“TRACERS joins the fleet of current heliophysics missions that are actively increasing our understanding of the sun, space weather, and how to mitigate its impacts,” said Westlake.

The $170 million TRACERS is set to launch no earlier than the end of July on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that will be carrying several other small missions into orbit at the same time. The answers that TRACERS could provide about how magnetic reconnection works will allow scientists to better protect critical infrastructure for when solar storms hit.

“It’s going to help us keep our way of life safe here on Earth,” said Westlake.

Q: When are the next Starship test flights scheduled? A: Flight 10 is targeting August 4th, while Flight 11 is set for September 1st, 2025, marking the final Block 2 Starship tests.

Q: What new AI initiative is SpaceX undertaking? A: SpaceX is hiring AI software engineers to integrate artificial intelligence into engineering workflows supporting Falcon, Starship, and satellite operations.

SpaceX continues to actively develop the Starlink satellite internet project. Over the past year, the service has significantly improved speed and stability and expanded to new territories. In the coming years, Starlink will receive more powerful third-generation satellites that will increase the channel’s capacity by an order of magnitude and allow it to serve more people.

Space junk is a huge problem. The surge in satellite launches in recent years is leaving low Earth orbit (LEO) cluttered with debris such as discarded rocket bodies, broken parts and defunct satellites. Beyond the risk of debris colliding with working satellites that are vital for navigation, communication and weather forecasting, large pieces could come crashing back down to Earth.

Space junk may also be a threat to the environment. Old rockets and satellites burn up when they re-enter the atmosphere, leaving a trail of chemicals behind that could damage the ozone layer. The more we launch, the messier LEO gets, and the bigger the problems become.

Space agencies and private companies are looking at ways to clear up the litter we leave behind, but they’re also exploring how to build more sustainable rockets and satellites, using organic polymers instead of metals. In a new study, published in Acta Astronautica, researchers turned to origami, the ancient Japanese art of paper folding, to find a sustainable alternative.

Beijing’s Laser Starcom enhances #satellite communication with ultra-fast laser links. The company achieved a 400 Gbps connection between two satellites, highlighting precision tracking and high data rates. This advancement supports #China’s growing space ambitions and reduces reliance on ground stations.

moon and satellites It found the textures by itself and calculated all the details: — Cloud layer — Sun lightning — Earth & moon rotation — Satellites w/ different orbital inclinations — Etc.

«Kyivstar» plans to launch new Starlink services this year. Their range and capabilities will be expanded over time.

Oleksandr Komarov, CEO of «Kyivstar», told the agency about the company’s plans to Reuters in Rome. According to him, messaging will be launched by the end of 2025, and mobile satellite broadband will be launched in mid-2026.

Field tests of the new communication began in late 2024 as part of an agreement with SpaceX. For its part, Elon Musk’s space company will launch the possibility of direct communication with mobile phones in the country.

An interdisciplinary research team including mechanical science and engineering professor Mickey Clemon from the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is investigating cooling methods for heat sinks by performing experiments onboard a satellite currently orbiting Earth.

“University-sponsored satellites have a very low success rate of making it into space, so we’re very happy that we made it into space and that our system works,” Clemon said.

The team has published the recent findings from their ongoing study, “Investigating the performance of a heat sink for satellite avionics thermal management: From ground-level testing to space-like conditions,” in the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer.

When Chinese AI startup DeepSeek unveiled the open-source large language model DeepSeek-R1 in January, many referred to it as the “AI Sputnik shock” — a reference to the monumental significance of the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of the first satellite into orbit.

Much remains uncertain about DeepSeek’s LLM and its capabilities should not be overestimated — but its release nevertheless has sparked intense discussion about its superiority especially in terms of cost. DeepSeek claims that its model possesses reasoning abilities on par with or even superior to OpenAI’s leading models, with training costs at less than one-tenth of OpenAI’s — reportedly just $5.6 million — largely due to the use of NVIDIA’s lower-cost H800 GPUs rather than the more powerful H200 or H100 models.

Tech giants like Meta and Google have spent billions of dollars on high-performance GPUs to develop cutting-edge AI models. However, DeepSeek’s ability to produce a high-performance AI model at a significantly lower cost challenges the prevailing belief that computational power—determined by the number and quality of GPUs—is the primary driver of AI performance.

How can scientists study the meteorology of Venus from Earth since there are currently no missions to Venus? This is what a recent study published in Earth | Space