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| Image credit: CALT |
Falcon 9 2nd Stage Lunar Impact
A spent SpaceX Falcon 9 second stage booster underwent an unplanned impact with the Moon at about 0635 UTC this morning. This was the upper stage of the rocket that delivered Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 lander and ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 2 lander to the Moon back in January 2025, and it had been drifting in an uncontrolled translunar orbit ever since. An impact of this scale poses no danger to any people or equipment. It was the 103rd artificial object to reach the lunar surface, and the 68th to make a hard impact. Korea's Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter or NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter should be able to provide pictures of the impact crater in the next few days, in the highlands to the west of Oceanus Procellarum. [Source: Project Pluto]
Launch of OSE HS-01 and 02
CASC/CALT launched a Jielong 3 (Smart Dragon 3) from the launch ship Dongfang Hangtian Gang in the Yellow Sea off the coast of Haiyang in Shandong at 0238 UTC, or 1038 local time (CST). There were two payloads aboard, named OSE HS-01 and 02, which stands for Open Space Ecosystem Hyper-Spectral. These are Earth observation satellites developed by the Chinese company Star Vision for foreign customers. HS-01 is also called Lampung-1 and was co-developed by the government of Lampung Province in Indonesia, and HS-02 is also called Samarkand 2028 and was co-developed by Uzcosmos, the national space agency of Uzbekistan. This was the 12th flight of the Jielong 3. [Source: CALT]
Launch of BlueBird 11 to 13
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 0749 UTC, or 0349 local time (EDT). It was carrying BlueBird 11, 12, and 13, a batch of three satellites for AST SpaceMobile's cellular broadband constellation. This was the 674th flight of the Falcon 9, and the 30th flight of booster B1077 (also used for the previous BlueBird launch), which successfully landed on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. [Source: SpaceX]
International Space Station Activities
The crew of the International Space Station prepared for tomorrow's spacewalk and carried out routine research and maintenance. [Source: NASA]
New Glenn Explosion Investigation
Dave Limp, the CEO of Blue Origin, has posted an update on the investigation into the violent explosion that destroyed the New Glenn launch pad back in May and grounded the rocket. They reckon it was caused by a malfunction in the main oxygen valve of one of its BE-4 engines, used on New Glenn and also on United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket. The company will now retrofit modified valves to all of its BE-4 engines to hopefully prevent this from happening again. New Glenn is an important component of Artemis III and several other missions relating to NASA's Moon Base plans, so the explosion threatens to be a significant setback to the entire Artemis program. Blue Origin are hoping to get the rocket flying again before the end of the year. [Source: Dave Limp]
