Vol 45, Week 44

NASA & NEWSPACE

• Jared Isaacman announced NASA has cut the Artemis III assembly and integration schedule in half and gave more specific finalized operational details of the mission. 
• Virgin Galactic’s Delta-class spaceplane, Apeiron, undergoing testing ahead of planned commercial suborbital flights in 2027.
• Kratos will receive $33.6 million to build a nuclear reactor power conversion system for NASA’s Space Reactor-1 Freedom spacecraft targeted for a 2028 Mars mission.
• University of Hawaiʻi seniors won a $50,000 NASA award for a zero-waste ecosystem design, ʻOhā Kanu, which adapts traditional Hawaiian farming to feed crews on Mars.

GLOBAL REPORTS

• Aiming for an October 30 launch, ISRO will fly the NVS-03 satellite aboard the GSLV-F18 rocket in an unprecedented configuration—with its pyrotechnic valves already open.
• The European Union is considering giving Canada access to its upcoming IRIS² secure satellite communications network, as countries seek to deploy independent alternatives amid Ukraine’s Starlink issues.
• An image taken of China’s Shenlong reusable space plane was recently released showing it docked to another satellite in May 2024 during its 3rd flight.

BEYOND EARTH

• The Vera C. Rubin Observatory discovered its first dwarf planet candidate 2026 ED138, a 1,000-km wide icy world located beyond Pluto.
• Though predicting the exact date & time is not possible until its final hours, Swift observatory will reenter Earth’s atmosphere around Nov 3 between 21°N and 21°S latitude producing a slow, fragmenting fireball.
• A new study suggests comet impacts during Earth’s first 500 million years vaporized organic molecules, making the delivery of life’s building blocks a one-in-a-million chance.