17/V 2025 [69-72]69)
Some doubts about Jared Isaacmanby A.J. Mackenzie Monday, May 5, 2025
Jared Isaacman speaks at his April 9 Senate confirmation hearing on his nomination to be NASA administrator. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)Sometime this month, barring an unforeseen event, Jared Isaacman will become NASA’s next administrator. That became clear when the Senate Commerce Committee voted to send his nomination to the full Senate, with every Republican—and a few Democrats—voting in favor of it. The only question is when the Senate will find time to take up the nomination: maybe this week, maybe next, but certainly not too long from now.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4980/170)
Playing catchupby Jeff Foust Monday, May 5, 2025
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V lifts off April 28 carrying the first set of 27 operational Project Kuiper satellites for Amazon. (credit: ULA)Last Monday evening, an Atlas V lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. If you hadn’t been paying close attention to the launch, you might think it was a classified mission. Shortly after the Centaur upper stage separated and ignited its RL10 engine, United Launch Alliance wrapped up its webcast of the launch at the request of the customer. ULA provided a few brief updates afterwards, but no details until more than 90 minutes after liftoff when it announced payload separation.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4981/171)
Project Nivelir: Russia’s inspection satellites (part 2)by Bart Hendrickx Monday, May 5, 2025
Optical telescope likely installed aboard the Nivelir parent satellites. Source: TsNIIKhM websiteOptical payloadsAs explained in part 1, the goals of NPO Lavochkin’s 14F150 satellites are both Earth remote sensing and long-distance space surveillance, while TsNIIKhM’s 14F162 subsatellites appear to be designed for close-up inspections of satellites and, if necessary, their destruction. Although the payloads needed for the observations largely remain shrouded in mystery, some information on them can be gleaned from open sources.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4982/172)
Dark territory: the National Reconnaissance Office, satellite inspection, and anti-satellite weapons in the early 1970sby Dwayne A. Day Monday, May 5, 2025
Launch of a Program 437AP (Alternate Payload) inspection spacecraft in the mid-1960s from Johnston Island in the Pacific. The 437AP and its nuclear-armed ASAT variant were both limited in capabilities, and Johnston Island facilities were vulnerable to storms. The ASAT was put in standby mode in the early 1970s and retired by 1974. (credit: USAF)
In the early 1970s, the super-secret National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) considered taking on a new mission—satellite inspection. This would have required an American satellite to closely approach another satellite to photograph it and take other measurements. Even if such an action was not considered a direct threat, it would demonstrate an American capability to rendezvous with and destroy other satellites. The policy questions associated with doing this were huge: not only the international implications, but whether an agency dedicated to gathering intelligence about adversaries on the ground and at sea should also become involved in close operations against other satellites.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4983/118/V 2025 [73-76]73)
Review: Extraterrestrial Life by Jeff Foust Monday, May 12, 2025
Extraterrestrial Life: We Are Not Aloneby Antonino Del Popolo
Springer, 2025
paperback, 156 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-3-031-83496-7
US$37.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3031834968/spaceviewsIt’s a familiar trajectory for astrobiology stories. Scientists announce the discovery of a biosignature, or at least a potential biosignature, on another world in our solar system or beyond. The announcement is made at a conference, or in a paper provided to media under embargo, resulting in a surge of stories touting the discovery. Then other scientists step in and poke holes in the original discovery: a flaw in the methodology, perhaps, or alternative explanations that don’t require life. The discovery becomes far less convincing.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4984/174)
Why we are so scared of space, and how this fear can drive conspiracy theoriesby Tony Milligan Monday, May 12, 2025
Some people worry about the threats asteroids pose to Earth, while others worry about the threat posed by efforts to prevent such impacts (credit: ESA)There are many home-grown problems on Earth, but there’s still time to worry about bad things arriving from above. The most recent is the asteroid 2024 YR4, which could be a “city killer” if it hits a heavily populated area of our planet in the early years of the next decade.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4985/175)
Russian and Chinese development of radiofrequency directed energy weapons (RF DEW) for counterspaceby Markos Trichas and Matthew Mowthorpe Monday, May 12, 2025
The Numizmat satellite launched by Russia in 2022 includes a UWB and HPM payloads[4]High-power microwave weapons deployed in space have been under research and development by both Russia and China for the last three decades. Their devastating potential has perhaps not received as much attention as other ASAT capabilities that, in our assessment, are further behind in development. This is despite the launch by Russian of the Numizmat satellite, which is considered to be a possible developmental radiofrequency directed energy weapon.[1]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4986/176)
Budget cuts and the fraying of international partnershipsby Jeff Foust Monday, May 12, 2025
The White House's 2026 budget proposal would cancel the lunar Gateway, a NASA-led program with contributions from Canada, Europe, Japan and the UAE. (credit: NASA)Even if you know the axe is falling, it doesn’t make it any less painful.
It was clear for weeks that the White House would propose major cuts to NASA in its fiscal year 2026 budget request. The leak of the near-final “passback” budget from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in April revealed plans to cut NASA’s science funding by nearly 50%, cancelling several major missions (see “All of the above, or none?”, The Space Review, April 14, 2025). Even before that, it appeared likely that some parts of Artemis, like the Space Launch System and lunar Gateway, would also be threatened, perhaps as part of a promised redirection of human spaceflight from the Moon to Mars.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4987/119/V 2025 [77-80]77)
Opportunities for New Zealand as geopolitics reshapes the space economyby Peter Zámborský, Christian Dietrich, and Denis Odlin Monday, May 19, 2025
New Zealand’s space industry is most closely associated with Rocket Lab, but the country is looking for ways to grow its industry. (credit: Rocket Lab)The space economy is being reshaped—not just by innovation, but by geopolitics. What was once dominated by state space agencies, and more recently by private ventures, is evolving into a hybrid model in which government priorities and commercial capabilities are intertwined.
The rise of protectionist policies, tariff wars, export controls and national security concerns is forcing space firms to adapt their strategies—and, in many cases, to rethink where and how they operate.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4988/178)
Space mining: corporate autocracy or global solidarity?by Nikola Schmidt and Martin Švec Monday, May 19, 2025
Developing international mechanisms governing space mining could prevent a single country or company from amassing too much power in space. (credit: ESA)This text was originally written in the Czech language as a policy paper at the Institute of International Relations in Prague and has been slightly adapted for a broader global audience.As a result of rapid advances in space technologies and improved understanding of the composition of celestial bodies, the mining of mineral resources in outer space has increasingly become a topic of discussion at international forums. In particular, the growing commercial opportunities in space related to the utilization of space resources have led to reflections on the urgent need to resolve the legal uncertainty surrounding the legality and conditions under which mineral resources in outer space may be exploited. The current debate on the future regulatory regime for space mining primarily revolves around two opposing principles: the “first-come-first-served” approach and the concept of the “common heritage of mankind,” which emphasizes the shared benefit of all states regardless of their level of economic development, or indeed the benefit of humanity as a whole.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4989/179)
An asteroid’s threatened impact may still impact planetary defenseby Jeff Foust Monday, May 19, 2025
NASA’s NEO Surveyor mission is set to launch as soon as the fall of 2027 to search for near Earth asteroids. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)It says something about the state of the world that, for a brief time earlier this year, the prospect of death from the skies was a welcomed distraction. In January, observations of the near Earth asteroid 2024 YR4, discovered near the end of last year, showed a small chance that it would hit the Earth in December 2032. Such odds are not that uncommon for near Earth objects, or NEOs, that have just been discovered and with limited data that can be used to project an orbit. Usually, within a few days the odds fall to zero as the orbit is refined.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4990/180)
Spinning in the black: The Satellite Data System and real-time reconnaissanceby Dwayne A. Day Monday, May 19, 2025
Launch of the first Satellite Data System satellite in 1976 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. These satellites served as relays for reconnaissance satellites flying over the Soviet Union, beaming their signals directly back to a ground station outside Washington, DC. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection)Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of one of the most secretive communications satellites ever built, a satellite that received images from a reconnaissance satellite transmitted at a frequency that could not be detected from the ground, and then beamed them down to a ground station located outside of Washington, DC. Although many details of the satellite system remain secret to this day, enough is known about it to indicate that it was highly unusual, both in its design and the way it was developed.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4991/1Note: Because of the Memorial Day holiday, next week’s issue will be published on Tuesday, May 27.20/V 2025 [81-84]81)
Review: From the Laboratory to the Moon by Jeff Foust Tuesday, May 27, 2025
From the Laboratory to the Moon: The Quiet Genius of George R. Carruthersby David H. DeVorkin
The MIT Press, 2025
paperback, 456 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-262-55139-7
US$75.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/026255139X/spaceviewsSome time this fall, a Falcon 9 will launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center carrying three heliophysics spacecraft for NASA and NOAA. Among the satellites on that shared launch is a spacecraft that will observe the Earth at ultraviolet wavelengths looking for emissions from the “geocorona,” a part of the upper atmosphere, to study how space weather interacts with it. The spacecraft was originally known as the Global Lyman-alpha Imager of the Dynamic Exosphere, or GLIDE, but in December 2022 NASA formally renamed it as the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4992/182)
Raiders of the Lost Venus Probe: a post-mortem of an interesting reentry and the confusion it leftby Marco Langbroek and Dominic Dirkx Tuesday, May 27, 2025
A museum replica of the Venera 8 descent craft that reentered earlier this month. (credit: NASA)It caused an unexpected media storm in the first week of May 2025: the uncontrolled reentry, on May 10, of the 53-year-old lander module of a failed Soviet Venera mission from 1972. Called the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft (COSPAR designation 1972-023E, SSC catalogue number 6073), it was the subject of an earlier article one of us wrote here (see “Kosmos 482: questions around a failed Venera lander from 1972 still orbiting Earth (but not for long)”, The Space Review , May 16, 2022). The lander, which was supposed to go to Venus but got stuck in Earth orbit, was designed to survive reentry through the Venus atmosphere. Thus, it is therefore very likely that it survived reentry through Earth’s atmosphere intact, before impacting at an estimated speed of 65 to 70 meter per second after atmospheric deceleration. Not your standard reentry!
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4993/183)
The origins and evolution of the Defense Support Program (part 3): The hangar queens and DSP-1by Dwayne A. Day Tuesday, May 27, 2025
The Defense Support Program infrared missile warning satellites were designed to detect the heat of ballistic missile launches. The first satellite was launched in 1971, and several remain in operation today. Over the decades they were modified and adapted to detect a wider range of thermal targets. Here a DSP satellite is carried in the Space Shuttle payload bay during the 1991 mission of STS-44. (credit: NASA)The Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites had entered development in the mid-1960s with the primary goal of detecting Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) launched from fixed silos in the Soviet Union, and a secondary goal of detecting atmospheric nuclear explosions based on the flash they made in the atmosphere. The satellites were large cylinders with an off-axis infrared telescope pointed out of their top: as the satellite spun at six rotations per minute, the telescope would sweep the face of the Earth, detecting heat sources. As the heat source moved, the data could be processed to reveal launch site, trajectory, velocity, and other information. By the 1980s, DSP’s capabilities were expanding even more, both in space and on the ground.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4994/1W rosyjskim programie kosmicznym bez zmian, czyli zmagania z uciekającą nowoczesnością, ale...
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The more things change…by Bill Barry Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Yuri Borisov, former head of Roscosmos (Source: Kremlin.ru)With everything else going on recently, you may have missed what has been happening in the Russian space program since the start of 2025. There have been substantial changes beginning in February which will impact US-Russian space relations. The first public evidence of the internal upheaval was when Yuri Ivanovich Borisov, head of Roscosmos since 2022, was suddenly replaced by Dmitry Vladimirovich Bakanov on February 6. Reports in the Russian space press suggest that this change in leadership came as a complete surprise to those in the industry. The Kremlin simply announced on social media that morning that Borisov had been relieved of his duties. When pressed on the issue later that day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Sergeyevich Peskov said that there were no complaints about Borisov’s work. Peskov characterized the change as simply a regular staff “rotation.”[1] While Borisov was generally considered a steady and effective leader, especially after the antics of his mercurial predecessor Dmitry Rogozin, his tenure was plagued by continuing problems. (...)
The day before the launch of Soyuz MS-27, the new head of Roscosmos met with NASA Associate Administrator Ken Bowersox at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Bowersox was the senior NASA official at the launch. As has generally been the case since 2022, NASA press reports made no mention of the meeting with the head of Roscosmos. However, numerous Russian press sources covered the meeting. According to the Russian reports, Bowersox and Bakanov discussed cooperation on the ISS, launches from the Baiterek facility under construction at Baikonur, and “plans to commemorate the upcoming Soyuz-Apollo anniversary.”[27] In early May, Roscosmos Director General Bakanov announced that “…we’ll be speaking with [NASA Administrator nominee] Jared Isaacman soon.”[28]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4995/1
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