¶NISAR launches. The $1.5B joint NASA-ISRO SAR mission launched last week from India’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre on a GSLV rocket—becoming the first satellite collaboration for the agencies (c.f. Issue № 300). Carrying an impressive deployable 12-meter-wide antenna on a 9-meter boom, NISAR will map the planet’s surface twice every 12 days with two different SAR bands: L-Band with an instrument from JPL, good at moisture, biomass, and land motion detection, and S-Band from ISRO, good at sensing changes to agriculture, grassland ecosystems, and infrastructure. Combined, these measurements will provide change detection at centimeter resolution and be invaluable for monitoring land motion (earthquakes, landslides, volcanic activity), ice shelves, erosion, as well as forest and wetland ecosystems. NISAR orbits in a 747 km SSO and is expected to generate 80 terabytes of data products per day, including polar regions in the Southern Hemisphere not covered by other SAR satellites today. |
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 | NISAR with its impressive deployable antenna. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech |
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¶Eris barely lifts off. Australian startup Gilmour Space’s Eris rocket took off for the first time, kind of. The privately developed 25-meter-tall hybrid-fueled rocket—Australia’s first homegrown orbital launch vehicle—lost first one and then a second of its four main engines just above the launch pad, which fortunately seems to have survived as the rocket powerslid sideways and then fell to the ground after a total flight time of 14 seconds (video). This unexpectedly propulsive landing didn’t make much of a fireball, however, likely in part due to the solid fuel plus peroxide hybrid nature of the rocket’s first and second stages. (We’re sure some will queue the SpaceX / SpaceY jokes, but making it off the launch pad is still a critical first step; that’s some solid thrust vectoring control.) We’re looking forward to the next launch, which could come in the next six months. |
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¶Success begets success. Firefly received its fourth NASA CLIPS award, this time for Blue Ghost 4 (BG4). The $176.7M mission includes 2029 delivery of several payloads, including two rovers, to the lunar south pole, and its Elytra Dark orbital segment will join (hopefully) two existing segments from previous missions to provide comms and lunar imaging. “The company’s second mission, targeting a launch in 2026, includes a lunar orbit drop-off of a satellite combined with a delivery to the lunar surface on the far side. Firefly’s third lunar mission will target landing in the Gruithuisen Domes on the near side of the Moon in 2028, delivering six experiments to study that enigmatic lunar volcanic terrain.” Landing in the South Pole region, BG4 will study lunar regolith with stereo cameras during landing, two rovers (one built with Astrobotic and CMU, and one from the Canadian Space Agency designed to survive a lunar night) that are also focused on better understanding the characteristics of regolith and volatiles (including water ice) found nearby. |
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| ¶News in brief. Russia plans to develop a reusable rocket in 18 to 24 months, according to Roscosmos chief Dmitry Bakanov ● The Roscosmos chief also met with acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy, marking the first face-to-face meeting of the leaders of the two space organizations since 2018 (oddly and notably, NASA has provided zero coverage of this visit) ● Spaceflux, a London-based startup, raised $7.3M in seed funding to expand its global telescope network and accelerate development of AI-based space situational awareness solutions ● The Exploration Company completed 16 hot-fire tests of the preburner for their Typhoon engine, which is designed to produce 250 tons of thrust, comparable to a SpaceX Raptor ● EarthDaily Analytics raised $60M to launch their 10-satellite EO constellation and expand their geospatial solutions ● Chinese reusable rocket developer LandSpace filed to go public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange ● Dr. Michele Dougherty, a planetary physicist who worked on Cassini, became Britain’s next Astronomer Royal, marking the first time a woman will hold this 350-year-old position ● EraDrive, a spinoff from Stanford’s Space Rendezvous Laboratory, won a $1M NASA contract to detect and track space objects ● NASA’s failed Lunar Trailblazer mission has officially come to an end—the team was never able to establish two-way communication with the spacecraft ● Blue Origin completed its 14th human, and 34th total, flight with New Shepard ● A Falcon 9 carrying Crew-11 (two NASA astronauts, one JAXA astronaut, and one Roscosmos cosmonaut) launched to the ISS for a planned stay ranging from six to eight months (due to a potential mission extension to start minimizing crew launches amidst budget cuts). |
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 | The ISS, as viewed by SpaceX Crew Dragon, on its approach to bring Crew-11 to the station. |
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JWST’s view of planetary nebula NGC 6072 in near-infrared shows a complex scene of multiple outflows expanding at different angles from a dying star at the center of the image. The red areas represent cool molecular gas, including molecular hydrogen. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI |  |
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