Satellites and constellations
Europe's third Sentinel-3 has imaged Italy, the Arctic and the Caribbean and measured sea and ice heights, with about five months of checks ahead.
Track Sentinel-3C and Sentinel-3A on the live map· 4 min read
Launches
A LandSpace rocket carried them up on 14 October to test computers in orbit, laser links and big radiator wings to shed their heat.
See them on the live map· 4 min read
Debris and close approaches
ISRO's SpaDeX pair, SDX01 and SDX02, fell back on 12 October over the Indian Ocean and the North Pacific, 21 months after their launch.
· 3 min read
Launches
An H3 rocket is to launch JAXA's probe from Tanegashima at 19:41 UTC on 19 October and release it on its way to Mars about 71 minutes later.
· 5 min read
Launches
A cargo Dragon is to leave Florida at 10:33 UTC on 13 October with 2.8 tonnes of supplies and science, and dock with the ISS two days later.
Track the ISS on the live map· 4 min read
Launches
The first built by Northrop Grumman for the Space Development Agency's Tranche 1, they lifted off from California on 10 October, five days after an abort.
· 3 min read
Debris and close approaches
LeoLabs' radar confirmed a debris-generating event with an estimated tens of fragments; on 5 October the dead satellite's orbit rose about 230 m.
Track NORAD 12456 on the live map· 3 min read
Launches
DLR's MAPHEUS-17 sounding rocket reached 291 km from Sweden on 1 October, giving its experiments about seven minutes of near weightlessness.
· 3 min read
Satellites and constellations
The Space Force says the last two DSP satellites retired in September; in our data, two now circle some 350 km above the geostationary ring.
Track NORAD 26356 and NORAD 28158 on the live map· 3 min read
Satellites and constellations
A week after launch, 22 of the 26 hold near 295 km. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell reads it as a pause to shift their orbital plane before they climb on.
Track NORAD 100880 and NORAD 100870 on the live map· 5 min read
Debris and close approaches
Otter launched on 1 October. From 2027 it is due to fly within hundreds of metres of defunct US satellites to check their state.
· 4 min read
Launches
Raúl Torres revealed a landing test vehicle based on Miura 1, and set out what is left before Miura 5 flies and what Miura 9 will be.
· 10 min read
Launches
Built with Earth-imaging company Planet, Google's test satellite launched on 1 October and is working. Next: how its AI chips cope with radiation and heat.
Track NORAD 100902 on the live map· 4 min read
Launches
Four astronauts are set to lift off from Florida at 15:10 UTC on 1 October and dock 7 h 50 min later, the fastest US trip to the station yet.
Track the ISS on the live map· 4 min read
Satellites and constellations
ESA and China's Smile was cleared for science on 23 September: its aurora camera is filming, but its X-ray camera sees too much stray light facing Earth.
Track NORAD 69123 on the live map· 6 min read
Launches
Flight 14 put Starship in orbit for the first time and released 26 Starlink V3s, then came down in the North Pacific after 3 hours instead of 10.
· 5 min read
Launches
Flight 14 aims for orbit on 28 September with 26 Starlink V3 satellites, now licensed by the FAA. The route, the plan and the fallbacks.
· 8 min read
Debris and close approaches
LINK, Katalyst's robot built to lift NASA's Swift, re-entered on 24 September; Swift, now sinking fast, may stop observing in October.
· 3 min read
Debris and close approaches
ESA's yearly debris report puts the long-term risk in low Earth orbit at 50 times its sustainability threshold, up from 4 times in last year's edition.
· 4 min read
Satellites and constellations
UT Austin and Stanford researchers link brief GPS drops on 75 days since 2019 to Russia's EKS satellites, and caught one, Cosmos 2546, in the act.
See them on the live map· 5 min read
