Vol 45, Week 30

NASA & NEWSPACE

• Highly anticipated SpaceX Starship Flight 13 achieved many mission successes: Super Heavy hard splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, deployed 20 Starlink satellites, Starship soft landing in Indian Ocean.
• Astronauts and engineers increasingly question whether a safe, practical landing at the lunar south pole is realistic for Artemis IV.
• Relativity Space expanding test and launch infrastructure in Florida, including a production facility for its Terran R rocket. 
• Indigenous groups and conservationists have filed an emergency injunction to block the transfer of 727 acres of public land to SpaceX until the courts rule on the ongoing lawsuit.

GLOBAL REPORTS

• JAXA successfully completed a two-minute burn test of the Epsilon S rocket’s second-stage engine, clearing the path for a potential launch attempt in FY2026.
• The demonstration model for South Africa’s lunar radio astronomy experiment will soon be shipped to CNSA for testing and approval ahead of the 2029 Chang’e-8 mission.
• The South Australian Government signed an MoU with Space Florida to explore potential for launch, landing and spaceport projects.
• India’s Mission ShakthiSAT begins training program next month with 20 participants for an all-girls lunar CubeSat mission.

BEYOND EARTH

• An ‘Exosatellite‘, roughly the size of Jupiter, found in CD-35 2722 system orbiting a brown dwarf which is orbiting a small sun.
• After a 321-day hibernation, the New Horizons probe will begin transmitting stored data on heliospheric plasma before commencing new study on hydrogen distribution in the outer heliosphere.
• Juno came within 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of Jupiter’s moon Io, taking the first measurements of temperatures below its surface.