LAUNCH at 1015 UTC Feb 13 of Dragon Crew-12 towards the ISS

LAUNCH at 1645 UTC Feb 12 of an Ariane 64 from Kourou on the Amazon LE-01 mission carrying 32 Amazon Leo satellites

LAUNCH at 0922 UTC Feb 12 of a Vulcan Centaur from Canaveral with the Space Force's GSSAP 7 and 8 satellites, and possibly other payloads. One of the GEM 63XL solid boosters malfunctioned but the vehicle was reportedly able to reach the target orbit.

LAUNCH at 0637 UTC Feb 12 of a Jielong-3 from the DFHT ship off Yangjiang, placing seven sats in orbit including Pakistan's PRSC-EO2 imaging sat. LAUNCH at 0852 UTC Feb 12 of a Proton from Baykonur with the Elektro-L weather sat.

Suborbital LAUNCH at 0300 UTC Feb 11 of a Chang Zheng 10 core-stage-only variant from Wenchang with a low altitude abort test of the Mengzhou spaceship. The CZ-10 stage reached a 105 km apogee.

Suborbital LAUNCHES at 1019:00 and 1019:30 UTC Feb 10 of NASA Black Brant 9 flights 36.397UE and 36.398UE with the GNEISS 1 and 2 auroral payloads from Poker Flat, Alaska to 319 and 320km apogee. PI was K. Lynch (Dartmouth).

Suborbital LAUNCH at 1229 UTC Feb 9 of NASA Black Brant 9 flight 36.399UE with the BADASS auroral study payload from Poker Flat, Alaska to 360 km apogee. PI was M. Samara (GSFC)

From AIP FYI: "The FCC is fast-tracking a SpaceX proposal to launch more than one million data center satellites, which is now open for public comment" www.fcc.gov/document/sb-...

Hey y'all. I'm hiring. Are you interested in building instruments for astrophysics? wd5.myworkdaysite.com/recruiting/u...

Elon has apparently finally abandoned his 20 year long assertion that he was just about to build a city on Mars any day now :-)

Apologies: Updates from me will be spotty for the next week while I am on travel.

LAUNCH at 2058 UTC Feb of Starlink Group 17-33 from Vandenberg

The Chinese spaceplane launched last night has been cataloged in a 344 x 590 km x 50 deg orbit together with the CZ-2F upper stage and two ejected upper stage separation motor covers. TLEs suggest a launch around 0358 UTC Feb 7.

LAUNCH at about 0357 UTC Feb 7 of a CZ-2F from Jiuquan with the fourth flight of the Chinese robotic recoverable spaceplane (usually thought of as comparable to the X-37B).

The six cubesats deployed from the ISS on Feb 3 have been given catalog numbers 67683 to 67688 (1998-067XZ to YE)

One object with TLEs so far from this launch, in a 487 x 512 x 96.6 deg, 1030 LTDN sunsync orbit. It is 2026-023E, so possibly there are 5 payloads?

I talked to Pitchbook about the proposed million sat constellation pitchbook.com/news/article...

Russia launched a Soyuz-2-1B at 1859 UTC Feb 5 with one or more Kosmos military sats aboard

The F9 second stage reentered between about 0130 and 0330 UTC Feb 3, according to US Space Force.

Space Force has cataloged the errant Starlink 17-32 Falcon 9 upper stage as object 67673 in a 110 x 241 km x 97.3 deg orbit. It will reenter quickly.

I've posted a modified set of shells based on a closer reading of the FCC documents, with just 30 deg and sun-sync inclinations

In my latest policy brief for CIGI, I explain and apply a responsible innovation framework to spacefaring and ask whether a more ethical and sustainable space future is possible. Case studies include Artemis, innovative in LEO and space resources. www.cigionline.org/publications...

LAUNCH at 1547 UTC Feb 2 of Starlink Group 17-32 from Vandenberg Space Force Base

I've mocked up a set of constellation shells consistent with the limited available data on the mega-sat SpaceX orbital data center system and added them to planet4589.org/space/con/co... for a total of 1.7 million proposed satellites worldwide

Alsat-3B tracked in a 488 x 504 km x 97.5 km orbit following successful CZ-2C launch.

SpaceX has put in a kinda-sorta-application to the FCC for an orbital data center constellation with a MILLION satellites. However, the description is rather vague without the usual specifics of the orbital parameters of each shell. fccprod.servicenowservices.com/icfs?id=ibfs...

Glad to see USSF filling in the empty catalog number slots. 65403 assigned to another object from Transporter 14; 66779 and 66880 assigned to Transporter-15 objects. However, 8 of 68 T14 objects and 43 of 130 T15 objects remain unidentified.

LAUNCH at 0401 UTC Jan 31 of a Chang Zheng 2C from Jiuquan with Algeria's AlSat-3B imaging satellite

Suborbital LAUNCH at 1320 UTC Jan 30 of NASA flight 36.399UE, a Black Brant 9 carrying the Polar NOx payload from Poker Flat, Alaska. Apogee height unknown.

Russia's decommissioned Olimp signals intelligence satellite, abandoned in the GEO graveyard orbit region in Oct 2025, has apparently disintegrated - possibly due to a debris hit since internal energy sources should have been vented when it was retired

The ZQ-3 rocket stage and its attached dummy payload, possibly with a total mass of around 7 tonnes, reentered over the South Pacific at 1239 UTC Jan 30

LAUNCH of Starlink 6-101 at 0722 UTC Jan 30 from Canaveral

Korea's Neonsat-1A cataloged in a 535 x 552 km sun-sync orbit, confirming successful launch by Rocket Lab

Up at 4am local this morning here in Boston to tele-join a UK meeting of the Earth and Space Sustainability Initiative (ESSI), an industry-academia organization to develop space sustainability standards. Lots of impressive experts on the call, I'm glad to see the engagement on these issues.

LAUNCH at 0122 UTC Jan 30 of a Rocket Lab Electron from Mahia with S Korea's NEONSAT-1A imaging sat. [corrected launch time]

The Varda Space W-5 spacecraft landed at Koonibba Test Range on Jan 29. They haven't released the landing time yet, but the TLEs show a pass over Koonibba at 1353 UTC so I guess landing was close to 1400 UTC

LAUNCH at 1753 UTC Jan 29 of Starlink 17-19 from Vandenberg

Oops I meant 1973 Aug 21, not 1973 Mar 21.

GPS III SV09 cataloged in a 387 x 20195 km x 55.0 deg transfer orbit, confirming successful launch.

A bit more analysis including some shroudology: 1978 Feb 25: JS5 or QUASAR 3 1978 Aug 5; QUASAR 3 or JS5 1980 Dec 13: QUASAR 4 1981 Apr 24: JS6 1983 Jul 31: JS7 1984 Aug 28: QUASAR 5 so just one pair still TBD

The US National Reconnaisance Office has declasslifed the JUMPSEAT program, which had signals intelligence satellites in Molniya orbit starting in 1971.

The US Space Force's GPS III SV09 navigation sat was launched at 0453 UTC on Falcon 9 from Canaveral

The orbital module jettisoned from Shenzhou 20 on Jan 19 prior to its deorbit has been cataloged as 67481, in a 378 x 387 km x 41.5 deg orbit.

I've updated my megaconstellations list www.planet4589.org/space/con/co... with details of the planned Blue Origin Terawave system and the enormous CTC1 and CTC2 constellations China just filed with the ITU, for a total of almost 750,000 proposed satellites in the years to come.

LAUNCH at 1730 UC Jan 25 of Starlink Group 17-20 from Vandenberg

China's LT1-01A was launched in Jan 2022 by CZ-4C Y29; the CZ-4C rocket's third stage remained in orbit and reentered at 0632 UTC Jan 24 over Minneapolis

9 payloads (USA 572 to USA 580) cataloged from the Jan 17 Starshield launch; no orbital data released

Jonathan McDowell I've updated my annual space summary planet4589.org/space/papers... with some corrections and new data (version 1.3, likely final)

Russian spysat Kosmos-2558 was launched in 2022 and cataloged as 2022-089A. In 2025 a new object 2022-089C was ejected from it. Since then object A has decayed and C makes similar orbit boosts to the ones A used to do. I suspect A is now an ejected component of some kind and C is the payload.

LAUNCH at about 1626 UTC of New Shepard NS-38 on a suborbital space tourism flight from the West Texas launch site to around 105 km apogee