Tag: space

Musk Begins Decommissioning SpaceX Dragon Amid Fallout With Trump

Elon Musk announced on June 5 that SpaceX would begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft after President Donald Trump appeared to call for the termination of all of the government’s subsidies and contracts with him.

“In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,” Musk wrote on X.

SpaceX Dragon crew and cargo capsules have been the backbone of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) spacefaring efforts for several years, operating the first cargo mission to the International Space Station in 2012, and launching its first crewed mission in 2020.

The company has taken up residence at Kennedy Space Center’s historic Launch Complex 39A, which is adding a launch tower for the behemoth Starship, and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 40 in Florida.

SpaceX has also been contracted to provide one of the lunar landers for NASA’s Artemis program to return human beings to the moon, and it was set to develop the spacecraft that would strategically deorbit the International Space Station by 2030.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, at this time, remains America’s only means of human spaceflight.

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Astronomers baffled by mystery object flashing signals at Earth every 44 minutes: ‘Like nothing we’ve ever seen’

The truth is out there.

Astronomers say they’re stunned by an unidentified object flashing strange signals from deep space.

The object, named ASKAP J1832-0911, was detected by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and NASA’S Chandra X-ray observatory — the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope.

“It is unlike anything we have seen before,” Andy Wang, an astronomer at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, declared in a statement published this week.

ASKAP J1832-0911 emits pulses of radio waves and X-rays for two minutes every 44 minutes, according to the experts, who documented their findings in Nature journal.

ASKAP J1832-0911 has been classified as a “long-period transient” or “LPT” — a cosmic body that emits radio pulses separated by a few minutes or a few hours.

Wang and his team theorize that the object could be a dead star, but they don’t know why it “switches on” and “switches off” at “long, regular and unusual intervals,” Space.com reports.

“ASKAP J1831-0911 could be a magnetar (the core of a dead star with powerful magnetic fields), or it could be a pair of stars in a binary system where one of the two is a highly magnetised white dwarf (a low-mass star at the end of its evolution),” Wang wrote.

“However, even those theories do not fully explain what we are observing,” he added. “This discovery could indicate a new type of physics or new models of stellar evolution.”

Wang and his team hope to detect similar another using radio waves and the Chandra X-ray observatory, saying a subsequent discovery will help them learn more about the nature of such LPTs

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“We’ve Got a New Mystery on Our Hands”: Scientists Stumped by Unexplained Motion in Titan’s Atmosphere

Scientists have detected mysterious, gyroscopic motion within the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan that appears to be completely independent from its surface rotation.

Scientists from the University of Bristol made the discovery while analyzing sensor data from the NASA-ESA Cassini-Huygens mission’s flyby of the Saturnian moon. The researchers say they cannot explain the mysterious motion, which seems connected to the moon’s seasons, each lasting several Earth years.

Titan has long fascinated scientists due to its similarities to Earth. Such features include its rocky surface, lakes and rivers of methane and ethane with ocean-like waves, and a thick, carbon-rich atmosphere (a rarity within the solar system).

The team behind the latest discovery says their findings join a growing body of research suggesting Titan is not just Earth-like in appearance, “but an alien world with climate systems all its own.”

Mysterious Gyroscopic Motion of the Atmosphere and Other Titan Mysteries

Launched as a joint venture between NASA and the ESA in 1997, the long-range Cassini-Huygens probe spent the final 13 years studying Saturn and its moons in the infrared spectrum. Although the spacecraft made its final transmission in 2017 before intentionally crashing into Saturn, scientists are still making regular discoveries by combing through the mission’s treasure trove of scientific data. Previously, scientists relied on the mission’s data to debate Titan’s past and present habitability and whether the moon could support life.

For the current study, the University of Bristol team focused on data measuring the symmetry of Titan’s atmospheric temperature field. A comparison between atmospheric and surface data showed that the atmosphere isn’t centered on the moon’s pole as was expected. Instead, the data revealed an atmospheric shift over time that appeared to be aligned with Titan’s seasonal cycle. The correlation was particularly pronounced since a year on Titan lasts nearly 30 Earth years.

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Canada in talks with the US about joining its ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense system, Carney says

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday his government is talking to the U.S. about joining President Donald Trump’s future Golden Dome missile defense program.

The multilayered, $175 billion system would for the first time put U.S. weapons in space. Trump said the previous day he expected the system to be fully operational by the end of his term in 2029.

“Is it a good idea for Canada? Yes, it is a good to have protections in place for Canadians,” Carney said.

Carney confirmed he’s had talks with Trump about it and said there are discussions with senior officials. Trump said the Canadian government had contacted his administration indicating it wants to join the program and that he will work with Ottawa to ensure it contributes its “fair share.”

Golden Dome is envisioned to include ground- and space-based capabilities to detect and stop missiles at all four major stages of a potential attack: detecting and destroying them before a launch, intercepting them in their earliest stage of flight, stopping them midcourse in the air, or halting them in the final minutes as they descend toward a target.

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Five Eyes now getting sensitive space intel – The Times

The US has begun sharing its “most sensitive” military intelligence on China’s and Russia’s space operations with the UK and other members of The Five Eyes (FVEY) global intelligence group, The Times has reported, citing a senior commander within the US Space Force.

Until this month, the work of Space Delta 9, a unit focused on America’s orbital warfare, was largely meant only for US officials with top-secret security clearance.

However, in a move that a Space Delta 9 spokesman described to The Times as “momentous,” British military chiefs have been allowed to observe operations at the unit’s base in Colorado.

The other Five Eyes members, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, have also been allowed access to the highest levels of US space intelligence, the British daily reported on Wednesday.

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Catastrophe Looms Above: Space Junk Problem Grew ‘Significantly Worse’ In 2024

As if you didn’t have enough to worry about, the risk of space junk causing a catastrophic chain reaction that profoundly affects life on Earth rose significantly in 2024, according to the latest annual analysis from the European Space Energy (ESA).

The numbers are mind-boggling. ESA estimates there are now more than 1.2 million orbiting objects larger than 1cm and more than 50,000 larger than 10cm. Of the enormous number of orbiting missiles, only 40,000 are individually tracked by surveillance networks. The number in that category rose by 8% last year. Part of that increase is attributable to the August explosion of China’s Long March 6A rocket, one of the worst junk-generating incidents in decades. “If we extrapolate current trends into the future, as before, catastrophic collision numbers could rise significantly,” the ESA report said.

Don’t judge space junk’s potential for destruction using your Earthly instincts: Traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour in space, even a small object has the potential to inflict major damage. In one incident that demonstrates that fact of physics, a 2mm piece of space once junk put a 5cm-wide dent in a climate satellite. A modest move up the scale brings much more power: “A one-centimeter piece of debris has the energy of a hand grenade,” ESA’s Tiago Soares told DW.  

In an ominous 2009 incident, a Russian Cosmos satellite collided with an Iridium satellite, creating a cloud of about 2,000 pieces of junk measuring 10cm or more. That’s brings us to the nightmare scenario that should fill you with dread: The Kessler Effect. Imagine an initial major impact that creates hundreds of shards, which then start colliding with more orbiting objects, setting off a chain reaction. Actually, you don’t need your imagination.

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Secretive Russian military satellites release mystery object into orbit

A trio of secretive Russian satellites launched earlier this year has released a mysterious object into orbit, sparking interest among space trackers and analysts.

The three satellites, designated Kosmos 2581, 2582 and 2583, launched on a Soyuz-2.1V rocket from Plesetsk cosmodrome early on Feb. 2 (GMT). Since then, the satellites, whose purpose is unknown, have displayed interesting behavior, while in a near-polar orbit roughly 364 miles (585 kilometers) above Earth.

In March, the satellites appeared to be conducting potential proximity operations, or maneuvering close to other objects in space, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and spaceflight activity tracker.

Following this, the U.S. Space Force cataloged a new object in orbit, which was possibly released by Kosmos 2581 on March 18.

Russia has provided no details about the satellites and their mission. Many Kosmos missions are classified.

The released object could be used for a number of objectives, including military experiments, such as satellite inspection or target practice, testing technology for docking or formation flying. It may also be a scientific payload or even the result of an unintentional fragmentation, though this would usually result in numerous pieces of debris.

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China Is Taking War To Earth Orbits: A ‘Space Pearl Harbor’ Is On The Way

“With our commercial assets, we have observed five different objects in space maneuvering in and out and around each other in synchronicity and in control,” the U.S. Space Force’s Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein told the 16th annual McAleese Defense Programs conference in Arlington, Virginia on March 18. 

“That’s what we call dogfighting in space. They are practicing tactics, techniques and procedures to do on-orbit space operations from one satellite to another.”

Guetlein’s stark comment about China signals a break with the past. “This marks the end of the Western-American-liberal dream of nations leaving wars on Earth so they can cooperate in space to advance humanity,” Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center told Gatestone after the general’s widely publicized remarks. “Communist China has now taken war to the heavens, to low earth orbit, and very likely, will take war to the moon, Mars, and beyond. The heavens are no longer safe for the democracies.”

Space is now a highly contested domain, but it wasn’t always this way. “We told ourselves we would be the dominant power forever,” Brandon Weichert, author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, said to Gatestone. “We coasted on that notion for far too long. Rising powers, notably China and Russia, saw how reliant we were on space—and how poorly defended our systems were. Our access to the strategic high ground is now more threatened than ever before.”

As Weichert points out, “bureaucratic inertia and a lack of visionary leadership from both political parties” allowed China and Russia to develop the capabilities to threaten America in space.

There was another party at fault: The U.S. military failed to protest when it could see there was an obvious threat. “There was a gentlemen’s agreement until recent that we didn’t mess with each other’s space systems,” Guetlein said. “We didn’t jam them, we didn’t spoof them, we didn’t lase them, we just kept them safe.”

Why was the U.S. so gentlemanly? Presidents believed that because the U.S. had more space assets than others, it was not in America’s interest to trigger a race to build weapons to destroy those assets. Yet this view, appearing commonsense at first glance, was naïve: It was apparent even then that neither China nor Russia could be enticed into good behavior. Generals and admirals should have sounded the warning.

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NASA’s Stranded Astronauts Confirm Biden Abandoned Them in Space — He Declined Elon Musk’s Rescue Offer For ‘Political Reasons’

NASA’s stranded astronauts have acknowledged that Joe Biden deliberately abandoned them in space for political purposes.

Barry Wilmore and his crewmate Sunita Williams have been stuck on the International Space Station since July last year after their Boeing Starliner ran into technical issues.

At a virtual press conference on Tuesday, Wilmore was asked about Elon Musk’s claim that Joe Biden declined his offer to bring them back on a SpaceX flight several months ago for “political reasons.”

“I can only say that Mr Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual,” Wilmore said.

Wilmore went on to say he and his partner at the “utmost respect” for Musk and Trump.

I can tell you, at the outset, all of us have the utmost respect for Mr. Musk, and obviously respect and admiration for our President of the United States, Donald Trump.

We appreciate them, we appreciate all they do for us, for human spaceflight, for our nation. We’re thankful that they’re in the positions they’re in.

The words they’ve said — politics — I mean, that’s part of life. We understand that, and there’s an important reason why we have a political system, and the political system that we do have.

And we’re behind it 100 percent. We know what we’ve lived up here. We know the ins and outs and the specifics that they may not be privy to.

And I’m sure they have some issues that they’re dealing with, information that they have that we are not privy to.

So when I think about your question, that’s part of life. We are on board with it, we support our nation, we support our nation’s leaders and we’re thankful for them.

During an interview on The Joe Rogan Experience last week, Musk explained how Biden had declined his offer and intentionally “pushed the return date past the inauguration date.”

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Texas Company Lands On Moon In “First Successful Commercial Landing” 

Firefly Aerospace’s “Blue Ghost” lander became the first private spacecraft to successfully land on the Moon after descending from lunar orbit early Sunday morning.

Firefly confirmed on X around 0336 ET that the 6.6-foot-tall lander “stuck the landing” and “became the first commercial company in history to achieve a fully successful Moon landing. This small step on the Moon represents a giant leap in commercial exploration,” adding this “paves the way for future missions to the Moon and Mars.” 

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