Fun activity in the evening: updating all my google calendar appointments one by one because it doesn't handle changing your base time zone the way you might expect. Apologies if I turn up to your meeting 5 hours late.

Launch at 0840 UTC Jun 1 of the first Chang Zheng 12B from Jiuquan, placing the Qianfan Jigui 08 group of internet sats in orbit. So far it's unclear how many sats were in the group.

Space-Track idenfties 68430 2026-67U as "Vega", a Swedish payload. Does anyone have info about this payload - or know who its owner/operator is? Is it perhaps the same as 'SM-1.2' listed in the SpaceX press kit for the launch?

Suborbital launch at 0633 UTC May 31 of the SSC/DLR MASER 17 (Suborbital Express 5) microgravity mission from Kiruna using a two stage Red Kite/Red Kite rocket to apogee of 260 km

Shenzhou 22 undocked from the Chinese space station at 0644 UTC May 29 and landed at 1211 UTC ( I think - can someone confirm these times?)

LAUNCH at 2353 UTC May 29 of Amazon Leo group LA07 on Atlas AV-113 from Canaveral. LAUNCH at 1525 UTC May 30 of Starlink Group 17-41 from Vandenberg LAUNCH at 1807 UTC May 30 of Xingwang test satellite 10 by Chang Zheng 2D from Xichang.

Hello England, after 38 years in the USA I have returned!!

LAUNCH at 1257 UTC May 29 of Starlink Group 10-53 from Canaveral

Welp www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

It remains way past time to stop letting corporations unilaterally make a mess of the sky. And, no, we cannot avoid the problem by putting telescopes in space. Borlaff et al. 2026, "SPHEREx confirms predictions for artificial satellite trail pollution in Low Earth Orbit" - arxiv.org/abs/2605.27501

Thanks to all who made my Boston farewell party a success. A good mix of artists and astronomers, friends old and new. And especially nice to see many of my former students again!

Poisk airlock repressurization underway at 2032 UTC (I think - NASA PAO talked over the crucial moment)

NASA PAO reports hatch open to close time of the spacewalk was 6h5m, but MCC-M screen appears to show 6:06:20 and implies hatch open to close was 1417:51 to 2024:11 UTC

Spacewalk underway on ISS by astronauts Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev; airlock depressurized at 1355 UTC and hatch was opened at 1418 UTC. They are installing the Solntse-Teragerts (Sun-THz) solar flare monitor on the Zvezda module.

Space playlist ready for tonight's farewell party at 5.30 pm! (If you are a friend in the Boston area and don't already have an invite, drop me a note...)

LAUNCH at 1148 UTC May 25 of Starlink Group 10-47 from Canaveral

Shenzhou-23 docked with the nadir port on the Chinese Space Station's Tianhe module at 1845 UTC May 24.

LAUNCH at 1508 UTC May 24 of Shenzhou 23 carrying Chinese astronauts 朱杨柱 (Zhu Yangzhu), 张志远 (Zhang Zhiyan) and Hong Kong payload specialist 黎家盈 (Lai Ka-ying)

Starship 12 recap: flight 12, with Super Heavy booster 19 and Ship 39, was launched on May 22 at 2230:20 UTC. It was the first version 3 Starship, with Raptor 3 engines. [1/n]

All that remains - 2 carryons, 4 checked bags, and 3 boxes to mail.

Third container packed! Only 60 percent full, so about 175 cubic metres over the three containers. The library steps were the last item loaded.

I missed one during my packing frenzy: LAUNCH at 0933 UTC May 22 of a Rocket Lab Electron with a Synspective StriX radar satellite

Not everything went right during the first flight test for SpaceX's redesigned #Starship V3 rocket, but the results were impressive enough for #SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to congratulate the team for scoring "a goal for humanity." Be sure to watch the video clips. cosmiclog.com/2026/05/22/n...

Attempt to fit Starship FT12 orbit from webcast data: I estimate -7 x 194 km x 28 deg with an uncertainty of about +/- 8 km on that perigee value, so between -15 and +1 km.

Oops typo - May 22 of course

LAUNCH of Starship flight 12 at 2230:20 UTC May 12

LAUNCH of Starship flight 12 at 2230:20 UTC May 12

No Starship launch today. Pretty clean count down to T-40s, not bad for the first try of what is basically a new rocket design.

LAUNCH at 1004 UTC May 21 of Starlink Group 10-31 from Canaveral

I have three computers: Aquila, the main library/JSR workhorse superdesktop; Saturn, the residence desktop; and Voyager5, the laptop. Well, there's also Andromeda, the reserve desktop, if I ever manage to persuade it to boot again. (1/n)

The main computer is now packed so I'm working from my laptop - so orbital analysis will be limited for the next couple of weeks

LAUNCH at 0246 UTC May 20 of Starlink Group 17-42 from Vandenberg

Meanwhile in Massachusetts: the library begins the first step of its transatlantic journey...

On May 19 around 0603 UTC Varda's W-6 recoverable spacecraft landed safely in Australia. As far as I know, still no word from Varda Space on the fate of W-4 which appears to have made a failed deorbit burn

LAUNCH at 0352 UTC May 19 of the ESA/China SMILE space physics mission on a Vega-C from Kourou

The Dragon CRS-34 cargo ship docked to ISS IDA-2 at 1037 UTC May 17

LAUNCH at 1443 UTC May 17 of a Chang Zheng 8 from Hainan with eighteen Qianfan commercial internet satellites.

And as the relocation budget continues to overrun faster than SLS', I've added the link to my gofundme to my profile just in case people want to help out some more. I am so grateful for those who have already helped.

Library update continued: now the "screed" (40 tons of waterproofing goo) is on the floor and curing..

A number of you have been wondering about the progress of my library relocation project. After a year of very slow progress behind the scenes, things are starting to move. The new library space is in Bromley, south of London; the waterproofing of the space is now complete

LAUNCH at 2205 UTC May 15 of the Dragon CRS-34 cargo ship (C209.6). The trunk payloads are CLARREO Pathfinder and STP-H11.

The five payloads launched on the May 15 Lijian-1 have been tracked by Space Force in 525 x 542 km sun-sync orbit iwth 11:00 local time orbital plane; upper stage in a 292 x 539 km orbit. Dragon CRS-34 tracked in 208 x 305 km x 51.7 deg, on its way to ISS.

LAUNCH of a Lijian-1 at 0433 UTC May 15 from Jiuquan with the Youxi, Dianjian-1, JL1GF03D55, Taijing-3 05A/05B satellites

OneWeb SL0179 continues lowering its orbit for retirement. There have been very few retirements so far from the OneWeb system.

Two objects cataloged from the Zhuque-2E launch in 209 x 872 km x 89.0 deg orbit. The parameters are consistent with the theory that this is the SECO-1 orbit, the second stage failed to restart, and the payload then separated.

On May 14 at 0300 UTC, Landspace launched Zhuque-2E flight Y5, introducing a new stretched version of this methalox launch vehicle. It placed a 2800 kg dummy payload in orbit.

On May 14 at 0300 UTC, Landspace launched Zhuque-2E flight Y5, introducing a new stretched version of this methalox launch vehicle. It placed a 2800 kg dummy payload in orbit.

Update: it now seems that at least TWO objects were cataloged from the May 10 event, 69093 and 69094, in similar orbits.

Unclear what is happening with the VardaSpace W-4 reentry. The W-4 spacecraft made a manuever on May 10 to lower orbit from 284 x 835 km to 162 x 820 km. At the same time a new object, catalog 69094, was found in a 157 x 735 km orbit

Jonathan's Space Report No. 855 published at planet4589.org/jsr.html