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SpaceX Starship: First Flight-provenSuper Heavy Booster Liftoff (Slow Motion)
This video shows the "liftoff of the first flight-proven Super Heavy booster and thrice flown Raptor engines." Starship’s ninth flight test lifted off at 6:36 p.m. CT on Tuesday, May 27, 2025, from Starbase, Texas. This test marked a major milestone for reuse with the first flight-proven Super Heavy booster launching from Starbase, and once more returned Starship to space. Data review is underway, and new improvements will be implemented as work begins to prepare the next Starship and Super Heavy vehicles for flight. Developmental testing by definition is unpredictable, but every lesson learned marks progress toward Starship’s goal of enabling life to become multiplanetary.
The Super Heavy booster supporting the mission made the first ever reflight in the Starship program, having previously launched on Starship’s seventh flight test in January 2025. The booster performed a full-duration ascent burn with all 33 of its Raptor engines and separated from Starship’s upper stage in a hot-staging maneuver. During separation, Super Heavy performed the first deterministic flip followed by its boostback burn.
Super Heavy demonstrated its ability to fly at a higher angle of attack during its descent back to Earth. By increasing the amount of atmospheric drag on the vehicle, a higher angle of attack results in a slower descent speed. This in turn requires less propellant for the initial landing burn. Getting real-world data on how the booster controlled its flight at this higher angle of attack will contribute to improved performance on future vehicles, including the next generation of Super Heavy.
As it approached its designated splashdown area in the Gulf of America, Super Heavy relit its 13 center and middle ring Raptor engines. Contact with the booster was lost shortly after the start of landing burn when it experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly approximately 6 minutes after launch, bringing an end to the first reflight of a Super Heavy booster.
Following a successful stage separation, the Starship upper stage lit all six of its Raptor engines and performed a full-duration ascent burn. The engines on Starship flew with mitigations in place following learnings from the eighth flight test, including additional preload on key joints, a new nitrogen purge system, and improvements to the propellant drain system.
During Starship’s orbital coast, several in-space objectives were planned, including the first payload deployment from Starship and a relight of a single Raptor engine.
Starship’s payload bay door was unable to open which prevented the deployment of the eight Starlink simulator satellites. A subsequent attitude control error resulted in bypassing the Raptor relight and prevented Starship from getting into the intended position for reentry. Starship then went through an automated safing process to vent the remaining pressure to place the vehicle in the safest condition for reentry. Contact with Starship was lost approximately 46 minutes into the flight, with all debris expected to fall within the planned hazard area in the Indian Ocean.
SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket—collectively referred to as Starship—represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. Starship is the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, capable of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes fully reusable and 250 metric tonnes expendable.
Key Starship Parameters:
Height: 123m/403ft Diameter: 9m/29.5ft Payload to LEO: 100–150t (fully reusable)
"Starship is essential to both SpaceX’s plans to deploy its next-generation Starship system as well as for NASA, which will use a lunar lander version of Starship for landing astronauts on the Moon during the Artemis III mission through the Human Landing System (HLS) program."
Is This How Planet Mars Lost Its Atmosphere? | NASA Goddard
Mars is losing its atmosphere. Over billions of years, the Red Planet has transformed from a potentially habitable world with lakes, rivers, and a thicker atmosphere into the cold, dry desert we see today. NASA’s MAVEN mission has been tracking this process in real time, catching Mars in the act of slowly sputtering its atmosphere into space.
This phenomenon—called “atmospheric sputtering”—happens when high-energy particles from the Sun slam into Mars’s upper atmosphere, knocking atoms and molecules loose. Without a global magnetic field to protect it, Mars is especially vulnerable. MAVEN has shown that this atmospheric escape accelerates during solar storms, offering a powerful view of how the Sun shapes the evolution of planetary atmospheres.
The data from MAVEN helps us understand how atmospheres behave across the solar system and beyond. It is a glimpse into what makes a planet stay habitable—or lose that potential entirely.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Dan Gallagher: Lead Producer Paul Morris: Producer / Editor Dr. Shannon Curry: Scientist / Interviewee Willow Reed: Public Affairs Nancy Jones: Public Affairs Greg Shirah: Data Visualizer Cindy Starr: Data Visualizer Kel Elkins: Data Visualizer Walt Feimer: Animator Michael Lentz: Animator Chris Smith: Animator Jonathan North: Animator Brian Monroe: Animator Lisa Poje: Graphic Designer Adriana Manrique Gutierrez: Graphic Designer Kim Dongjae: Graphic Designer Ernie Wright: Support Aaron E. Lepsch: Technical Support Additional Credits: Periodic Table Focusing On Argon With Properties by S_D_Brath via Pond5 Ashes Of A Camp Fire Next To Chair by BlackBoxGuild via Pond5 Wood Burning In A Camp Fire by Edb3_16 via Pond5 Duration: 3 minutes Release Date: May 29, 2025
China Launches Tianwen-2 to Retrieve Asteroid Samples & Make Comet Flyby
China's Tianwen-2, the nation's first space probe commissioned to retrieve samples from an asteroid, launched in the early hours of Thursday, May 29, 2025, aiming to shed light on the formation and evolution of asteroids and the early solar system.
The Tianwen-2 mission aims to achieve multiple goals over a decade-long expedition: collecting samples from the near-Earth asteroid 2016HO3 and exploring the main-belt comet 311P that is more distant than Mars.
A Long March-3B carrier rocket blasted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province at 01:31 (Beijing Time). And about 18 minutes later, the Tianwen-2 probe was sent into a transfer orbit from Earth to the asteroid 2016HO3, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
The spacecraft unfolded its solar panels smoothly, and the CNSA declared the launch a success.
Shan Zhongde, head of the CNSA, said that the Tianwen-2 mission represents a significant step in China's new journey of interplanetary exploration.
Despite the mission's long duration and significant risks, he said he hoped it would make groundbreaking discoveries and expand humanity's knowledge of the cosmos.
Known as a quasi-satellite of Earth, asteroid 2016HO3 orbits the Sun and appears to circle around Earth as well, remaining a constant companion to our planet.
Dubbed as "cosmic fossils," asteroids preserve critical information about the solar system's infancy, scientists say.
The second target, 311P, a celestial anomaly discovered in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, occasionally spews out materials and resembles a comet with tails. Its discovery challenges astronomers' conventional understanding about comets, as the region is too close to the Sun for a comet to retain volatile materials like water ice.
The Tianwen-2 mission is expected to advance understanding of the origins, evolution and characteristics of these two types of small celestial bodies, said Han Siyuan, deputy director of the CNSA's Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center and spokesperson for the Tianwen-2 mission.
The mission will focus on measuring the physical parameters of the two celestial targets, including their orbital dynamics, rotation, size, shape and thermal properties.
The mission will also investigate the topography, composition and internal structure of the two celestial bodies, and possibly study the materials ejected by the main belt comet, Han said.
After the samples are brought back to Earth, they will be analyzed to determine their physical properties, chemical and mineral composition and structural characteristics, he added.
The mission is a complex one, with the spacecraft journeying for about a year to reach its first target, during which it will perform deep-space maneuvers and mid-course corrections until it is about 30,000 km away from 2016HO3.
The probe will gradually approach the target, carrying out closer exploration by circling and hovering over the asteroid to determine the sampling area, with a strategy of flying and probing simultaneously.
After completing the sampling, the spacecraft will fly back towards Earth when a return capsule is expected to separate from the main probe and deliver the samples back to Earth by the end of 2027.
The main probe will then continue its voyage to rendezvous with the more distant target, the main-belt comet 311P, to carry out further exploration.
The probe is equipped with an array of scientific instruments, including cameras, a visible and infrared imaging spectrometer, a thermal emission spectrometer, radar, a magnetometer, and analyzers for charged and neutral particles, as well as for ejected materials, according to the CNSA.
The mission aims to overcome key technological challenges, including sampling on a low-gravity celestial surface, high-precision autonomous navigation and control, as well as trajectory design, according to the CNSA.
Video Credit: CCTV Duration: 50 seconds Release Date: May 28, 2025
NASA "Espacio A Tierra" | Artículos devueltos: 23 de mayo 2025
Espacio a Tierra, la versión en español de las cápsulas Space to Ground de la NASA, te informa semanalmente de lo que está sucediendo en la Estación Espacial Internacional.
China Launches Tianwen-2 Asteroid-Sample Return & Comet Flyby Mission
China launched its first asteroid sample-return mission, Tianwen-2, in the early hours of Thursday, May 29, 2025 Beijing Time—an endeavour to shed light on the formation and evolution of asteroids and the early solar system. This will be the country's first asteroid flyby and sample-return mission.
The Tianwen-2 robotic probe will first collect samples from a small near Earth asteroid called 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, also known as 2016HO3, and return them to Earth in 2027. The asteroid is roughly 40 to 100-meters in diameter. Then, Tianwen-2 will visit a main belt comet, named comet 311P/PANSTARRS. China's Tianwen-2 Mission follows similar missions by the United States, Russia, and Japan, except China will explore an asteroid and a comet in a single mission for the first time in history.
The next Tianwen mission after this one is a Mars sample return mission in 2028. Of course, Tianwen-2 is the second in the Tianwen (meaning “Heavenly Questions” or “Questions to Heaven”) exploration series. The first, Tianwen-1, included a Mars orbiter and surface rover, named Zhurong. Tianwen-4 will launch around 2030. It will include a solar-powered Jupiter orbiter which will observe the system and then enter orbit around the moon Callisto—potentially including a lander—and a smaller, radioisotope-powered spacecraft to make a flyby of Uranus. These missions are also part of a wider, planetary exploration roadmap focused on astrobiology and habitability, and a long-term plan for space science.
China’s first asteroid flyby of 4179 Toutatis was in 2012, when the Chang’e-2 lunar orbiter made this an extended mission objective. Tianwen-2 aims to provide vital data to help us understand the nature of asteroids and comets. The Kamoʻoalewa asteroid travels in a similar orbit to Earth. A Tianwen-2 reentry module containing the samples will be released for atmospheric entry, descent and landing, but the main Tianwen-2 spacecraft will use the Earth’s gravity for a swingby, setting it on course for a six-year-voyage to comet 311P/PANSTARRS that orbits between 1.94 and 2.44 astronomical units from the Sun. Tianwen-2 carries multispectral and infrared spectrometers to study surface composition, while high-resolution cameras will map geological features. A radar sounder will probe subsurface structures, and a magnetometer will search for residual magnetic fields. Dust and gas analyzers will examine comet activity, and charged particle detectors will investigate solar wind interactions. The Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences is understood to have contributed to the particle detectors.
Tianwen-2 Mission Timeline (Tentative):
Arrival at asteroid Kamoʻoalewa: July 4, 2026
👋 Departure: April 24, 2027
🌏 Reentry capsule landing: Nov. 29, 2027
☄️Arrival at comet 311P: Jan. 24, 2035
The CNSA has described 311P/PanSTARRS as a “living fossil”, making it useful for studying the early material composition, formation process and evolutionary history of the solar system. Comet 311P orbits in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter where most asteroids reside, containing over 90 percent of the asteroids in the solar system. It displays features of both comets and asteroids. It has become the seventh main-belt comet confirmed by human beings, and it is also the most peculiar one so far. According to the conventional theory, comets typically originate from the outer edges of the solar system and are rich in ice. As they approach the sun, the heat causes the ice to vaporize, forming their characteristic tails. However, Comet 311P, located in the asteroid belt—far closer to the sun than typical comets—faces intense solar radiation, making it unlikely to retain volatile substances like water ice. This comet challenges astronomers' traditional understanding.
Tianwen-2 will conduct remote sensing of the comet to characterize its orbit, shape, and rotation, examine its surface composition and volatile elements, and investigate dust emissions and activity mechanisms to understand cometary behavior in the main belt.
Comet 311P/PanSTARRS also known as P/2013 P5 (PanSTARRS) was discovered by Bryce T. Bolin using the Pan-STARRS telescope on August 27, 2013. Observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed that it had six comet-like tails. The tails are suspected to be streams of material ejected by the asteroid as a result of a rubble pile asteroid spinning fast enough to remove material from it. This is similar to 331P/Gibbs that was found to be a quickly-spinning rubble pile as well.+
The Tianwen-2 Mission aims to advance China’s planetary exploration capabilities, provide new insights into the understanding of small planetary bodies and their evolutions, and potentially for planetary defense and the origins of life.
Asteroid 2016 HO3 was first spotted on April 27, 2016, by the Pan-STARRS 1 asteroid survey telescope on Haleakala, Hawaii, operated by the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy and funded by NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office. The size of this object has not yet been firmly established, but it is likely larger than 120 feet (40 meters) and smaller than 300 feet (100 meters).
While China has conducted two successful lunar sample return missions, the velocity of the reentry module will be greater for Tianwen-2, marking China’s first second-cosmic-velocity atmospheric reentry, at 12 kilometers per second, adding new challenges. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) conducted high-altitude parachute deployment tests for the mission in 2023. In contrast to the lunar sampling missions, Kamoʻoalewa will have negligible gravity, requiring specialized approaches for orbiting, approaching and sampling.
The spacecraft will attempt up to three methods of sampling: hover sampling, collecting samples with a robotic arm while matching the asteroid’s rotation; touch-and-go (TAG), using a rotating brush head; and anchored sampling. Its landing legs will use drills to press into the asteroid, if the surface composition and terrain allow. The TAG approach was used by both NASA’s OSIRIS-REx and JAXA’s Hayabusa2.
The asteroid is considered a quasi-satellite of Earth due to its co-orbital dynamics. Kamoʻoalewa is possibly a piece of the moon blasted into space following an impact event, according to researchers, based on spectral analyses. Analysis of the samples aims to reveal the nature and origin of the asteroid, analyze its mineral content and provide comparisons with other asteroids. Leah-Nani Alconcel at the University of Birmingham, UKShe says that the mission is daring, as Kamoʻoalewa is spinning. This will make landing harder. Navigation algorithms are likely to demand such powerful computers that images and sensor readings will be sent back to Earth for computation. “If we were to always pick lovely, cooperative objects, we wouldn’t learn a lot,” she says. “There’s a lot that could potentially go wrong.”
Video Credit: New China TV Duration: 38 seconds Release Date: May 28, 2025
Scientists have discovered a star behaving like no other seen before, giving new clues about the origin of a class of mysterious objects. A team of astronomers combined data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Square Kilometer Array (SKA) Pathfinder radio telescope in Australia to study the antics of the discovered object, known as ASKAP J1832 for short.
ASKAP J1832 belongs to a class of objects so-called “long period radio transients”, discovered in 2022. These vary in radio wave intensity in a regular way over tens of minutes. This is thousands of times longer than pulsars, which are rapidly spinning neutron stars that have repeated variations multiple times a second. ASKAP J1832 cycles in radio wave intensity every 44 minutes, placing it into this category of long period radio transients.
Using Chandra, the team discovered that ASKAP J1832 is also regularly varying in X-rays every 44 minutes. This is the first time that such an X-ray signal has been found in a long period radio transient.
However, that is not all ASKAP J1832 does. Using Chandra and the SKA Pathfinder, the team found that ASKAP J1832 also dropped off in X-rays and radio waves dramatically over the course of six months. This combination of the 44-minute cycle in X-rays and radio waves in addition to the months-long changes is unlike anything astronomers have seen in the Milky Way galaxy.
Scientists are now racing to figure out if ASKAP J1832 is representative of long period radio transients and whether its bizarre behavior helps unravel the origin of these objects. They have looked at several possibilities involving neutron stars and white dwarfs, either in isolation or with companion stars. So far nothing exactly matches up, but certain ideas work better than others, and the search for the facts behind this mysterious object will continue.
Credit X-ray: NASA/CXC/ICRAR, Curtin Univ./Z. Wang et al.; Infrared: NASA/JPL/CalTech/IPAC Radio: SARAO/MeerKAT
SpaceX Starship Ninth Flight Test Launch | Starbase Texas
Starship’s ninth flight test lifted off at 6:36 p.m. CT on Tuesday, May 27, 2025, from Starbase, Texas. This test marked a major milestone for reuse with the first flight-proven Super Heavy booster launching from Starbase, and once more returned Starship to space. Data review is underway, and new improvements will be implemented as work begins to prepare the next Starship and Super Heavy vehicles for flight. Developmental testing by definition is unpredictable, but every lesson learned marks progress toward Starship’s goal of enabling life to become multiplanetary.
The Super Heavy booster supporting the mission made the first ever reflight in the Starship program, having previously launched on Starship’s seventh flight test in January 2025. The booster performed a full-duration ascent burn with all 33 of its Raptor engines and separated from Starship’s upper stage in a hot-staging maneuver. During separation, Super Heavy performed the first deterministic flip followed by its boostback burn.
Super Heavy demonstrated its ability to fly at a higher angle of attack during its descent back to Earth. By increasing the amount of atmospheric drag on the vehicle, a higher angle of attack results in a slower descent speed. This in turn requires less propellant for the initial landing burn. Getting real-world data on how the booster controlled its flight at this higher angle of attack will contribute to improved performance on future vehicles, including the next generation of Super Heavy.
As it approached its designated splashdown area in the Gulf of America, Super Heavy relit its 13 center and middle ring Raptor engines. Contact with the booster was lost shortly after the start of landing burn when it experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly approximately 6 minutes after launch, bringing an end to the first reflight of a Super Heavy booster.
Following a successful stage separation, the Starship upper stage lit all six of its Raptor engines and performed a full-duration ascent burn. The engines on Starship flew with mitigations in place following learnings from the eighth flight test, including additional preload on key joints, a new nitrogen purge system, and improvements to the propellant drain system.
During Starship’s orbital coast, several in-space objectives were planned, including the first payload deployment from Starship and a relight of a single Raptor engine.
Starship’s payload bay door was unable to open which prevented the deployment of the eight Starlink simulator satellites. A subsequent attitude control error resulted in bypassing the Raptor relight and prevented Starship from getting into the intended position for reentry. Starship then went through an automated safing process to vent the remaining pressure to place the vehicle in the safest condition for reentry. Contact with Starship was lost approximately 46 minutes into the flight, with all debris expected to fall within the planned hazard area in the Indian Ocean.
SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket—collectively referred to as Starship—represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. Starship is the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, capable of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes fully reusable and 250 metric tonnes expendable.
Key Starship Parameters:
Height: 123m/403ft Diameter: 9m/29.5ft Payload to LEO: 100–150t (fully reusable)
"Starship is essential to both SpaceX’s plans to deploy its next-generation Starship system as well as for NASA, which will use a lunar lander version of Starship for landing astronauts on the Moon during the Artemis III mission through the Human Landing System (HLS) program."
How Do We Do Research in Zero Gravity? We Asked a NASA Expert
When it comes to experiments in space, astronauts on the International Space Station face challenges you will not find on Earth: bubbles do not rise, things float away and many Earth-based lab tools do not always work the same way. So science in space needs to be reimagined from the ground up.
A NASA scientist explains how we study life, chemistry and physics in orbit.
NASA Flight Engineers: Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Jonny Kim
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada.
Coronal 'Rain' on The Sun: Clearest View Yet | Big Bear Solar Observatory
Coronal rain forms when hotter plasma in the Sun’s corona cools down and becomes denser. Like raindrops on Earth, coronal rain is pulled down to the surface by gravity. Because the plasma is electrically charged, it follows the magnetic field lines that make huge arches and loops, instead of falling in a straight line.
This imagery provides views from a 23-minute time-lapse video comprised of the highest resolution images ever made of coronal rain. Scientists indicate that the strands can be narrower than 20 kilometers.
This imagery was taken by the Goode Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory. It shows the hydrogen-alpha light emitted by the solar plasma. The imagery is artificially colorized, yet based on the color of hydrogen-alpha light, and darker color is brighter light.
The Sun’s corona—the outermost layer of its atmosphere, visible only during a total solar eclipse—has long intrigued scientists due to its extreme temperatures, violent eruptions, and large prominences. However, turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere has caused image blur and hindered observations of the corona. A ground-breaking recent development by scientists from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) National Solar Observatory (NSO), and New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), is changing that by using adaptive optics to remove the blur.
As published in the journal Nature Astronomy, this pioneering ‘coronal adaptive optics’ technology has produced the most astonishing, clearest images and videos of fine-structure in the corona to date. This development will open the door for deeper insights into the corona’s enigmatic behavior and the processes driving space weather.
Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and installed at the 1.6-meter Goode Solar Telescope (GST), operated by NJIT’s Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research (CSTR) at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) in California, “Cona”—the adaptive optics system responsible for these new images—compensates for the blur caused by air turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere—similar to the bumpy air passengers feel during a flight.
“The turbulence in the air severely degrades images of objects in space, like our Sun, seen through our telescopes. But we can correct for that,” says Dirk Schmidt, NSO Adaptive Optics Scientist who led the development.
The 1.6-meter Goode Solar Telescope (GST), is located in Big Bear Lake, California. The steady temperature of the water surface around it helps keep the air around the telescope calm, reducing the optical effects of turbulent air that degrades the telescope’s images of the Sun and that the adaptive optics further removes to achieve the maximum image detail. The GST is the second-largest solar telescope in the world and is home to several instruments that scientists use to analyze physical processes of the Sun.
SpaceX Starship Ninth Flight Test Liftoff | Starbase Texas
This was the ninth flight test of Starship. Liftoff occurred at 6:36 p.m. Central Time (CT), Tuesday, May 27, 2025.
After completing the investigation into the loss of Starship on its eighth flight test, several hardware changes were made to increase reliability. You can read the full technical summary of the mishap investigation here: https://www.spacex.com/updates/#flight-8-report
This flight test marks the first launch of a flight-proven Super Heavy booster that previously launched and returned on Starship’s seventh flight test. In addition to the reuse milestone, Super Heavy flew a variety of experiments aimed at generating data to improve performance and reliability on future boosters. The Starship upper stage seeks to repeat its suborbital trajectory and to achieve target objectives not reached on the previous two flight tests, including the first payload deployment from Starship and multiple reentry experiments geared towards returning the vehicle to the launch site for catch.
Super Heavy is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, with future generations capable of multiple launches per day. To achieve this first ever reflight, extensive inspections took place following the booster’s first launch to assess hardware health and identify where maintenance or replacement hardware was needed. Known single-use components like ablative heat-shielding were replaced, but a large majority of the booster’s hardware was flight-proven, including 29 of its 33 Raptor engines. Lessons learned from the first booster refurbishment and subsequent performance in flight will enable faster turnarounds of future reflights as progress is made towards vehicles requiring no hands-on maintenance between launches.
The booster on this flight test also attempted several flight experiments to gather real-world performance data on future flight profiles and off-nominal scenarios. To maximize the safety of launch infrastructure at Starbase, the Super Heavy booster attempted these experiments while on a trajectory to an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America. It did not return to the launch site for catch.
Following stage separation, the booster flipped into a controlled direction before initiating its boostback burn. This was achieved by blocking several of the vents on the vehicle’s hotstage adapter, causing the thrust from Starship’s engines to push the booster in a known direction. Previous booster flips went in a randomized direction based on a directional push from small differences in thrust from Starship’s upper stage engines at ignition. Flipping in a known direction requires less propellant to be held in reserve, enabling the use of more propellant during ascent to enable additional payload mass to orbit.
After the conclusion of the boostback burn, the booster attempted to fly at a higher angle of attack during its descent. By increasing the amount of atmospheric drag on the vehicle, a higher angle of attack can result in a lower descent speed. This in turn requires less propellant for the initial landing burn. Getting real-world data on how the booster is able to control its flight at this higher angle of attack will contribute to improved performance on future vehicles, including the next generation of Super Heavy.
The Starship upper stage planned to target multiple in-space objectives, including the deployment of eight Starlink simulators, similar in size to next-generation Starlink satellites. The Starlink simulators were to be placed on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and were expected to demise upon entry. A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned.
The flight test included several experiments focused on enabling Starship’s upper stage to return to the launch site. A significant number of tiles have been removed from Starship to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle during reentry. Multiple metallic tile options, including one with active cooling, will test alternative materials for protecting Starship during reentry. On the sides of the vehicle, functional catch fittings are installed and will test the fittings’ thermal and structural performance. The entire ship's tile line also received a smoothed and tapered edge to address hot spots observed during reentry on Starship’s sixth flight test. Starship’s reentry profile is designed to intentionally stress the structural limits of the upper stage’s rear flaps while at the point of maximum entry dynamic pressure.
Developmental testing by definition is unpredictable. But by putting hardware in a flight environment as frequently as possible, we’re able to quickly learn and execute design changes as we seek to bring Starship online as a fully and rapidly reusable vehicle.
SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket—collectively referred to as Starship—represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. Starship is the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, capable of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes fully reusable and 250 metric tonnes expendable.
Key Starship Parameters:
Height: 123m/403ft Diameter: 9m/29.5ft Payload to LEO: 100–150t (fully reusable)
"Starship is essential to both SpaceX’s plans to deploy its next-generation Starship system as well as for NASA, which will use a lunar lander version of Starship for landing astronauts on the Moon during the Artemis III mission through the Human Landing System (HLS) program."
Solar Prominence 2: Adaptive Optics = Clearest View Yet | Big Bear Solar Observatory
This view of a solar prominence is a snapshot of a 19-minute time-lapse video showing how plasma “dances” and twists with the Sun’s magnetic field.
This imagery was taken by the Goode Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory. It shows the hydrogen-alpha light emitted by the solar plasma. The imagery is artificially colorized, yet based on the color of hydrogen-alpha light, and darker color is brighter light.
The Sun’s corona—the outermost layer of its atmosphere, visible only during a total solar eclipse—has long intrigued scientists due to its extreme temperatures, violent eruptions, and large prominences. However, turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere has caused image blur and hindered observations of the corona. A ground-breaking recent development by scientists from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) National Solar Observatory (NSO), and New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), is changing that by using adaptive optics to remove the blur.
As published in Nature Astronomy, this pioneering ‘coronal adaptive optics’ technology has produced the most astonishing, clearest images and videos of fine-structure in the corona to date. This development will open the door for deeper insights into the corona’s enigmatic behavior and the processes driving space weather.
Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and installed at the 1.6-meter Goode Solar Telescope (GST), operated by NJIT’s Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research (CSTR) at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) in California, “Cona”—the adaptive optics system responsible for these new images—compensates for the blur caused by air turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere—similar to the bumpy air passengers feel during a flight.
“The turbulence in the air severely degrades images of objects in space, like our Sun, seen through our telescopes. But we can correct for that,” says Dirk Schmidt, NSO Adaptive Optics Scientist who led the development.
Among the team’s remarkable observations is a video of a quickly restructuring solar prominence unveiling fine, turbulent internal flows. Solar prominences are large, bright features, often appearing as arches or loops, extending outward from the Sun’s surface.
The 1.6-meter Goode Solar Telescope (GST), is located in Big Bear Lake, California. The steady temperature of the water surface around it helps keep the air around the telescope calm, reducing the optical effects of turbulent air that degrades the telescope’s images of the Sun and that the adaptive optics further removes to achieve the maximum image detail. The GST is the second-largest solar telescope in the world and is home to several instruments that scientists use to analyze physical processes of the Sun.
Solar Prominence 1: Adaptive Optics = Clearest View Yet | Big Bear Solar Observatory
The Sun’s corona—the outermost layer of its atmosphere, visible only during a total solar eclipse—has long intrigued scientists due to its extreme temperatures, violent eruptions, and large prominences. However, turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere has caused image blur and hindered observations of the corona. A ground-breaking recent development by scientists from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) National Solar Observatory (NSO), and New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), is changing that by using adaptive optics to remove the blur.
As published in Nature Astronomy, this pioneering ‘coronal adaptive optics’ technology has produced the most astonishing, clearest images and videos of fine-structure in the corona to date. This development will open the door for deeper insights into the corona’s enigmatic behavior and the processes driving space weather.
Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and installed at the 1.6-meter Goode Solar Telescope (GST), operated by NJIT’s Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research (CSTR) at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) in California, “Cona”—the adaptive optics system responsible for these new images—compensates for the blur caused by air turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere—similar to the bumpy air passengers feel during a flight.
“The turbulence in the air severely degrades images of objects in space, like our Sun, seen through our telescopes. But we can correct for that,” says Dirk Schmidt, NSO Adaptive Optics Scientist who led the development.
Among the team’s remarkable observations is a video of a quickly restructuring solar prominence unveiling fine, turbulent internal flows. Solar prominences are large, bright features, often appearing as arches or loops, extending outward from the Sun’s surface.
This view of a prominence above the solar surface is a snapshot of a 4-minute time-lapse video that reveals its rapid, fine, and turbulent restructuring with unprecedented detail. The Sun’s fluffy-looking surface is covered by “spicules”, short-lived plasma jets, whose creation is still the subject of scientific debate. The streaks on the right of this image are coronal rain falling down onto the Sun’s surface.
This imagery was taken by the Goode Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory. It shows the hydrogen-alpha light emitted by the solar plasma. The imagery is artificially colorized, yet based on the color of hydrogen-alpha light, and darker color is brighter light.
The 1.6-meter Goode Solar Telescope (GST), is located in Big Bear Lake, California. The steady temperature of the water surface around it helps keep the air around the telescope calm, reducing the optical effects of turbulent air that degrades the telescope’s images of the Sun and that the adaptive optics further removes to achieve the maximum image detail. The GST is the second-largest solar telescope in the world and is home to several instruments that scientists use to analyze physical processes of the Sun.
The spiral galaxy NGC 3596 is on display in this NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope picture that incorporates six different wavelengths of light. NGC 3596 is situated 90 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo. The galaxy was discovered in 1784 by astronomer William Herschel, the namesake of the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory.
NGC 3596 appears almost perfectly face-on when viewed from Earth, showcasing the galaxy’s neatly wound spiral arms. The bright arms mark where the galaxy’s stars, gas and dust are concentrated. Star formation is also most active in a galaxy’s spiral arms, as shown by the brilliant pink star-forming regions and young blue stars tracing NGC 3596’s arms in this image.
What causes these spiral arms to form? It’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer, partly because of the remarkable diversity of spiral galaxies. Many have clear spiral arms, while others have patchy, feathery arms. Many have prominent bars across their centers, while others have compact, circular nuclei. Many have close neighbors, while others are isolated.
Early ideas of how spiral arms formed were stumped by what is called the ‘winding problem’. If a galaxy’s spiral arms are coherent structures, the arms would be wound tighter and tighter as the galaxy spins, until the arms are no longer visible. Now, researchers believe that spiral arms represent a pattern of high-density and low-density areas rather than a physical structure. As stars, gas and dust orbit within a galaxy’s disc, they pass in and out of the spiral arms. Much like cars moving through a traffic jam, these materials slow down and bunch up as they enter a spiral arm, before emerging and continuing their journey through the galaxy.
Image Description: A spiral galaxy viewed face-on, with a slightly oval-shaped disc. The center is a bright white spot surrounded by a golden glow. Two spiral arms extend out from the center, wrapping around the galaxy and broadening out to form the thick outer edge of the disc. Thin reddish strands of dust and bright pink spots follow the arms through the disc. Faint strands of stars extend from the arms’ tips, out beyond the disc.
Close-up: Galaxy Cluster Abell S1063 in Grus | Webb Telescope
The eye is first drawn, in this new NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope picture, to the central mega-monster that is galaxy cluster Abell S1063. This behemoth collection of galaxies, lying 4.5 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Grus (the Crane), dominates the scene. Looking more closely, this dense collection of heavy galaxies is surrounded by glowing streaks of light, and these warped arcs are the true object of scientists’ interest: faint galaxies from the Universe’s distant past.
Abell S1063 was previously observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Frontier Fields program. It features a strong gravitational lens: the galaxy cluster is so massive that the light of distant galaxies aligned behind it is bent around it, creating the warped arcs that we see here. Like a glass lens, it focuses the light from these faraway galaxies. The resulting images, albeit distorted, are both bright and magnified—enough to be observed and studied. This was the aim of Hubble’s observations, using the galaxy cluster as a magnifying glass to investigate the early Universe.
The new imagery from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) takes this quest even further back in time. This image showcases an incredible forest of lensing arcs around Abell S1063 that reveal distorted background galaxies at a range of cosmic distances, along with a multitude of faint galaxies and previously unseen features.
This image is what is known as a deep field—a long exposure of a single area of the sky, collecting as much light as possible to draw out the most faint and distant galaxies that do not appear in ordinary images. With 9 separate snapshots of different near-infrared wavelengths of light, totalling around 120 hours of observing time and aided by the magnifying effect of gravitational lensing, this is Webb’s deepest gaze on a single target to date. Focusing such observing power on a massive gravitational lens, like Abell S1063, therefore has the potential to reveal some of the very first galaxies formed in the early Universe.
The observing program that produced this data, GLIMPSE (#3293, PIs: H. Atek & J. Chisholm), aims to probe the period known as Cosmic Dawn, when the Universe was only a few million years old.
Image Description: A field of galaxies in space, dominated by an enormous, bright-white elliptical galaxy that is the core of a massive galaxy cluster. Many other elliptical galaxies can be seen around it. Also around it are short, curved, glowing red lines that are images of distant background galaxies magnified and warped by gravitational lensing. A couple of foreground stars appear large and bright with long spikes around them.
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, H. Atek, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb); CC BY 4.0 Acknowledgement: R. Endsley
Galaxy Cluster Abell S1063: Glimpses of the Distant Past | Webb Telescope
The eye is first drawn, in this new NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope picture, to the central mega-monster that is galaxy cluster Abell S1063. This behemoth collection of galaxies, lying 4.5 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Grus (the Crane), dominates the scene. Looking more closely, this dense collection of heavy galaxies is surrounded by glowing streaks of light, and these warped arcs are the true object of scientists’ interest: faint galaxies from the Universe’s distant past.
Abell S1063 was previously observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Frontier Fields program. It features a strong gravitational lens: the galaxy cluster is so massive that the light of distant galaxies aligned behind it is bent around it, creating the warped arcs that we see here. Like a glass lens, it focuses the light from these faraway galaxies. The resulting images, albeit distorted, are both bright and magnified—enough to be observed and studied. This was the aim of Hubble’s observations, using the galaxy cluster as a magnifying glass to investigate the early Universe.
The new imagery from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) takes this quest even further back in time. This image showcases an incredible forest of lensing arcs around Abell S1063 that reveal distorted background galaxies at a range of cosmic distances, along with a multitude of faint galaxies and previously unseen features.
This image is what is known as a deep field—a long exposure of a single area of the sky, collecting as much light as possible to draw out the most faint and distant galaxies that do not appear in ordinary images. With 9 separate snapshots of different near-infrared wavelengths of light, totalling around 120 hours of observing time and aided by the magnifying effect of gravitational lensing, this is Webb’s deepest gaze on a single target to date. Focusing such observing power on a massive gravitational lens, like Abell S1063, therefore has the potential to reveal some of the very first galaxies formed in the early Universe.
The observing program that produced this data, GLIMPSE (#3293, PIs: H. Atek & J. Chisholm), aims to probe the period known as Cosmic Dawn, when the Universe was only a few million years old.
Image Description: A field of galaxies in space, dominated by an enormous, bright-white elliptical galaxy that is the core of a massive galaxy cluster. Many other elliptical galaxies can be seen around it. Also around it are short, curved, glowing red lines that are images of distant background galaxies magnified and warped by gravitational lensing. A couple of foreground stars appear large and bright with long spikes around them.
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, H. Atek, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb); CC BY 4.0 Acknowledgement: R. Endsley Release Date: May 27, 2025
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