that the service module would encounter the Moon in early November twice. 🧵⬇️

CHANDRAYAAN-3 service module has been recovered. She's located about 7 degrees south east of the Moon this morning.

Thanks to the some hawk eyed followers, CHANDRAYAAN 3 service module appears to be engaged in cis-lunar navigation activities and is in a new orbit. isro.gov.in/Chandrayaan_...

DRO-B has been confirmed to be in a new orbit based on reception of X-band signals. The spacecraft remains at low declination but will rapidly rise northward over the next couple of days allowing more data to be obtained. 🧵⬇️

US military officials now require permission to discuss many topics with Congress including "Spectrum, which refers to the electromagnetic spectrum that underpins military operations and other key US government functions." www.cnn.com/2025/11/02/p...

Spooky Moon and natural cobwebs over the dish antennas... Happy Halloween all! 🎃

DRO-A still hanging around the Moon and actually angularly close to it tonight. Data sidebands clearly visible and tantalizing close to being decodable.

As expected TIANWEN-2 appeared on X-band today, likely ahead or possibly just after it's first major deep space burn. 🧵⬇️

🚨 DRO-B in new Orbit. The Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2025-U223 identified a new object 2015 US6, & this was later determined to DRO-B and deleted from the registry in (M.P.E.C) 2025-U218. Using those, an estimate of the trajectory was made and what I found surprised me! 🧵⬇️

Wondering how the Starshield constellation is presently structured? This animation using non-government data and the known active satellites on S-band show you how it's presently structured. It has global coverage with 180° 'dense' regions. 🧵⬇️

Learn how to read the my Starshield dataset. 🧵⬇️ I began active RF study of classified US military satellites in the early 2010s. Early experiences used brute force search methods and these methods evolved into the development of @cbassa.bsky.social's STRF. www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1So...

Reflecting on today: A few years ago, I had the privilege of discussing space policy with Bruce McClintock. His later work continues to resonate with me, and I highly recommend reading it. It’s enlightened, forward-looking guidance for the new space era. www.rand.org/pubs/perspec...

Mysterious downlink signals from SpaceX’s classified Starshield satellites in a frequency band reserved for uplinks — raising concerns over spectrum rules and possible interference with other satellites. 🧵⬇️ www.npr.org/2025/10/17/n...

Here's the latest on the UK contact that includes a HamTV test this Saturday. The HamTV unit is scheduled to send "tone and bars" during the 08:15 UTC pass. Live video from the ISS will be attempted during the 09:51 UTC pass. Watch ARISS social for updates!

More bad news from JPL. ~550 more people to be laid off on October 14th. www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/jpl-wor...

CNSA has released an image of Tianwen-2 in deep space using a robotic arm, giving us a proper look at the spacecraft and return capsule for delivering samples from near Earth asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa. Tianwen-2 has been in space for 125 days, is 45 million km from Kamoʻoalewa.

CGO in the IMAP and SWFO-L1 mob also LHCP and emitting a nice strong signal today.

SWFO-L1 is LHCP and producing really nice signals on S-band. Likely easily decodable data. The mission is around the distance of the Moon as I record this.

IMAP on X-band. The spacecraft rotates as part of its design at 4 RPM (15s period). This is clearly visible as the periodic rotation of the antenna is summed onto the Doppler.

TIANWEN-2 making a rare radio emission today. The spacecraft is believed to be using solar electric propulsion and may need to change attitude to thrust and only aim at Earth for ranging and comms periodically. 🧵⬇️

Checked in on CHANG'E 6 service module still in the vicinity of the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point.

USA 310 continues to show a stable specular glint at ~50° phase, confirming reflection from a fixed surface over days.

I have an UNID on S-Band at ~2258.1MHz in lock with something on the same beaming as SWFO-L1. Most like the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory a cubesat launched with SWFO-L1 and IMAP.

Space Weather Follow On - Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) found in lock with DSN Canberra and ranging. Range is about 280000km from Earth on its way to the Earth-Moon L1. I just found it as it was descending into the trees here.

The dome was getting a bit out of hand so did a big tidy, lubed and dressed all the cabling. Ready for a winter of on demand use.

USA 310 continues to be the object of my focus as light curve data collection continues. Due to high altitude ~11000km it's not possible to directly image. So we need to infer the shape of the spacecraft from light curve inversion techniques. The data is tantalizing! 🧵⬇️

Near Earth asteroid (112985) 2002 RS28, a mere 0.548 AU away is tipping in with a 16.9mag brightness this night. This is about 20 minutes of 10s frames. 🧵⬇️

While I was waiting for USA 310 last night I monitored the near Earth asteroid 1916 Boreas.🧵⬇️

USA 310 light curve from this morning. I'm comparing relative flux to phase angle. This behaviour has started me down a path of prolonged observation and study into light curve inversion. The dip at the end is tree extinguishment 😉

USA 310's orbit has been accurately updated and now posted on the McCants classfd page. I took a long look at it during a pass this morning and documented its 'almost disappearing trick' somewhat similar to LACROSSE 5's.

USA 310 orbital analysis since launch. The spacecraft maintains an orbit with a repeating ground track (RGT) of 15/4. To maintain this over the years the spacecraft must be performing small adjustments to maintain the RGT orbit. Thus the RGT is a feature not a bug.