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| Image credit: CMS |
Tiangong Spacewalk
Chinese taikonauts Zhu Yangzhu and Zhang Zhiyuan performed a spacewalk today from the Tiangong space station, supported by fellow taikonaut Lai Ka-ying. The spacewalk began at approximately 0030 UTC and concluded at 0559 UTC, lasting five and a half hours. The spacewalkers successfully performed maintenance on the station's solar panels and installed "space debris protection devices". This was the second spacewalk of Zhu's career, bringing him up to approximately 13 hours 25 minutes of EVA time, and it was Zhang's first spacewalk. This was the first spacewalk of the Shenzhou 23 mission, and the 27th from Tiangong overall. [Source: CMS]
Long March 6C Fragmentation Event
American satellite monitoring company LeoLabs announced today that a Chinese Long March 6C upper stage disintegrated in orbit and has left "tens to hundreds" of individual fragments orbiting in an uncontrolled manner. This follows two similar events involving the 6C upper stage, in 2022 and 2024. The fragments are expected to decay and re-enter Earth's atmosphere in a few years, but until then they will need to be actively avoided by other satellites. [Source: LeoLabs]
Swift's Swan Song
After the failure of the Swift Boost Mission, NASA have decided to reactivate some of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory's instruments which were previously switched off so that its solar panels could be angled to reduce drag and buy time for the rescue mission. It is too late to organise a second rescue, so NASA will instead try to squeeze some more science out of the telescope before it falls into the atmosphere in a month or two. [Source: NASA]
Booster 21 Static Fire Test
Superheavy Booster 21, which will be the first stage of Starship Flight 14, underwent a static fire test. This brings Starship Flight 14, which is expected to be the first orbital flight of the vehicle, a step closer to launch. SpaceX are currently aiming to launch in mid-September. [Source: NSF]
International Space Station Activities
NASA published their daily blog post on the crew's activities aboard the International Space Station. The three American crew members spoke to US President Donald Trump today during an event where Trump also awarded the crew of Artemis II with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and signed an executive order calling for the establishment of a new "Space Academy" to be organised by NASA, akin to existing US institutions like the Coast Guard Academy and the Naval Academy. Aside from that the crew performed routine research and maintenance and prepared for Tuesday's spacewalk. [Source: NASA]
