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.

USA 310 was recovered this morning in bright twilight. This classified MEO mission is a bit of a mystery and was last seen by the unclassified world in 2023.

Interesting DMSP F17 is emitting on 2237.5, 2252.5 and 2267.5MHz this pass. Sounder data on 2237.5 and RTD on 2252.5. What's up with 2267.5MHz?

The ARISS cross band voice repeater and packet (APRS) radios are back online after the recent outage for Progress operations. HamTV trackers, note that there is an outage planned for Wednesday due to spacecraft operations.

Nice! AMSAT-CA voiced concerns and encourage RAC to speak for Canadian amateurs. Nice to see this influenced things.

A Black Day at Black Rock on the ISS? Maybe... The ISS Amateur Radio video on 2395MHz is all black which I think it's standard mode when no activity is present. SatDump makes reception easy.

S-band listeners. Please have a look at ICO G-1 [32763, 2008-016A]. It has been in a wide band idle mode for some time now and appears to be splattering crude into the 2200-2300MHz band. Looks like something may have malfunctioned. Plot below ~2025-09-12T04:50 UTC.

Really liking FENGYUN 3F. It has incredible resolution and a nice stable signal on X-band. A close up of home and the overall pass this morning in 221.

The GARNET fire via AQUA this afternoon with the flame front clearly visible in . 721 MODIS channels seem to do it justice best. Channel 6 (close to AVHRR 3a) doesn't do much. Spatial resolution is ~500m for 7 (red) and 250m for 2 and 1 (green and blue)

The GARNET fire in the Sierra National Forest is burning intensely. FENGYUN 3F 3a21 (to see flame areas) and True Colour image (for extent of smoke). I hope the sequoia trees in the McKinley grove survive. www.latimes.com/environment/...

DMSP F16 has significantly changed its usual MO. It's only sending data here on the coast after the 'magical' unencrypted line with not much encoded in the data.

A very nice DMSP F17 image of the British Columbia wild fires this evening. The scanner was behaving itself and matching the spec's in SatDump. IR/Vis composite...

Yikes! The fire's caused by the electrical storm over the weekend are burning with a vengeance. METEOR-M2-4 image from this afternoon. Recall, each pixel is around a km²!

Receiving a lot of questions about my S-band station I use for #Artemis monitoring. I'll describe the system and at the end will be a link to where I posted some helpful information about the system. I can't personally answer everyone but this thread should help. 🧵⬇️

OTV 8 made an orbital change yesterday I believe. @astrobrock recovered it shortly after. It appears to have boosted up slightly.

After last night's electrical storms across the coast of British Columbia the interior of the mid coast has burst into flame. Huge wild fires have erupted easily visible from METEOR-M2-4 imagery.

TIANWEN-2 has demonstrated it is not always emitting on X-band. Today's random check showed it active again. It has entered to constellation of Monoceros.

I have responded to @NASAArtemis Request for Information to again participate in the gathering of one-way Doppler. A link to my submission is in the thread below. 🧵⬇️