SPACEX LAUNCHES INTELLIGENCE-GATHERING SATELLITES FOR THE NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE - The National Reconnaissance Office flew its 13th mission supporting an intelligence-gathering constellation it calls the “proliferated architecture” on Monday night. As with the first dozen missions, this batch of satellites (of an undisclosed quantity) will fly to orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The mission, dubbed NROL-172, launched from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Liftoff happened at 7:13:50 p.m. PDT (10:13:50 p.m. EDT / 0213:50 UTC), nearly four hours after the opening of the window. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 12)
CHINA LAUNCHES ROBOTIC CARGO MISSION TO SPACE STATION - China launched the Tianzhou 10 robotic cargo mission on Monday morning in Hainan province, sending supplies and propellants to the Tiangong space station. The cargo vessel's carrier — a 53-meter-tall Long March 7 rocket — lifted off at 8:14 am from a launch service tower at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan's southeastern coast. After a short flight, the rocket placed the Tianzhou 10 into its preset low-Earth orbit, and the solar wings on the spacecraft unfolded, marking the successful completion of the launch mission. More (Source: China Daily - May 12)
NO MORE ROCKETS: THE WILD NEW TECH LAUNCHING SATELLITES WITH ZERO EMISSIONS - Most rockets burn thousands of litres of fuel before they even clear the launch pad. SpinLaunch aims to skip that phase. Using a vacuum sealed centrifuge at Spaceport America, the California based company spins payloads to 8,000 kilometres per hour before releasing them skyward. A small rocket motor handles only the final orbital insertion, bypassing the most fuel intensive part of the journey. More (Source: Futura - May 11)
EUROPE'S 1ST REUSABLE SPACECRAFT 'SPACE RIDER' CLEARS KEY HURDLES ON THE ROAD TO LAUNCH - Before Europe's new spacecraft design can lift off on its first mission, the European Space Agency must first test the hardest parts of bringing it home. Space Rider, a novel spacecraft concept from the European Space Agency (ESA), is advancing toward its first flight, with new milestones tackling two of the vehicle's biggest challenges: surviving the heat of reentry and executing a precise landing back on Earth. More (Source: Space.com - May 10)
RESCUE MISSION FOR NASA’S $500 MILLION SPACE TELESCOPE PASSES KEY TESTING MILESTONE - A mission to prevent a $500 million NASA space observatory from meeting a fiery demise just passed a notable prelaunch testing milestone. The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, a spacecraft launched in 2004, is at risk of falling back through the atmosphere and burning up without intervention. On Friday, NASA announced that the Link spacecraft, manufactured by Katalyst Space Technologies to intervene before Swift’s fate is sealed, completed its slate of environmental testing at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 9)
‘WHATEVER RUSSIA IS TESTING, IT’S SOPHISTICATED’: SATELLITES PASS WITHIN 3 METRES OF EACH OTHER - Astronomers have observed two Russian military satellites passing within 3 metres (10 feet) of each other in an unexplained manoeuvre. The COSMOS 2581 and COSMOS 2583 satellites, launched by Russia’s space agency Roscosmos in February 2025, performed the operation last week while orbiting at an altitude of around 585 kilometres. The incident, which was tracked by US-based space situational awareness firm COMSPOC, has raised concerns about space-based surveillance and orbital collisions. More (Source: Yahoo News - May 8)
CHINA'S TIANZHOU-9 CARGO SPACECRAFT SEPARATES FROM SPACE STATION, TO RE-ENTER ATMOSPHERE SOON - China's Tianzhou-9 cargo spacecraft, tasked with carrying supplies for China's space station, separated from the station combination on Wednesday, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA). The cargo craft has switched to independent flight and will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere in a controlled manner soon. Most of its components will burn up and be destroyed during the process, while a small amount of debris will fall into designated safe waters, the CMSA said. More (Source: CGTN - May 7)
NASA SETS COVERAGE FOR SPACEX 34TH STATION RESUPPLY LAUNCH, ARRIVAL - NASA and SpaceX are targeting 7:16 p.m. EDT Tuesday, May 12, for the next launch to deliver science, supplies, and equipment to the International Space Station. This will be the 34th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission to the orbital outpost for NASA. Carrying about 6,500 pounds of cargo, a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will lift off aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Dragon is scheduled to dock autonomously at about 9:50 a.m. Thursday, May 14, to the forward port of the station’s Harmony module. More (Source: NASA - May 7)
SPACE JUNK FALLS TO EARTH FASTER WHEN SUNSPOTS PEAK, RESHAPING SATELLITE COLLISION FORECASTS - Solar emissions exert 'drag' on space junk orbiting Earth. From historical measurements across a period of 36 years, researchers have now shown that space junk begins to fall down much faster once the sun's activity across the solar cycle reaches approximately 67% of its peak. This result, which is expected to hold for station-keeping satellites too, is important for better planning of space missions that avoid collisions. More (Source: Phys.org - May 7)
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