https://x.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1951341362965586236

Sawyer Rosenstien (@thenasaman) gained an update on @SierraSpaceCo's Dream Chaser status from ISS Program Manager Dana Weigel today.

"They're working really hard. I think everyone really underestimates what it takes to put together a complex spacecraft. I mean, you're watching it right now with Boeing Starliner, you're watching it with Sierra, but if we remind ourselves on average it takes eight to ten years for a spacecraft to get ready and fly.

"Everybody's hopeful they'll be closer to six, but in reality there are a lot of complexities and you want to get it right. You got to fly when you're ready (via) final certification work.

"Some of the big key areas that they're focused on is the software certification. You've got to test end-to-end all the different software functions. So that's a big focus area for them. And then they're still working on certification in the prop system.

"We still have some of our integrated safety reviews to do, and we're in the process with updating both of our schedules to try to understand where does that really put us. And so Sierra's working on that, and so I need to wait and just get information back from them to see where they think some of that work lines out.

"But we are looking forward to having them flying. They're a berthing vehicle, so that's helpful for us to have dissimilar capabilities in terms of our ports and our logistics.

"So we will be ready for them when they're ready to fly."

https://bsky.app/profile/planet4589.bsky.social/post/3lva6aptnhk2f

LAUNCH at 0200 UTC Jul 31 of Pakistan Remote Sensing Satellite by KZ-1A from Xichang, China

Additional info from NextSpaceflight: https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/7909

• Chinese built Earth observation satellite for Pakistan’s SUPARCO (Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission).
• 2nd Kuaizhou 1A mission of 2025, 30th overall.

https://bsky.app/profile/planet4589.bsky.social/post/3lv56h7pmts2e

LAUNCH and FAILURE of Gilmour Space Eris flight 1 from Bowen Spaceport, Australia at about 2235 UTC Jul 29. Rocket ascended about 50 metres while maintaining vertical attitude but translating sideways, and impacted near pad after a 20 second flight. Image from Aussienaut youtube coverage.

Aussienaut livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-4xv0UxIhY

NSF article: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2025/07/eris-testflight1/

After liftoff at 22:35 UTC on July 29, the vehicle slowly cleared the launch tower and drifted to the side before coming back down to Earth.

Tweet from Gilmour Space: https://x.com/GilmourSpace/status/1950350700728504527

TestFlight1 — Liftoff 🚀

Today, Eris became the first #AustralianMade orbital rocket to launch from Australian soil — ~14s of flight, 23s engine burn.

Big step for 🇦🇺 launch capability. Team safe, data in hand, eyes on TestFlight 2.

(More pics and vids to come from the media.)

https://x.com/GilmourSpace/status/1950395515721711703

Liftoff completed, launch tower cleared, stage 1 tested. Awesome result for a first test launch.

Mission info

| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2025-07-30, 12:10 | |

|

| | Scheduled for (local) | 2025-05-30, 17:40 (IST) | | Launch site | Second Launch Pad, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, India | | Launch Vehicle | GSLV Mark II | | Payloads | NISAR | | Payload mass | 2,393.0 kg | | Mission success criteria | Sun-Synchronous Orbit |

Webcasts

| Stream | Link | |

|

| | ISRO | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgC1MxtCwq4 | Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFLaJHWwNN8 | The Launch Pad | none | International Rocket Launches | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJqzghdm8m4

Stats

Sourced from NextSpaceflight:

☑️ 2nd GSLV mission of 2025, 18th overall

☑️ 3rd ISRO mission this year, 99th overall

Mission details

• ISRO mission page
• NextSpaceflight mission page

The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, or NISAR satellite, will use advanced radar imaging to map the elevation of Earth's land and ice masses 4 to 6 times a month at resolutions of 5 to 10 meters. It is designed to observe and measure some of the planet's most complex natural processes, including ecosystem disturbances, ice-sheet collapse, and natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and landslides.

Under the terms of the agreement, NASA will provide the mission's L band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), a high-rate telecommunication subsystem for scientific data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and a payload data subsystem. ISRO will provide the satellite bus, an S band synthetic aperture radar, the launch vehicle, and associated launch services.

| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2025-07-30, 07:50 | |

|

| | Scheduled for (local) | 2025-07-30, 15:50 (CST) | | Launch provider | CALT / CASC | | Launch vehicle | Long March 8A | | Launch site | Commercial LC-1, Wenchang Space Launch Site, China | | Payloads | Unknown |

Webcasts:

• CGTN: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ba6Y0zQa1ak

Stats:

☑️ 3rd Long March 8 mission this year, 6th overall

Sourced from NextSpaceflight

https://bsky.app/profile/planet4589.bsky.social/post/3luxfq3gthc2f

LAUNCH at 1003 UTC Jul 27 of Weixing hulianwang digui 05 zu weixing, five sats in the Xingwang (Guowang) internet satellite constellation, by CZ-6A from Taiyuan

https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/7908

A batch of Low Earth Orbit communication satellites for the Chinese state owned SatNet constellation operated by the China Satellite Network Group.

The constellation will eventually consists of 13000 satellites.

Manufacturer Lockheed Martin is exploring how it might sell flights as “fixed-price commercial services,” an executive told attendees here.

“There’s certainly other nations that are interested in flying people out to deep space,” said Kirk Shireman, Lockheed Martin’s vice president for human space exploration and the company’s head of the Orion program. He shared the stage with Howard Hu, the NASA Orion program manager, for a session titled “Orion: Our Ride to Deep Space.”

“I think the model going forward” will include “industry having arrangements with foreign space agencies,” Shireman said.

Making that transition will require Lockheed Martin to boost Orion production while continuing to bring down the cost per vehicle, he said, something the company has begun under its current production contract with NASA. That deal covers capsules for the first six lunar landings planned under the Artemis program, with an option for NASA to purchase six more. The capsules for the 2022 uncrewed Artemis I demonstration and next year’s crewed Artemis II test flight were contracted separately.

“I think personally that humans going into deep space and being able to do those things sustainably, long term” is “really, really important for our country,” Shireman said. “To do that, we have to be able to do things more sustainably, more efficiently, at a higher pace than what we’re doing right now.”

Part of that cost-reduction strategy, he said, is aiming for “aggressive reusability,” in which more and more of Orion’s components — and eventually entire capsules — will be refurbished and reflown for multiple missions.

The Ionosfera-M n°3, 4 launch of a Soyuz 2.1b out of Site 1S, Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia, is currently scheduled for 2025-07-25 05:54 UTC.

NextSpaceflight page

Ionosfera is a constellation of four ionospheric and magnetospheric research satellites developed by for Roscosmos for the project Ionozond.

The satellites will operate on circular sun-synchronous orbits (SSO), at altitude of about 800 km and located in two orbital planes of two satellites each.

The following science instruments are carried on the satellites:

• SPER/1 Plasma and energy radiation spectrometer
• SG/1 Gamma-ray spectrometer
• GALS/1 Galactic cosmic ray spectrometer / 1
• LAERTES On-board Ionosonde
• NBK/2 Low-frequency wave complex
• ESEP Ionospheric plasma energy spectrometer
• Ozonometer-TM Ozonometer
• MayaK On-board radio transmitters
• PES GPS-GLONASS device

Webcasts:

• Roscosmos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn5ZxN0NOMw
• International Rocket Launches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4GWe7hlhnU
• The Space Devs: