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On Sept. 10, 2025, SpaceX launched 21 satellites from Vandenberg, beginning the SDA’s first Transport Layer constellation for secure U.S. military communications. Built by York Space Systems, the satellites mark the first operational step toward a 126-satellite network linking American forces worldwide with encrypted, laser-based connections.

NASA has certified a helicopter-based lander training course in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains to prepare Artemis astronauts for Moon missions. The high-altitude terrain creates lunar-like visual illusions, forcing pilots to master landings in dusty, slope-filled conditions. Over two dozen astronauts have now trained in this challenging, realistic simulation.

NASA’s Perseverance rover has uncovered iron-rich minerals in Jezero Crater rocks that on Earth often link to microbial activity. The discovery suggests Mars’ lake basin may have been more hospitable than thought. Still, scientists caution that only Earth-based analysis can confirm whether these are true biosignatures.

Italian astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a white dwarf orbiting a blue straggler star in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae, located 15,300 light-years away. The rare system, among the youngest detected, sheds light on stellar mass transfer and offers vital clues to the evolution of binary stars in dense clusters.

Perseverance rover snaps turtle-shaped rock in Jezero Crater, a geologic oddity shaped by erosion and human pareidolia. The picture was snapped on Sol 1,610, August 31, 2025, at Jezero Crater, by the rover’s Sherloc and Watson instruments, fitted to its robotic arm, which capture visible and ultraviolet images of rock surfaces.

Astronomers have spotted GRB 250702B, a gamma-ray burst that erupted several times over two days—something never seen before. Detected by NASA’s Fermi and China’s Einstein Probe, the event defies current models of collapsing stars or black holes, hinting at an entirely new cosmic phenomenon.