Suborbital LAUNCH at 2328 UTC Sep 21, probably of a Trident II missile from a US Navy submarine at about 76E 28.8N, 450 km east of Cape Canaveral, observed from Puerto Rico

Possible failed orbital launch attempt at about 1500 UTC Sep 18 of an IRGC Zoljanah launch vehicle from Semnan, Iran. Vehicle is thought to have reached only a few km altitude. Not fully clear if this was a 3rd suborb test or a first orb attempt for Zoljanah.

LAUNCH at 1053 UTC Sep 21 of Starlink Group 10-27 from Canaveral

We're still missing current orbit data for a number of recent satellites. None of the objects from the Chinese Gushenxing-1 launch on Sep 5 (2025-197) have been updated for 12 days., same story for 2025-196B (CZ-3C third stage); still no orbit data for Mozhaets-6.

Space Force released new orbit data for Yaogan 45 after a ten day tracking gap, showing it in a circular 7497 x 7500 km x 20.0 deg orbit. The circularization burn appears to have happened on Sep 10.

Russia's Bion-M No. 2 satellite, with a cargo of mice, landed near Orenburg on Sep 19. I'm confused because reports say landing was at 0800 UTC, but the orbit data from USSF suggest pass over Orenburg was at 0700 UTC. Can anyone clarify?

Another two secret payloads, USA 556 and USA 557, released from the LDPE mission in near-synchronous orbit. That's 14 payloads now released from this tug since early 2023. What the heck are they all up to? This is one of the most mysterious DoD missions right now.

LAUNCH at 1631 UTC Sep 19 of Starlink Group 17-12 from Vandenberg

Five small satellites were deployed from the ISS Kibo module today using the J-SSOD 32 deployer. GHS-01 and Dragonfly at 0850 UTC;RSP-03, STARS-M2 and ASC at 1040 UTC.

Just finished devouring the three White Space books (Ancestral Light etc) by @matociquala.bsky.social - I've been craving some good upbeat space opera and this really hit the spot, recommended.

LAUNCH at 1300:07 UTC Sep 18 of New Shepard from West Texas on a suborbital uncrewed microgravity experiment flight to 105 km apogee (Capsule H.G. Wells on booster 5) LAUNCH at 0930 UTC Sep 18 of Starlink Group 10-61 from Canaveral

The Cygnus NG-23 cargo ship arrived at ISS on Sep 18; Canadarm-2 grappled it at 1124 UTC and berthed it at the Unity module nadir CBM port at 1410 UTC.

Inspired by @datlow.bsky.social & @thehighsign.bsky.social, I just submitted a comment on ABC's decision re: Kimmel. Join me? support.abc.com/hc/en-us/req...

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

As a result I was forced to make my own IMAP launch press kit which I now share with you... (corrections welcome) planet4589.org/latest.html

So frustrated with the lack of technical detail in space press kits these days. Case in point, Princeton site on the IMAP instruments, where even the "advanced" "Technical Overview" pages have absolutely no numbers in them (e.g. imap.princeton.edu/spacecraft/i...).

Jonathan's Space Report No. 849 published at planet4589.org/jsr.html

Great writeup by Sarah Scoles @sarahscoles.bsky.social on the apparent demise of Breakthrough Starshot

LAUNCH at 0106 UTC Sep 16 of a CZ-2C/YZ-1S from Jiuquan with five Weixing Hulianwang Jishu Shiyan Weixing internet test satellites.

Check out our new results on the M87* #blackhole w/ @ehtelescope.bsky.social ! We now have 3 frames in a 4yr "movie", including polarisation ⇔ magnetic fields. It's like tracking extreme sunspots just outside a black hole, the brightness and fields flip, yet the shape stays the same bc...gravity!

I missed this back in April: the D-Orbit Amazing Antonius tug, SCV016 (launched in 2025 Jan) boosted orbit during Apr to an elliptical 310 x 1210 km one, much higher than any previous ION mission. It's maintaining that orbit, perhaps to test out hosted payload rad tolerance

Cygnus NG-23 cataloged in a 242 x 245 km x 51.7 deg orbit

LAUNCH at 2211 UTC Sep 14 of the Cygnus NG-23 cargo ship, S.S. Willie McCool, on a Falcon 9 from Canaveral.

OK, catching up now: DOCKING of Progress MS-32 with ISS at 1723 UTC Sep 13; LAUNCH of Kosmos-2595 (Glonass) and Kosmos-2596 (Mozhaets-6) on Soyuz from Plesetsk at 0210 UTC Sep 13; LAUNCH of Starlink 17-10 from Vandenberg at 1755 UTC Sep 13.

Just back from the Camden Intl. Film Festival in Rockland Maine, where I got to see the US premiere of Julien Elie's new documentary Shifting Baselines @shiftingbaselines.bsky.social , in which I make a small appearance.

Had fun on Thursday talking about the Boston area space sector at the UK consulate, with proper afternoon tea

For my Italian friends, I'll be on RAI3 on Sunday in Teresa Paoli's programme 'I Padroni Dello Spazio' (no, I am not one of the 'padroni') www.instagram.com/reel/DOYbkV-... x.com/Presa_Dirett...

LAUNCH at 0156 UTC Sep 12 of a Falcon 9 from Canaveral with Indonesia's Nusantara Lima geostationary communications satellite

The Progress MS-32 cargo ship was launched at 1554 UTC Sep 11 by Soyuz-2-1a from Baykonur, on its way to the ISS.

LAUNCH at 1412 UTC Sep 10 of T1TL-B, a batch of 21 York Space Systems comm satellites for the US DoD Space Development Agency's PWSA Tranche 1 Transport Layer system, on Falcon 9 from Vandenberg

The Progress MS-30 cargo ship undocked from the ISS at 1545 UTC Sep 9 and was deorbited over the Pacific Ocean with entry at around 1930 UTC Sep 9.

TLEs now out for the Geely sats launched on Sep 8. Only 10 of 11 expected objects in the target 582 x 603 km x 50 deg orbit; rocket stage in a 154 x 609 km orbit post depletion, and two objects in a 343 x 604 km orbit

The TLEs show YG-45 at perigee at 0213 UTC Sep 9. This is consistent with the expected stage 2 MECO-1 time. So, it seems likely that only one stage 2 burn was made. Stage 2 is cataloged in a 116 x 7388 km orbit, so may have made a small perigee lowering depletion burn

Yaogan 45 has been cataloged in a 203 x 7468 km x 20.0 deg elliptical orbit.

This is exactly right, and students are often surprised to hear it. It’s one of the first things I explain in the “Should I use LLMs?” portion of my syllabus.

LAUNCH at 0200 UTC Sep 9 of 遥感四十五号卫星 (Yaogan-45) by CZ-7A from Wenchang. Yaogan 45 is a military imaging or sigint satellite and probably is headed to GEO.

Orbit data now out for some of the objects from the Sep 5 Gushenxing-1 launch, in a 494 x 512 km x 97 deg orbit, and for the objects from the Sep 6 CZ-6A launch of YG40-03, in a 796 x 813 km x 86 deg orbit.

LAUNCH at 1634 UTC Sep 6 by CZ-6A from Taiyuan of the Yaogan 40 Group 03 satellites [corrected launch time]

LAUNCH at 1806 UTC Sep 6 of Starlink Group 17-9 from Vandenberg

A new element set for Shiyan 29 shows it in a 35796 x 36586 km x 28.5 deg inclined geosync drift orbit. The earlier transfer orbit elset probably belongs to the CZ-3 third stage. I expect the YZ-1 stage to show up in a similar orbit to Shiyan 29.

LAUNCH at 1139 UTC Sep 5 of Gushenxing-1 from Jiuquan with the Kaiyun-1, Yunyao-1 27, Yuxing 3-08 and Aishenxing Luigui Shiyan Pingtai satelllites

One object from the Shiyan 29 launch cataloged in 226 x 30729 km x 28.5 deg subsync geotransfer orbit.

The Planet satellite Flock 4be-21 (Dove 2502) was launched aboard the Transporter 11 mission on 2024 Aug 16. Despite regular orbit data issued by Planet itself, it was never cataloged by the US Space Force. I have now assigned it auxiliary catalog number A11108 in GCAT.

LAUNCH at 1232 UTC Sep 5 of Starlink Group 10-57 from Kennedy Space Center

LAUNCH at 0234 UTC of CZ-3C/YZ-1 from Xichang carrying the Shiyan 29 satellite. Target orbit unknown but likely geotransfer.

LAUNCH at 1156 UTC Sep 3 of Starlink Group 10-22 from Canaveral

LAUNCH at 0351 UTC Sep 3 of Starlink group 17-8 from Vandenberg

Some of the satellite reentries in the past week that are not yet reflected in Space-Track because of the ongoing problems: Flock 4y-25, YAM-2, Jilin-1GF03D17, Hawk 4A/4B/4C, OSM-1 CICERO, OHS-3A

LAUNCH at 1930 UTC Sep 2 of a Shaviyt from Palmachim AFB, Israel carrying the 'Ofeq-19 ( אופק 19 ) radar spy sat into a 144 deg retrograde low Earth orbit.

The Skykraft 4 satellites from the TRACERS launch have now been cataloged in 590 km orbits; however the Space Force orbit data for SKYKRAFT 4B (64896) are spurious - they show it in a geotransfer orbit that must actually belong to an Ariane stage fragment