Space Bulletin Weekly

A five-year effort to rewire the International Space Station's power supply is finished. Spaceflight Now reports NASA's Anil Menon and Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk unfurled the eighth and final new roll-out solar array on Thursday, during a spacewalk of six hours and fifty-nine minutes. About four and a half hours in, flight controllers saw the new array delivering only about half the expected…

NASA's administrator says the next Artemis mission cannot slip. In an interview with Florida Today, part of the USA Today Network, Jared Isaacman said Artemis Three "must fly" in 2027. The crew of four is set to launch next summer into low Earth orbit, where they will dock with Blue Origin's lander and briefly with a SpaceX Starship, to pave the way for a Moon landing on Artemis Four in 2028. Isaa…

NASA has laid out its most detailed plan yet for getting astronauts back to the Moon. At a news conference at Kennedy Space Center on Friday, Administrator Jared Isaacman said the agency is still targeting Artemis Three for the summer of 2027, and Artemis Four, the first crewed landing, for 2028. NASA says Artemis Three will send NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas, along …

Japan's mission to bring back a piece of a Martian moon is on its way. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency says its H3 rocket launched the Martian Moons eXploration spacecraft, known as MMX, from Tanegashima Space Center at three forty-one yesterday afternoon Eastern time. JAXA says the rocket flew as planned, and the spacecraft separated about seventy-one minutes after liftoff and was placed i…

Japan's mission to bring back a piece of a Martian moon is set to launch today. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency says its Martian Moons eXploration spacecraft, known as MMX, will lift off on an H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center at three forty-one this afternoon Eastern time, which is twelve forty-one Pacific. SpacePolicyOnline reports that two of the spacecraft's thirteen science instr…

A Russian satellite has moved in close to an American-owned commercial satellite. Axios reports that the tracking company LeoLabs says Russia's Cosmos twenty-six twelve appears to be making a deliberate approach toward ICEYE-X36, a radar imaging satellite tied to ICEYE US. As of Friday afternoon, the two were roughly three miles apart, after being more than two hundred miles apart a day earlier. I…

NASA will lay out its updated Moon plans next week. The agency says Administrator Jared Isaacman will lead a briefing at Kennedy Space Center on Friday, October 23, on its push to return American astronauts to the lunar surface by 2028. It will include details on Artemis Three, which NASA says will send four astronauts to low Earth orbit next year to test systems needed for future landings. Hardwa…

Ukraine's access to a SpaceX military satellite service is at the center of a new dispute in Washington. Reuters reports that the order to slow the Starshield service used by Ukraine's military came from inside the White House, according to two U.S. officials and a Western official briefed on the matter. Starshield is the military-grade version of Starlink. Ukrainian officials say the limits compl…

NASA has set a date to explain how it plans to speed up its return to the Moon. The agency says Administrator Jared Isaacman and Artemis leaders will give an update on October 23 at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA says the briefing will cover Artemis Three, which will now send four astronauts to low Earth orbit next year to test systems needed for later landings, and its goal of putting Amer…

NASA says work on the rocket for Artemis Three has reached another milestone. According to the agency, teams at Kennedy Space Center in Florida have finished stacking the final solid rocket booster segments on the mobile launcher, and all four RS-25 engines are now installed on the core stage. NASA plans to roll the partial rocket out to Launch Pad 39B in the coming months for a fueling test.