Space, in brief

On Thursday NASA asked private companies how they could save the Hubble Space Telescope. [1]

Hubble has no engine to fight atmospheric drag, the slowing pull of thin air. [2]

Left alone, it will most likely fall and burn up in 2033 or 2034. [1]

NASA has set aside no money yet to pay for a rescue. [1]

Hubble sees visible and ultraviolet light; the newer Webb and Roman telescopes see infrared. [1]

A better telescope for Hubble's kind of light is not due until the 2040s. [1]

In orbital mechanics, the pull of thin air on a satellite is called atmospheric drag. [2]

Air thins out fast with height, so 600 km buys decades, not a few years. [1]

Servicing firms gain a famous possible customer, but NASA has no money for it yet. [1]

Nobody has said what a rescue would cost; NASA is asking companies for a price. [1]

Company replies are due on 30 November; NASA has not promised to buy anything. [1]

A famous telescope with a date for its fall makes a rescue feel already under way, when no budget for one exists yet. [1]

If Hubble falls, no better telescope for that light is due until the 2040s. [1]

Which companies will answer NASA by 30 November, and what they will ask for.

NASA only asked for information; it made no promise to buy a mission, and replies are not public. [1]

When Hubble will actually fall.

Orbit experts say 2033 or 2034, Aviation Week gives a 10% chance by September 2032, and the date shifts with the Sun's activity. [1][2]

Quilty Space, a firm that studies the space business, has published a report on rocket supply. [5]

It says rockets outside China will be about 150 launches short of demand by 2030. [5]

Counting US military demand, and if SpaceX ends Falcon flights, the gap could double. [5]

The squeeze will be worst in 2028, the report says, then slowly ease. [5]

Russia's war on Ukraine took Russian rockets off the Western market. [5]

New rockets such as Blue Origin's New Glenn, ULA's Vulcan and Rocket Lab's Neutron ran late. [5]

Caleb Henry, Quilty's research director, said the crisis may last into the late 2030s. [5]

Henry said: 'If you haven't booked your launch already, and you need one, you're late.' [5]

Satellite firms without a booked rocket may wait years for a ride to orbit. [5]

Economists call supply that cannot grow quickly 'inelastic'; new rockets take years to build. [5]

Telesat's boss expects Starship to carry SpaceX's own satellites first, then US government ones. [5]

The report says SpaceX has stopped promising Starship as a rocket for other companies. [5]

In the same week, Quilty Space, a firm of space analysts, said rockets outside China will be about 150 launches short of demand by 2030. [1][5]

Quilty says they are already late, with the shortage worst in 2028. [5]

Whether the US military will make SpaceX fly the launches it needs.

Quilty's Caleb Henry left military demand out of the report because he thinks the US government will compel SpaceX, but nobody has done so. [5]

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket flew for the 700th time on Friday night, from California. [7]

It carried 27 Starlink satellites, part of SpaceX's satellite internet network. [8]

Starlink now has more than 11,000 satellites, by far the biggest network ever built. [8]

The rocket's first stage landed on a ship in the Pacific after its 18th flight. [8]

It was the 675th landing of a Falcon booster so far. [7]

SpaceX is winding Falcon 9 down as it turns to its giant Starship rocket. [7]

By 27 October, its launches over the past 365 days had fallen below 150. [7]

At its peak, in December 2025, SpaceX managed 171 launches in 365 days. [7]

Rocket engineers land first stages so they can fly again; this one has flown 18 times. [8]

Fewer Falcon flights make the rocket shortage worse, the Quilty report says. [5]

More than 70% of this year's Falcon 9 flights carried SpaceX's own Starlink satellites. [8]

Musk expects Starship to fly weekly at some point in the first half of 2027. [7]

Telesat, a Canadian satellite company, owes C$2.4 billion that falls due on 6 December. [9]

Telesat runs two businesses: 12 ageing high satellites, and Lightspeed, 225 planned low ones. [9]

The old satellites bring in nearly all the money, and they owe the debt. [9]

Their income fell 21% last quarter as broadcast contracts ended. [9]

Lenders offered a rescue, selling new shares at C$31.50, about half the price then. [9]

In 2025 Telesat moved 62% of Lightspeed into a company free of that debt. [9]

Lenders sued in January, saying the move put Lightspeed out of their reach; Telesat denies wrongdoing. [9]

Full Lightspeed service has slipped three months, to the end of June 2028. [9]

Its first two test satellites cannot fly until a shared rocket in mid-2027. [9]

Canada's military has a deal worth up to C$2.3 billion for Lightspeed. [9]

In finance this is called ring-fencing: walling one part of a firm off from another's debts. [9]

If Telesat misses the December payment, lenders could claim almost everything except Lightspeed. [9]

A 1991 law says Canada's bankruptcy rules do not apply; no court has tested it. [9]

Their latest offer repays them in full, with interest, through new shares and a new loan. [9]

The lenders' plan sells new shares at C$31.50, about half the price at the time, so each old share would own a smaller part of the company. [9]

What Telesat's old business does after 6 December if no deal is struck.

A source told The Globe and Mail that Telesat has not negotiated on two rescue offers, and its old business holds about C$287 million in cash against about C$3 billion of debt. [9]

A Pentagon office offered Stoke Space a conditional $150 million loan on Monday. [6]

Stoke, a US rocket start-up, would use it to build a second launch pad in Florida. [6]

The loan still depends on financial, legal and technical checks. [6]

Stoke raised $1 billion in September, bringing its total to $2.3 billion. [6]

It aims to launch its Nova rocket next year, and a bigger version in 2029. [6]

Its reusable upper stage is being tested in Moses Lake, Washington. [6]

Stoke's Devin Papandrew said assuming launch was solved 'may have been a strategic error'. [6]

Stoke wants a share of US military launches, and this loan comes from the Pentagon. [6]

A $150 million conditional loan from a Pentagon office would pay for a second launch pad in Florida. [6]

When Stoke's Nova rocket will first fly.

Stoke aims for next year, and its $150 million loan still depends on checks that have not finished. [6]

Themis, Europe's test rocket that lands so it can fly again, may not fly this year. [6]

Geraldine Naja, the European Space Agency's head of transport, said on 22 October she was unsure. [6]

Themis has done 2 practice countdowns at Esrange, a rocket base in Sweden. [6]

Sweden's harsh winter may stop it flying before the year ends. [6]

ESA's chief had said in January the first hop would come by March 2026. [6]

Officials first expected a low hop test back in 2022. [6]

ArianeGroup, which builds Europe's Ariane rockets, is the main builder of Themis. [6]

Themis tests ideas for a reusable rocket to replace Ariane 6, which is used once. [6]

Engineers start small: a hopper rises a short way and lands before any trip to space. [6]

Nobody knows when Themis will fly; it has missed its dates since 2022. [6]

India launched NVS-03, a navigation satellite, on Friday from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. [10]

A GSLV Mark II rocket carried it towards a high orbit. [10]

It joins NavIC, India's own version of the US GPS system. [10]

NavIC covers India and about 1,500 km beyond its land. [10]

It needs four working satellites, and had only three. [10]

This was the GSLV Mark II's 14th launch, and 12 have succeeded. [10]

In July Skyroot Aerospace became the first Indian company to reach orbit. [10]

With four working satellites, NavIC can give position and time signals across the region. [10]

Satellite navigation works by timing signals from several satellites at once. [10]

ISRO, India's space agency, said 30 minutes after launch that the satellite was placed as planned. [10]

Until NVS-03 passes its checks, NavIC still has 3 working satellites, one short. [10]

Engineers will now check NVS-03 and bring it into service. [10]

Why a little more height keeps a satellite up for decades

Even 470 km up there is a trace of air

Each lap, Hubble hits a few air molecules, which slow it slightly

A slower satellite sinks to a lower orbit

Lower down the air is thicker, so the slowing speeds up

Lifted higher, it meets far thinner air, and the same fall takes decades

A satellite's fall starts slowly and ends fast, because every kilometre it loses puts it in thicker air.

Hubble took 24 years to sink from 583 km to 470 km. A lift to 600 km would likely keep it up for at least 25 more years.

They sit in a high orbit with almost no air, so they retire when they get old or lose customers, not by falling.

NVS-03 was sent towards a high orbit too, so drag will not be what ends its working life.

The Sun moves the clock: when it is active it heats the top of the air and puffs it up, so forecasts of a fall keep changing.

Hubble's last years depend on thin air nobody can see, on how active the Sun is, and on whether anyone pays.

India's GSLV rocket put the NVS-03 navigation satellite on its planned path on Friday. India's own navigation system needs four working satellites, and had three.

Hera, a European space probe, has sent its first picture showing two asteroids apart. [11]

It took the picture on 18 October from 1,280 km away. [12]

The pair are Didymos, about 780 m wide, and its moon Dimorphos, about 151 m. [11]

They are about 197 million km from Earth. [11]

In 2022 NASA crashed its DART craft into Dimorphos on purpose. [11]

The hit changed how long Dimorphos takes to circle Didymos by 32 to 33 minutes. [11]

The goal had been a change of at least 73 seconds. [11]

Hera was launched in October 2024 to look at what that crash did. [11]

It is a test of how to push a dangerous asteroid away from Earth. [11]

Planetary defence scientists study whether hitting an asteroid can change its path. [11]

Its mission manager, Ian Carnelli, said the views will grow sharper as Hera comes closer. [11]

Nobody knows yet whether Dimorphos is solid rock or a loose pile of rubble. [11]

Detailed pictures of Dimorphos are due on 25 November. [11]

Europe's Hera probe sent back its first picture showing both asteroids it was built to study, the pair NASA's DART craft hit in 2022. Close-up pictures of Dimorphos are due on 25 November.

Google says its test satellite carrying AI chips has answered its first request from orbit. [13]

The chips, called TPUs, ran Gemma 4, one of Google's AI models. [13]

Asked for a short poem about space, it began: 'Blue marble below'. [13]

Google launched the satellite earlier this month for Project Suncatcher. [13]

The project studies whether AI data centres could one day run in space. [13]

Data centres in space would need chips that survive heat and radiation in orbit. [13]

The chips switched on and worked in orbit, Google said in a blog post on Friday. [13]

Nobody knows yet how long the chips will last; those tests have not run. [13]

Next come heat and radiation tests, then 2 linked satellites in 2027. [13]

A private firm says Russian satellites watched Saudi sites before and after Houthi attacks. [18]

The Houthis are an Iran-aligned armed group fighting Yemen's Saudi-backed government. [18]

The firm, AURORAH GeoSignal Intelligence in Geneva, studied 40 attacks from 1 July to 19 October. [18]

In every case, it found Russian satellites watching the target areas. [18]

It worked out each satellite's path, then when it could see each target. [18]

They include Persona camera satellites and Kondor-FKA radar satellites. [18]

In September Houthi strikes hit 3 pumping stations on Saudi Arabia's main oil pipeline. [18]

The Associated Press, a news agency, first reported the findings this week. [18]

Ahmed Nagi of the International Crisis Group said Russia's role is widening Yemen's war. [18]

Orbit trackers can work out exactly when a satellite will pass over any spot. [18]

Matching passes to attacks does not prove Russia shared the pictures, analyst Elijah Magnier said. [18]

Russian officials have not commented on the findings. [18]

In all 40 Houthi attacks AURORAH studied, Russian satellites were watching the target areas. [18]

Who handed satellite pictures to the Houthis, if anyone did.

AURORAH says its work shows a wider intelligence link, and itself says tying one satellite to one missile launch needs more proof. [18]

Britain's defence ministry gave Astroscale UK a 15 million pound contract this week. [14]

Astroscale builds craft that can approach other satellites and latch on to them. [14]

It will lead LEDA, a new and secret British programme for defence in orbit. [14]

Its defence director said LEDA will help counter rival satellites that fly close. [14]

Blackswan Space, a Lithuanian firm, also urged a UK minister to spend more on space control. [14]

This month a Russian spy satellite flew close to an ICEYE satellite working over Ukraine. [14]

European militaries are moving from only watching from orbit to building craft that can act. [14]

Astroscale gains a military customer, but what LEDA's craft will do is secret. [14]

A geologist says rusting rock may have kept early Mars warm enough for flowing water. [15]

Cin-Ty Lee of Rice University in Texas told a geology meeting in Denver this month. [15]

Mars once had flowing water, but scientists disagree on what kept its air warm. [15]

His idea: heat inside Mars's thick southern crust melted ice into underground water. [15]

That hot water rusted iron in the rock, which frees hydrogen gas into the air. [15]

Hydrogen bumping into carbon dioxide helps trap heat, warming the planet. [15]

A few per cent of hydrogen could lift Mars's average temperature above freezing. [15]

The crust there may reach 80 km deep. [15]

It would explain how Mars got its warming hydrogen for millions of years. [15]

Climate scientists call this the greenhouse effect: gases that trap heat warm a planet. [15]

Ramses Ramirez, a Florida Mars scientist, is sceptical until he sees a full paper. [15]

Lee says looking deep would test it: rusted rock several kilometres down would prove it. [15]

Whether rusting rock really warmed early Mars.

Ramses Ramirez wants to see a full paper first, and Lee's test needs rock from several kilometres down in the Martian crust. [15]

Astronomers have explained a strange burst of gamma rays seen on 10 March, GRB 260310A. [16]

Gamma rays are the most energetic kind of light; long bursts come from exploding stars. [16]

Gamma-ray bursts were first found by accident in the 1960s, by satellites watching for nuclear tests. [16]

NASA's Fermi space telescope caught its first flash, which lasted almost a minute. [16]

The flash was weak, but its later glow was among the brightest ever seen. [16]

Its X-ray and visible glow ranked in the brightest 1% of such bursts. [16]

The team says the explosion's jet pointed away from Earth, so it was seen side-on. [16]

Yu-Han Yang of the University of Rome Tor Vergata led the study. [16]