Category: Other Worlds and Tech

Following on from my previous piece on recent NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports about NASA’s launch infrastructure and the costs associated with Artemis / SLS, Thursday June 30th, 2026 saw the release of the OIG’s latest audit of the NASA Commercial Crew Programme (CCP) which gave rise to the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner vehicles.

As those with an interest in space exploration are aware, one of these vehicles – SpaceX Crew Dragon – has been providing a successful service in ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS), whilst the other – Starliner -, despite two uncrewed and one crewed flight test has, yet to enter service. Unsurprisingly, the OIG audit report does not pull any punches where the Boeing system is concerned. However, its target is not so much Boeing as it is NASA itself.

The report starts by noting that whilst both Crew Dragon and Starliner where technically challenging developments, NASA opted to focus primarily on the SpaceX project in terms of management oversight and intervention, despite the fact Crew Dragon was proceeding from a vehicle already in operation: the Cargo Dragon. Meanwhile, Boeing, despite designing a brand new vehicle from the ground up, was subject to far less NASA oversight and management.

Instead, NASA management opted to put their faith in Boeing’s “heritage” procedures and workflows, allowing the company to develop Starliner with minimal intervention. This resulted in programmatic and development issues escaping NASA’s attention where a more hand-on approach would likely have seen them spotted and measures put in place to rectify them long before they became issues deeply embedded in the vehicle’s design.

Nor is the report limited to the development path with Starliner; it is deeply critical of NASA management following the 2024 Crew Flight Test (CFT). This should have been an 8-day test of Starliner liner under crewed control, including time docked at the International Space Station (ISS). However, the vehicle suffered issues remarkably similar to those experienced during the second automated test flight, so it returned to Earth without its crew of Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams, who remained on the ISS for a further 278 days before returning to Earth on a Crew Dragon vehicle.

Under NASA’s own requirements, the CFT should have been classified a Type A mishap, prompting an immediate, NASA-led multi-disciplinary investigation into the flight and Starliner, with full root cause analysis, culminating in the development of a complete plan to remediate issues identified and bring Starliner back to operational readiness. Instead, NASA management labelled the flight a “partial success” and maintained their hands-off attitude to addressing Starliner’s issues.

It was not until Jared Isaacman took over at NASA that the CFT was reclassified a Type A mishap, meaning that for 21 months following the flight, Boeing management left to their own devices at a time when the company was known to be experiencing considerable managerial and programmatic issues across a range of its projects and programmes.

The irony here, as the report also notes, is that while this necessary reclassification has now occurred, more recent staff restructurings at both NASA and Boeing mean that neither organisation is in a position to properly drive the Starliner programme, with the result that the OIG casts doubt as to whether the craft will transition to an operational status ahead of the ISS being shut down in the latter half of 2030. As it stands, Starliner is supposed to complete four crew transfers to the ISS between 2026 and 2029, with perhaps only the 2028 and 2029 flights actually happening as planned.

Worse, the report notes that manage has under planned CCP requirements: even if the four Starliner mission do go ahead, they and the three SpaceX missions planned for the same period are insufficient to maintain a US presence on the ISS through until August 2028.  Therefore, NASA is likely to have no choice but to order further transfer flights, with SpaceX liable to be the recipient of the contracts.

In closing, the report notes that CCP was supposed to provide NASA with two crew-carrying vehicles capable of being operated cooperatively but somewhat competitively with one another, rolling contracts for missions being awarded on the basis of reliability and cost-effectiveness. This has not been the case; Starliner’s issues have meant that SpaceX has been the only game in town for crewed launches from US soil – as as such, they’ve had some degree of unilateral freedom to set the costs of flights sans competition. Meanwhile, and despite Boeing effectively having its original contrast reduce by US $500 million and covering much of the extra costs involved in trying to fix Starliner in the wake of the second uncrewed flight, the entire programme has become a shambolic mess.

NASA to Send Mars OPTIMISM to the Moon as a PROMISE?

On June 30th NASA hosted its second monthly Moon Base Update to provide information on Artemis and plans to establish a human presence at the Lunar South Pole. During the event it was confirmed that three private companies – Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines – have received further contracts under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme to deliver payload to the Moon in support of Artemis. However, the surprising aspect of the update was the announcement of plans to send a Mars rover to the Moon.

Formally called OPTIMISM (Operational Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms and Instruments Sent to Mars), the vehicle in question is a full-sized, almost fully-equipped version of the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers (just minus the radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) which power the latter), the vehicle has been an essential tool for both rover missions, allowing engineers to trouble-shoot software, electrical and mechanical issues the two rovers have experienced in their travels on Mars.

Under the lunar plans, the vehicle is to be renamed PROMISE (Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration –  someone at NASA gets to stay up very late dreaming up acronyms!), and would be delivered to the Moon where it could operate largely autonomously. If the vehicle could be readied and flown in time, it could act as a valuable survey scout and mobile lab, gathering data and carrying out experiments that could greatly help in characterising the Lunar South Polar Region ahead of human landings. However, there are some issues around the idea:

• Loss of an engineering and software test-bed for the on-going Curiosity and Perseverance missions on Mars, potentially impacting their longevity should a significant issue with either develop in the future.
• The rover will likely require the development of a suitable lander system for delivering to the Moon, assuming the “skycrane” approach cannot be modified for use in lunar deployments. This will take time – potentially years.
• As a nuclear powered vehicle, it will require an RTG. These are no longer manufactured and in short supply. Use of one with PROMISE means denying its use on a deep-space mission.
• The rover will face a far wider range of surface temperatures on the Moon than its systems were designed for when operating on Mars. This means it will require substantially more in the way of heating in order for delicate systems to withstand the cold lunar nights and, conversely, a cooling system so those same systems don’t overheat during the heat of the lunar daytime.

As such, there are considerable pros and cons to the idea, so exactly where this idea goes will be worth following.

Updates

Blue Origin Updates and Unveils

Blue Origin has provided an update on efforts to get Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station back to an operational status following the catastrophic explosion of the NG-4 vehicle in May 2026 which wiped out the main launch pad and caused considerable surrounding damage, including to the vehicle and payload integration building, shown below.

As a part of this update, the company provided a video animation revealing how they plan to both equip the rebuilt launch facilities and prepare their New Glenn rockets – both the existing 7×2 vehicle and the in-development 9×4 (the numbers refer to the count of first and second stage engines on each version) – for launch.

Prior to the NG-4 static fire test explosion, Blue Origin utilised a 1,800 tonne Transporter Erector (TE) and a series of hydraulic actuators on the pad in order to get New Glenn to the pad and ready for launch. These were all completely destroyed in the May explosion. The TE would deliver the rocket to the pad horizontally, the actuators connected and then both rocket and TE would be raised to the vertical, the base of the TE becoming the rocket’s launch platform and the TE’s strongback its “launch tower”.

Under the new plans, a New Glenn will be moved to the launch pad by a simplified transporter and without the payload attached. A mobile crane will then raise it the the vertical and lift it onto a new permanent launch platform on the pad, with a new tower supporting the rocket through until launch.

The latter will actually be the lightning conducting tower which survived the NG-4 explosion, completely repurposed and expanded to fulfil the role of launch tower. It will include two halves of a rotating service platform designed to fit around the upper part of the rocket, allowing the payload within its fairings to be lifted into position by crane, with the necessary connections between it and the rocket then being made.

The overall plan is daring in scope and still ambitious, given that Blue Origin is sticking to their bullish view New Glenn will return to flight before the end of 2026.

This week also saw Blue Origin unveil their planned lunar Power Tower system for use on the Moon.

Whilst the preferred means of powering a lunar base is nuclear, there are some significant challenges to overcome to make this a reality. In the interim, solar power remains an option – at least to a limited degree, given nights on the Moon last 14 terrestrial days making any sole reliance on solar impossible. However, even when the Sun is above the horizon, it remains at a relative low angle in the sky, and this can limit the ability of ground-based solar arrays in gathering sunlight, as they can easily end up stuck in shadows for long periods of the lunar day.

The Blue Origin Power Tower, which can be delivered to the Moon on specialised Blue Moon MK1 landers – offers a possible means of continuous solar power during the lunar day by suspending “sails” of solar arrays from a 20+ metre tall deployable boom system, thus lifting them clear of areas of shadows, etc.

Exactly how effective such a system might be is open to debate, but the system could potentially help power smaller outposts and stations during lunar daylight hours and which are both beyond the reach of having power routed to them from nuclear reactors and do not need to be in constant use.

Swift Rescue Mission Launches

Following my previous Space Sunday report, the mission to rescue NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory finally launched on Friday, July 3rd after weather and a software issue conspired to delay the mission for three days.

The launch was flown out of the Ronald Reagan Space and Missile Test Range located on the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific, the Pegasus XL rocket – the last one scheduled to be used – carried to an altitude of 12,000 metres by As I noted last time, the mission was air launched utilising a Pegasus XL rocket (the last mission the rocket will actually fly) carried aloft by Northrop Grumman’s modified Lockheed L-1011 aircraft Stargazer. At 08:36 UTC on July 3rd, the aircraft passed through the designated drop zone for the mission and the Pegasus XL was released, allowing it to fall safely clear of Stargazer before its rocket engine ignited sending it into low Earth orbit in just under 10 minutes.

Following deployment from Pegasus, the 4.9 metre long LINK deployed its solar arrays for power and is currently going through an initial systems check-out. Once this has been completed, the craft will fire its ion thrusters to gradually close on the Swift observatory. Once within range, LINK enter a 2-3 week observation of Swift, flying around it so that engineers can confirm the best point for LINK to attach itself itself to the observatory to commence the operation to raise Swift’s orbit and save it from burning-up in the upper atmosphere.

The lifting manoeuvre will last several months, boosting Swift from its present 300 km altitude to around 600 km, adding at least another 5 years to Swift’s mission in the process. Not bad for a mission that cost US $250 million and was supposed to last just 2 years when it commenced 22 years ago, and a rescue mission which has cost just US $30 million and was put together in just nine months.  

A daring rescue attempt in space is due to commence at 10:23 UTC on June 30th. It will cost NASA some US $30 million, but if successful it will be priceless.

The mission is to rescue the Swift Observatory, a three telescope observatory operating in low Earth orbit for primarily studying gamma ray bursts (GRBs). Smaller than the famous Hubble Space Telescope, Swift – and that’s a name, not an acronym – has been in operational since 2004. It’s a partnership programme between NASA Goddard, the UK and Italy, and was in part intended to take over the work of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, which ceased operations in 2000, only with far greater sensitivity.

Originally intended to have a primary nominal mission of just 2 years, Swift has continued to operate almost flawlessly and its science mission has expanded so it ow functions as a general-purpose multi-wavelength observatory, particularly for the rapid follow-up and characterization of astrophysical transients of all types. It was given its name because of the speed with which it can move between targets of interest. Where Hubble can take up to 2 days to re-orient itself to observe different targets, Swift can do so in minutes, allowing it to carry out up to 70 individual observations a day.

This speed is important and the phenomena it is observing can be relative transient – particularly GRBs. What’s more it can re-orient itself complete autonomously; when its Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) picks up on a target, it can rapidly slew itself to observe the event without ground-based intervention. Afterwards, it will also automatically re-orient itself to resume whatever other observations it was carrying out beforehand.

Now officially called the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory in honour of the mission’s first Principal investigator, who passed away in 2017, Swift has been in trouble over the course of the last 18 months as increased solar activity during the current Solar Maximum cycle has caused an expansion in Earth’s atmosphere (as commonly happens) which has exacerbated the observatory’s rate of orbital decay. If not corrected, Swift’s altitude will fall below 300 km, and shortly thereafter it will start to tumble and re-enter the atmosphere.

Given its science value and relative low cost (US $250 million), the decision was taken to try to boost Swift’s altitude using a custom-build satellite designed and built by Katalyst Space in just nine months. Called LINK, the relative small, solar-powered vehicle is due to be air launched aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL vehicle carried aloft by a modified Lockheed L-1011 aircraft called Stargazer.

Taking off from the Ronald Reagan Space and Missile Test Range located on the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific, Stargazer will carry the Pegasus XL to altitude before releasing it to allow its rocket motor to ignite and carry it to orbit were the nose-mounted payload can be deployed.

The plan calls for LINK to spend a number of weeks undergoing its own commissioning tests prior to it rendezvous with Swift and use three small robot arms to connect to the observatory and then use its ion thrusters to gently push Swift into a higher orbit – up to its original 600km orbit – before detaching to allow the observatory to continue operations for at least another five years.

If LINK is successful, it will be a remarkable success – and a major gain for Katalyst, which plans to start offering satellite reboosting services to customers and already has a contract with the United States Space Force. This involves the company’s larger Nexus vehicle, with the first flight due in 2027 with LINK being very much a proof of concept flight for Nexus.

NASA’s OIG Reveals Out-of-Control Nature of Artemis Expenditure

The US Space Launch System (SLS) rocket has frequently been criticised on the basis of its huge launch cost – around US $2.5 billion, which the US government’s own Office of Management Budget (OMB) indicated would likely rise to US $4 billion per launch. However, given it is the only vehicle currently able to launch America’s only deep space capable crew vehicle in the form of Orion, it is not easily replaced.

Hence why in February 2026, rather than cancelling SLS outright as some pundits had been demanding, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced significant changes to the Artemis programme to return humans to the moon (see: Space Sunday: major Artemis updates and a rollback), which included cancelling just the Block 1B and Block 2 enhancements of SLS whilst extending the capabilities of the current Block 1 version to meet launch requirements until such time as alternative vehicle capable of launching Orion – most likely a modified version of the Vulcan-Centaur from United Launch Alliance – become available.

Now, a memo made public on June 24th, 2026, NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) reveals just how badly costs were getting out of control for the SLS enhancements and part of Gateway Station.

Core to the Block 1B and Block 2 versions of SLS were the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) and the Universal Stage Adapter (USA). Ordered in 2017 from Boeing as a prime SLS contractor, EUS was supposed to be a more powerful upper stage for SLS Block 1B and Block 2, allowing SLS (together with more powerful versions of the vehicle’s solid rocket boosters (SRBs)) SLS to lift up to 130 tonnes to orbit and deliver up to 46 tonnes to lunar orbit.

Because Boeing stated EUS development could be folded-in to their current SLS workflow, the cost for its development was put at US $962 million with initial delivery to be in 2021. By 2026 and its cancellation, some US $2 billion had been spent on EUS, with a further US $1.7 billion likely required to get it to a position where the first units could be delivered to NASA – in 2028.

The USA contract was awarded to Dynetics Inc., in 2017. It called for the development of a conical unit massing some 2.7 tonnes designed to mate the Orion space vehicle to the EUS on Block 1B and Block 2 SLS vehicles, with Orion. At 10 metres in length, 8.5 metres across where it connected to the EUS and 5.4 metres across where it connected to the Orion, USA was to carry electrical and communication paths between the two and provide environmental control to payloads during ground operations and launch and ascent.

The original contract was put at US $131 million with initial delivery to be in 2022. By the end of February 2026 and USA’s cancellation, the cost had risen to US $497 million, with initial delivery pushed back to 2030.

Finally, for SLS at least, was the Mobile Launcher 2 (ML-2), a new version of the platforms and towers used to support SLS vehicles on their journey to the launch pad and then support them throughout launch operations. In particular, ML-2 was supposed to support Block1B and Block 2 SLS launches.

The contract went to Bechtel National, Inc., in 2019 at a cost of US $383 million and an expected delivery in 2023. By its cancellation in April 2026, the cost had risen to some US $1.6 billion with delivery pushed back to the end of 2026, earliest and it would then require some two years of validation and testing at a further cost of US $2 billion.

It addition to this, the memo highlights the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) module, indicating a reason why the planned lunar Gateway Station was cancelled beyond its sheer pointlessness.

HALO, as built by Thales Alenia Space in Europe (responsible for the International Space Station modules Harmony, Tranquillity and Columbus and the observation Cupola) under contract to Northrop Grumman, is  essentially a modified version of the pressurised module used in Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus resupply vehicle, also manufactured by Thales. HALO was contracted at 1.3 billion, with that cost rising to US $1.9 billion by the time the basic module had been delivered to Northrop Grumman ready for completion, with OIG estimating this would further increase the overall cost by the time it was ready for delivery to NASA in 2031, several years late.

OIG highlighted that some of the rising costs could be laid at the feet of the contractors, with all three responsible for delays and failures, and Bechtel National being particularly highlighted for refusal to work with NASA in the planning for ML-2 construction and then ignoring NASA’s expertise in developing the original Mobile launchers. However, it also notes there have been many failures at NASA in properly managing and controlling projects and in putting contracts in place which failed to allow for full fiscal control.

Responding to the memo, Isaacman’s office indicated they were a core part of why the Artemis programme was redirected in February and also why the agency was undertaking a broader overhaul of its methods and processes related to costing and contractual management in order to reduce the risks of such major over-runs in future projects.

NASA Needs US $1 Billion in Launch Facilities Infrastructure Investment

Ahead of the OIG’s memo, the Inspector General published a report into the state of NASA’s launch infrastructure at both Kennedy Space Centre (KSC) and Wallops Island, Virginia, and the ability of both meeting the needs of Artemis and commercial launch operations. It does not make for happy reading, with KSC alone requiring around US $1 billion for essential support infrastructure updates.

In short, whilst several of the actual launch complexes at both receive lease payments from the companies using them – SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, United Launch Alliance, etc., – NASA is responsible for all of the underpinning infrastructure required to support such launch operations at both Wallops and KSC (with the responsibilities at the latter extending into the commercial launch facilities in the neighbouring Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in what is called the “common infrastructure agreement”).

This infrastructure includes, but is not limited to, the roadways linking various parts of the space centres; the critical electrical power grids serving all launches facilities; the neutral gas supply systems serving them; fuelling capabilities; communications and data capabilities; flight hardware transportation – even elements such as security support and occupational and environmental health services.

The problem here is that many of these physical infrastructure elements – the roads, electric and gas systems, etc., have not been updated in a long time – in KSC’s case, not since the centre was being built in the 1960s. The result is that many are now in danger of breakage or complete collapse.

The report highlights this with just a single example: the electrical supply feeder system at KSC’s Launch Complex 39. Laid in the 1960s, this runs from the C5 substation near the Vehicle Assembly Building along underground conduits to a switch station and from there to LC-39A and LC-39B. However:

• The loads placed on these cables are reaching the limits of their capability.
• The conduits through which they run are a decade beyond their lifespan and literally disintegrating.
• There is therefore a real risk of overload or short circuit which could completely remove electrical power from one or both launch pads, and there is no back-up.
• Further, the transformers at the C5 substation are at the end of their plan lifespan and are suffering degraded performance and severe corrosion.

Elsewhere, the infrastructure is simply being over-stretched and is in need of comprehensive surveys to assess their condition and ability to meet the continued growth in demand. This is a problem exacerbated by the rapid growth of launches in the last 5.5 years. The combined launch facilities at KSC and the neighbouring Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) have, for example, seen their overall annual launch cadence increase by 352%.

This means that the volume of heavy refrigerated transporter carrying liquid propellants into the tank farm at KSC / CCSFS has risen from fewer than 2,000 annually in 2017 to over 8,700 in 2025 – on roads never designed to take such mass or see such volume of use.

Nor does it end there. The report indicates that with the state of the current support infrastructure at KSC / CCSFS, NASA will be over capacity in terms of the launches it can handle by 2029 unless serious work commences now – and will be unable to meet the demand for launches required to support Artemis (such as the high-cadence, 16 short-period launches required by SpaceX to send each of its HLS vehicle to the Moon (depending on how many of these are actually used)).

The irony here is that NASA did actually make an attempt to deal with the crisis well ahead of time: in 2016, it sought Congressional approval to implement the Infrastructure Investment Fund. This would have allowed the agency to accept contributions from non-federal sources for long-term, large-scale shared infrastructure projects. Congress refused, and continued to refuse each time NASA raised the idea in various forms through until 2022.

Whilst the situation is not exactly rosy at Wallops, the approach to leasing agreements and responsibilities for infrastructure maintenance are a little different, which has the potential to help alleviate some of the concerns – which is not to say action is not required. The report duly notes that Wallops has seen launch cadence increase from 3 to 17 a year in the past 5 years, and this will increase to 43 in the next couple of years, and so elements of infrastructure there do need improving.

The report outlines a step-by-step plan for addressing the most significant infrastructure issues NASA faces at both Wallops and KSC/CCSFS. It also notes that unless Congress significantly re-evaluate infrastructure funding for NASA, under the current annual funding levels for support infrastructure, it will take NASA 260 years to complete all the required updates and modernisation.

Most of us are probably aware of the Sun’s magnetic cycle, rising and falling through a period of some 11 years. When this cycle is at its peak – or solar maximum – the surface of the Sun literally broils with sunspots which can sit on their own or as clusters. These sunspots range in size, with the largest thus far recorded measuring over 299,000 kilometres across – large enough to swallow two Jupiter-sized planets side-by-side! The sunspots are accompanied by an increase in solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) bursting away from the Sun and its corona.

At their most violent, flares and CMEs are fully capable of knocking out satellite systems, completely overwhelming critical GPS and direct communications systems and even bring down power grids if we happen to be in the path of one. Such periods of solar maximum can also see the Sun’s magnetic field flip entirely, before returning to “normal” after two further cycles (referred to as the Hale Cycle). By contrast, periods of solar minimum saw the Sun far quieter and less prone to fits of stormy anger.

Because of the Sun’s ability to be so disruptive, understanding how it behaves and learning to understand what we are seeing as a solar cycle progresses is becoming increasingly critical to maintaining our civilisation’s ability to function. Take GPS systems for instance. Whilst the help guide us when travelling, the signals they output play a critical role in things like the operation of power grids and oil rigs – and even financial systems and services. So a CME overwhelming a system like Galileo or GPS could do far more than just inconveniencing a trip to granny’s new house…

Thus, observations of the Sun from the surface of the Earth, of local orbit and from deep space – including fairly up close and personal to the Sun with missions such as the Parker Solar Probe – has become an essential element in maintaining much of the technology on which we depend. However, we’re not just observing the Sun visually: for the last 40 years we’ve been listening to it as well; in doing so scientists have found that something quite unexpected is going on inside the Sun.

Since 1987 a team of scientists based out of the University of Birmingham in the UK have been operating a series of specialist observatories located in the Americas (California and Chile), Europe (Spain), South Africa and Australia (Western Australia and New South Wales). Across 40 years, the network – called BiSON (Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network) – has been listening to the Sun’s “heartbeat”, oscillations within the Sun caused by sounds generated inside the Sun’s churning innards and which bounce around through the various layers. These oscillations can actually reveal much about what is going on within the Sun in a science called helioseismology. And what BiSON has discovered is twofold.

The first has been that, contrary to expectations, the period of solar minimum in a cycle is significantly different to the last, and that far from being a calm interregnum between the more violent peaks of the Sun’s cycles, each period of solar minimum carries within it indicators of just how violent the next period of solar maximum is likely to be – at least, to a point.

The second finding is more confusing. The majority of the Sun’s magnetic activity occurs within a layer below its surface – and throughout the period of listening by BiSON, this layer has been growing increasingly shallow, effectively squeezing the Sun’s magnetic activity into a smaller and smaller area. In theory, this squeezing should result in the Sun’s magnetic activity becoming more energetic and the periods of solar maximum more violent; but that’s not the case. Instead, two things are happening.

The first is that the most recent periods of solar maximum have been exactly as the preceding periods of solar minimum indicated: cycle 24 was a lot calmer than either cycle 23 and cycle 22. Likewise the period of solar minimum between cycle 24 and cycle 25 indicated the latter would be mild as well – and by-and-large it has been. However, in contrast to this, the BiSON data reveals the subsurface magnetic activity and its associated oscillations within the Sun’s layers during the solar maximums for cycles 24 and 25 have been every bit as powerful as recorded for cycles 22 and 23. Thus, it is like the Sun is seething with rage inside itself – but is showing no outward sign of that rage other than a handful of extremely power outbursts (which, as note, are to be expected during periods of solar maximum).

No-one is sure why either the squeezing of the magnetic activity layer within the Sun is occurring or why the measurements of the Sun’s oscillations appear to be so at odds with the levels of behaviour seen during the recent periods of solar maximum. Potentially, it might simply be we’re catching sight of a much longer cycle in the Sun’s behaviour in which the area of magnetic activity is periodically squeezed before gradually being allowed to “expand” again. However, it might also signify a much deeper change in the Sun’s behaviour which could result in a much greater shift in its fundamental character which could come to have a significant impact on our reliance on space-based technologies simply because such a shift could undo much of what we’ve learned about the Sun and make it harder to predict its future behaviour.

At the same time as the BiSON released its findings, another study published its review on a solar event which might  possibly indicate other changes might be taking place in and around the Sun – although in this particular instance it is far to early to draw any definitive conclusion.

As well as giving rise to solar flares and CMEs, periods of solar maximum tend to see an increase in large-scale radio bursts from the Sun. These come in a variety of types, one of the more powerful of which is the Type IV. These radio bursts have a broader spectrum band compared to other types, crossing multiple MHz and GHz frequencies. They can also last for longer – from several hours to a few days and can be a precursor warning for a CME. In August 2025, as cycle 25 was well on its way to the peak of its solar maximum period, the Sun let go of a type IV radio burst that lasted not for hours or a few days – but for almost three weeks. That’s four times longer than any other Type IV burst from the Sun ever recorded.

Such was its duration, the burst was recorded repeatedly by four separate space observatories watching the Sun from different locations. These comprised NASA’s STEREO-A, occupying a heliocentric orbit just inside that of Earth’s own orbit around the Sun; the Parker Solar Probe, also in orbit around the Sun, but practically right up in the Sun’s face; the Global Geospace Science Wind mission sitting in the Sun-Earth L₁ Lagrange point; and Europe’s Solar Orbiter mission, which is also gets up close and with the Sun, but in a higher inclination orbit.

Analysis of the data supplied by these observatories reveal that the burst came from a large magnetic structure in the Sun’s outer atmosphere called a helmet (or coronal) streamer. These are distinctive V-shaped loops of matter rising away from regions on the Sun’s surface which have the opposite magnetic polarity to the surrounding areas and the corona. They can rise up to 1.5 solar radii before lopping back to the surface, with the solar wind often pushing the uppermost material even further from the Sun in the form of tapering spears or stalks. These spears can occur at any time in the Sun’s 11-year cycle, but during periods of solar minimum then tend to form around the heliographic equator and are far less prominent.

However, during periods of solar maximum, they tend to be more symmetrically distributed around the Sun, and like the Type IV radio bursts, can be portents of a CME, as the latter can often start at the base of such a streamer, with the “cavity” in the streamer’s loop becoming the conduit through which the core of the CME then rises and is ejected from the Sun.

In the case of the August 2025 radio burst, the data gathered by the four probes revealed that no fewer than three CMEs had originated in rapid succession from the base of the one streamer – which in itself is unusual. Lead to also three CMEs becoming one massively supercharged event which fortunately did not intercept Earth in its orbit, but which did feed a huge amount of energy into the radio burst, leading to its longevity.

What is not understood is why these three CMEs occurred in pretty much overlapping proximity. Where they a freak occurrence, or a further sign the Sun is experiencing changes in its behaviour? If the latter, then is it something that is related to the squeezing of the layer in which the majority of the Sun’s magnetic activity occurs, or something else entirely? Will it become more expected during periods of solar maximum, and if so, what does it mean for our space-based systems?

Right now, the answers are far from clear – but the findings of both BiSON and the recording of this massive radio burst and recognition of its underlying cause reveal that the more we learn about our Sun, he more we have yet to understand about its complex nature.

Zevzda Leak: NASA and Roscosmos Again at Odds

I’ve written about the long-standing atmosphere leak aboard the International Space Station (ISS) on several occasions – the last being in 2024. An issue for some seven years now, the leak lies within the aft airlock of the Russian Zvezda (aka PrK) module. Several attempts have been made to fix the issue down the years and none have succeeded.

At the time I last wrote about the situation, NASA and Roscosmos had once again figuratively butted heads on the issue and its possible cause. In 2024, the Russian space agency was adamant the slow leaks were the result of thermal contraction and expansion as the ISS orbited the Earth, passing in and out of sunlight and thus experiencing large swings in temperature across its structure.

NASA, however, was of the opinion that the leaks are indicative that the airlock itself was at risk of failure, the result of the massive stresses periodically placed on it.

To explain: the airlock at the aft end of the Zvezda module is aligned to the station’s centreline, making it one of the main ports used to carry out periodic and necessary “reboosts” to raise the station’s orbit as the tenuous drag of Earth’s upper atmosphere causes it to slowly descend. Whilst there are other ports on the station which can perform such reboosts, it is the Zvezda port which has commonly been used for boosting operations as Russian Progress resupply vehicles are well suited to the task. NASA has therefore been – and remains – of the opinion that these operations over the years have placed enormous stress on the airlock structure, resulting in the micro-cracks and the atmosphere leaks.

Because of this, NASA and the European Space Agency have long called for use of the Zvezda module to be discontinued, and the hatch linking it to the rest of the ISS permanently closed. Russia has disagreed, mainly because the docking element in question houses the connectors required to bring propellants for the station’s stations manoeuvring thrusters located in the Russian section of the station and the delivery of water supplies for the crew. Thus, losing the use of the docking port limits the station’s ability to carry out the kind of minor orbital adjustments it needs to avoid space debris, etc., and also potentially limits crew activities within the Russian section of the station.

As a compromise, it was agreed that as there was not an imminent risk of explosive decompression (or anything remotely violent), the hatch linking Zvezda should remain closed unless the module was in use – and that use would be largely limited to off-loading Progress craft. And there the matter has largely rested – until the late April 2026.

That was when Progress MS-34 docked with Zvezda with supplies for the station. Almost immediately after the vehicle’s arrival, the atmosphere loss within the module increased; not enough to endanger the station, but enough to be noticed. After monitoring the situation for a month, Roscosmos decided to take action  – by ordering the cosmonauts on the station to drill into the module’s structure and then cut away part of a structural support.

This didn’t exactly go down well at NASA and ESA. Objections were lodged, exchanges became heated – and Roscosmos stop responding to the other agencies, declaring the operation would go ahead on June 5th. In response, NASA and ESA declared an emergency and ordered the three US and one French astronaut into the docked Crew Dragon under shelter in place / safe heaven rules, meaning they should be ready for immediate departure should anything happen.

This caused Roscosmos to reconsider their idea and ultimately call it off. Several further days of discussions were held and a compromise was eventually reached. This will see Zvezda sealed and depressurised so it is no longer directly used. However, Progress resupply missions carrying propellants and / or water will dock with the module for the purpose of transferring these items (which can be done automatically). Otherwise, Progress dockings (including those bringing propellants / water to the station alongside of other supplies) will occur at other docking ports in the Russian section of the station to facilitate the transfer of supplies.