Vol 45, Week 41

NASA & NEWSPACE

• NASA is hiring new flight directors, taking applications for a short 10-day window until Oct 12.
• With SpaceX phasing out commercial Falcon 9 flights, Rocket Lab’s launch backlog has surged to $2.36 billion as satellite operators seek alternatives.
• Artemis II lunar science data archive was released, featuring over 800 gigabytes of observations, 11,000 high-res photos + videos of the Moon, and 8 hours of recorded crew commentary.

GLOBAL REPORTS

• Korea’s Nuri rocket deployed 14 satellites, including five NEONSAT microsatellites, but failed to release one secondary CubeSat due to a localized deployment mechanism glitch.
• The Antalya Declaration was endorsed by 32 participants from 21 countries to promote peaceful space cooperation, climate resilience and economic inclusion while preventing an orbital arms race.
• At IAC, Türkiye detailed its 2027 Moon mission, ESA signed an MoU with Vast for post-ISS transition, China re-confirmed 2030 Moon landing + hardware progress, and India shared that 95% of its Gaganyaan qualification tests are complete.

BEYOND EARTH

• Mars’ 1,100-mile-long cloud, which forms every single morning during spring and summer, may be explained by water vapor freezing directly into ice without needing dust.
• Hera, about a month away from encountering Didymos, sent back its first image of the binary asteroid system.
• The confirmation of the youngest known exoplanet, which is only 1 million years old and located 450 light-years away, challenges current models of planetary formation.