The six are Cosmos 2609 to 2614, launched on 16 April from Plesetsk. Today only one of them, Cosmos 2612, is in the same orbital plane as ICEYE-X36, a commercial radar satellite from ICEYE, the Finnish-founded company that has supplied radar imagery to Ukraine since 2022. The latest public orbit data (it describes 07:38 UTC today) puts Cosmos 2612 about 5 km behind it and about 150 m higher.

The match is as close as the published numbers can show: both orbits are tilted 97.85° to the equator, and the figure for where each one crosses the equator heading north is the same for both. The other five siblings' orbits cross it about 80 to 1,700 km apart over the ground.

Why sharing a plane matters: in low orbit, changing plane costs a lot of fuel, and once two satellites share one, getting close takes little more, as two CSIS analysts wrote on 15 October.

LeoLabs, which tracks objects in orbit, told Axios the move "appears to be a deliberate approach". Which of ICEYE's satellites works for Ukraine isn't public.

Full Story: https://orbinauts.com/news/a-russian-satellite-is-flying-5-km-behind-an-iceye-radar-satellite/

Has a Russian satellite ever held this close to a non-Russian one before?

New comparison between the SLS (Artemis Program) and SUPER HEAVY/STARSHIP (Block 3) systems: the two rockets that will take us to the Moon and beyond 🚀
I hope you like it; any suggestions are welcome!

Maybe I'm not in the right forum but here goes. When traveling in space you can shut down your engines once you hit your target speed would the same concept apply if you were FTL or in a theoretical warp bubble?

Hey! We've been working since last year on a In Control: Rocketry, a spaceflight sim where you build the rocket and wire up its control panel yourself. Sensors, inputs, outputs, the whole thing is Turing-complete, so however you want to solve a flight problem, there's a way to do it. It will be available on Steam in 2027.

Real orbital mechanics, a fictional solar system to explore, sandbox mode if you just want to mess around and blow things up!

Feel free to add the game to your wishlist if you want to support the project! See you in space.

Right now, these are the only three countries with independent human spaceflight capabilities. Several others have ambitious space programs, but developing a crewed spacecraft, launch systems, life support, and safe reentry is an enormous challenge.

If you had to bet on one country becoming the fourth, which would you pick, and why? And how many more years will it take?

If we were to send up a new interstellar item designed to convey information about humankind, what scientific developments have been made in the last 50 years that would change how much/what types of data we could store on it?

Hey everyone! I was passing through Pocatello, ID and saw these booster railcars sitting in the Union Pacific train yards. There were two sets of five segments joined together. Artemis 3 has already completed booster stacking, so could these be empty or perhaps for another rocket?

We all know spaceflight is beneficial to humanity and nations, no doubt

We develop tech from spaceflight, amazing.

We go to space as a symbol of a countries achievements, when countries tend to excel in other areas of life

India is interesting... open defecation is a contested issue, ~6% (80 mil people) live in EXTREME poverty, states are claiming open defecation free as an accomplishment (which it is, no doubt)

All iis said.. I dont meaan to target india or put it down, its an amazing country with beautiful culture and practices. This can be applied to any other nation which is focusing so heavily on spaceflight but internal systems/technologies are very outdated/'backwards'/ etc.

When is it appropriate for a country to focus on spaceflight? Is it worth focusing on spaceflight over other national interests (such as fixing open defecation)

References:

• Dutta, Saptarshi (24 September 2018). "Four Years Of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan: Rajasthan Is ODF But 100 Per Cent Toilet Usage Remains A Challenge". NDTV Swachh India. Retrieved 11 September 2021.
• "After Sikkim, Kerala, Himachal, These 4 States To Be Open Defecation Free". NDTV Swachh India. PTI. 4 November 2016. Retrieved 11 September 2021.

Hello, I don't know if this question is allowed here.

I want to do a craft project for myself and sew important spaceflight mission patches on my jacket. I plan to have an Apollo 11 and the Artemis patches on there as well as some Starship ones, also the space programs logos. What are your recommendations? What should I add?

For the record, I am German, so I don't want exclusively American missions on it.

Back in September, I shared my 80m/px lunar classification maps here. Your incredible feedback, technical insights, and even the tough challenges from some users motivated me as a student to push this work to a much deeper level.

I’ve spent the last few weeks processing NASA PDS data (LRO/LOLA DEM) to focus entirely on Shackleton Crater at a stunning 5m/px resolution.

The complete analysis—including annual solar radiation averages, seasonal solstices, slope safety zones, and a viewshed simulation for communication towers—will be fully unveiled on November 16th!

Stay tuned! 🚀🌕

NASA will provide an update on its plans to return American astronauts to the surface of the Moon by 2028 at 2 p.m. EDT, Friday, Oct. 23, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida: https://www.nasa.gov/live

Participants in the briefing include:

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman
NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya
Jeremy Parsons, NASA’s Artemis program manager

The update will include details about NASA’s Artemis III mission that will send four astronauts to low Earth orbit next year to test critical systems needed for future lunar landings, and how plans to return American astronauts to the Moon by 2028 are progressing.

U.S. media interested in attending in person must apply online by 12 p.m., Friday, Oct. 16. To ask questions remotely, media must request the dial-in number from the Kennedy newsroom no later than one hour prior to the start of the update by emailing: [ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov](mailto:ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov). NASA’s media accreditation policy is online. 

As part of a Golden Age of innovation and exploration, NASA will send Artemis astronauts on increasingly difficult missions near the lunar South Pole to explore more of the Moon than ever before. In addition to providing economic benefits and advancing scientific discovery through its Moon missions, NASA will establish an enduring human presence on the lunar surface and build on the agency’s foundation for the first crewed mission to Mars.

Learn more about Artemis: https://www.nasa.gov/artemis

-end-

I'm trying to build a model of Salyut 7 and I am struggling to find information on the attitude control system for the system, i can't find too many photos of good enough quality to make out smaller components. If anyone has any info on the RCS that'd be helpful thanks!