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🚀 Space Pulse · 2026-06-25 22:01 UTC

SPACE PULSE - Thursday, 25 June 2026 - 22:00 UTC

⚡ TL;DR

NASA's Roman Space Telescope has arrived at Kennedy Space Center ahead of its summer launch, while JWST delivers a stunning new view of starburst galaxy M82 and TESS announces the puffiest planets ever found.

A busy 24 hours spans planetary science, geomagnetic activity, a historic Swift rescue mission two days away, and a wave of SKA-focused cosmology research.

🚀 LAUNCHES

SWIFT BOOST MISSION - NORTHROP GRUMMAN / NASA - 27 JUNE 09:00 UTC

  • A Pegasus XL will carry Katalyst Space Technologies' LINK servicing spacecraft to rendezvous with and re-boost NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, extending its science life in a first-of-kind on-orbit servicing demonstration. [1]

STARLINK GROUP 17-48 - SPACEX - 6 JULY 14:00 UTC

  • A Falcon 9 Block 5 will loft 24 Starlink satellites for SpaceX's broadband mega-constellation; status listed as Go for Launch. [2]

STARLINK GROUP 10-42 - SPACEX - 9 JULY 09:05 UTC

  • A second Falcon 9 Block 5 mission carries a batch of 29 Starlink satellites; also Go for Launch. [3]

SOYUZ MS-29 - ROSCOSMOS - 14 JULY 14:43 UTC

  • A Soyuz 2.1a will carry cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina plus crewmates to the International Space Station from Baikonur; status To Be Confirmed. [4]

LOXSAT 1 - ROCKET LAB - 17 JULY

  • Rocket Lab's Electron will deploy Eta Space's LOXSAT 1 on a Photon-LEO bus to demonstrate a cryogenic liquid oxygen fluid management system in orbit, funded by NASA's Tipping Point program. [5]

🔭 DISCOVERIES

TESS REVEALS RECORD "SUPER-PUFF" PLANETS

  • NASA's TESS mission has identified two new Jupiter-sized worlds with densities comparable to cotton candy, the lowest-density exoplanets ever confirmed. [6] [7]

WEBB AND HUBBLE COMBINE ON CIGAR GALAXY M82

  • JWST's new infrared observations of edge-on starburst galaxy Messier 82, merged with archival Hubble data, produce the most complete picture yet of its explosive star-formation activity. [8] [9]

EUCLID SURVEYS THE GALACTIC BULGE

  • Euclid Quick Data Release Q2 delivers a deep, wide-field view of 4.8 square degrees of the inner Galactic bulge across nine contiguous fields observed in 24 hours in March 2025 with the VIS instrument. [10]

EUCLID PREVIEWS ROMAN'S CORE SURVEY FIELD

  • ESA's Euclid has imaged the heart of the Milky Way in a region that overlaps precisely with the planned survey area of NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, giving astronomers a head start on science.

PERSEVERANCE COMPLETES FULL MARATHON ON MARS

  • As imaged by MRO's HiRISE camera on June 13, 2026, NASA's Perseverance rover reached 42.195 km of total driving distance on Mars, completing the equivalent of a full marathon after five years of operations.

SILICATE CLOUDS CONFIRMED ON ULTRA-HOT NEPTUNE LTT9779b

  • A new arXiv study attributes LTT9779b's exceptionally high geometric albedo to glossy silicate clouds on its scorched dayside, deepening the puzzle of how this "Neptunian desert" world formed.

JWST MAPS JET-DRIVEN OUTFLOWS IN RADIO GALAXY 3C305

  • Using MIRI MRS and NIRSpec, JWST has resolved multiphase outflows including molecular hydrogen H2 and ionized gas driven by a compact jet confined within radio galaxy 3C305.

🛰️ MISSIONS

ROMAN TELESCOPE ARRIVES AT KENNEDY SPACE CENTER

  • NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was transported to Kennedy's Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility on June 21 aboard the Pegasus barge, beginning final pre-launch processing ahead of a summer launch.

ESA SMILE REACHES SCIENCE ORBIT

  • ESA's Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) has successfully reached its science orbit, marking a key milestone for the mission designed to image Earth's magnetosphere.

EARTHCARE CLOUD DATA NOW FEEDING GLOBAL WEATHER FORECASTS

  • ESA's EarthCARE satellite, known as Hakuryu to JAXA, has transitioned to operational use at ECMWF, with its simultaneous cloud and aerosol measurements now directly sharpening numerical weather prediction in a research-to-operations first.

EXPEDITION 74 PREPS SPACEWALK ABOARD ISS

  • Crew members reviewed robotics procedures and configured tools for an upcoming spacewalk on Wednesday, while also conducting biomedical and advanced technology research.

ARTEMIS II LESSONS SHAPE MOON TO MARS ROADMAP

  • Seven weeks after Orion returned four astronauts from the first crewed lunar flyby since Apollo, vehicle manager Branelle Rodriguez detailed how Artemis II findings are guiding design decisions for surface missions and beyond.

MOON BASE PROGRAM UPDATE SCHEDULED FOR 30 JUNE

  • NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and Moon Base program manager Carlos Garcia-Galan will host a virtual briefing at 2:30 p.m. EDT on June 30 to announce new lunar surface contract awards.

SR-1 FREEDOM NUCLEAR REACTOR MISSION PROFILED

  • NASA's Space Reactor-1 Freedom is positioned as the first step toward Lunar Reactor-1 (LR-1), a fission surface power system intended to sustain a Moon Base through periods of darkness and polar operations.

COPERNICUS SENTINEL-3 IMAGES RECORD EUROPEAN HEATWAVE

  • ESA's Copernicus Sentinel-3 captured land surface temperature data on June 23 as France logged its hottest June day on record, with multiple cities under red alert.

☀️ SPACE WEATHER

ACTIVE GEOMAGNETIC PERIOD - G1 MINOR STORM AND EXTENDED K-INDEX 4 WARNING

  • NOAA SWPC issued a G1 Minor geomagnetic storm alert (K-index 5) with onset confirmed at 03:43 UTC on June 25, valid through June 26 09:00 UTC; aurora possible at high latitudes.
  • A K-index 4 warning was extended multiple times from June 24 17:40 UTC through June 25 23:59 UTC, indicating sustained unsettled-to-active geomagnetic conditions across the full day.
  • A separate continued alert logged a 2 MeV relativistic electron flux of 1,489 pfu on June 15, well above the 1,000 pfu threshold, reflecting elevated radiation belt activity in the days prior.

📄 RESEARCH

LITTLE RED DOTS FOUND IN SDSS - JWST MYSTERY OBJECTS HAVE OLDER SIBLINGS

  • A new arXiv study identifies a population of compact, red, broad-line quasars in SDSS data that share properties with the "Little Red Dots" JWST has found at redshift ~5, suggesting these enigmatic objects may persist across cosmic time.

DESI MAKES FIRST CONFIG-SPACE MEASUREMENT OF PRIMORDIAL NON-GAUSSIANITY

  • Using DESI DR1 Luminous Red Galaxies and quasars, researchers report the first two-point correlation function measurement of the primordial non-Gaussianity parameter fNL, a key test of inflationary physics.

MACHINE LEARNING DEFINES PHOTOSYNTHETIC HABITABLE ZONES ON EXOPLANETS

  • A new agnostic machine-learning model maps which exoplanet orbits around different star types can sustain photosynthesis, expanding the concept of habitability beyond simple liquid water zones.

IC4STARS ACHIEVES 35 PICOSECOND ON-SKY TIME RESOLUTION FOR INTENSITY INTERFEROMETRY

  • The IC4Stars project reports 35 ps single-photon time resolution on-sky with White Rabbit synchronization, targeting a direct measurement of the diameter of Sirius B using stellar intensity interferometry.

YOUNG ASTEROID PAIRS IDENTIFIED IN JUPITER TROJAN POPULATION

  • Researchers present new candidate asteroid pairs in the Jovian Trojan clouds, extending the known family of unbound co-origin asteroid pairs into the outer solar system for the first time at scale.

SKA OBSERVATORY SCIENCE WEEK - COSMOLOGY FOCUS

  • A large cluster of arXiv preprints this cycle previews SKAO science cases, covering HI intensity mapping with MeerKLASS, weak gravitational lensing, pulsar timing gravitational wave backgrounds, 21-cm Cosmic Dawn imaging, and synergies with gravitational wave detectors like the Einstein Telescope.

📎 Sources

  1. Pegasus XL | Swift Boost Mission — Launch Library 2
  2. Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-48 — Launch Library 2
  3. Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-42 — Launch Library 2
  4. Soyuz 2.1a | Soyuz MS-29 — Launch Library 2
  5. Electron | LOXSAT 1 — Launch Library 2
  6. NASA’s TESS Mission Reveals the “Puffiest” Planets Ever Found — NASA News Releases
  7. NASA’s TESS Mission Reveals the “Puffiest” Planets Ever Found — NASA Science
  8. Millions of Stars in Cigar Galaxy — NASA News Releases
  9. Millions of Stars in Cigar Galaxy — NASA Science
  10. Euclid Quick Data Release (Q2) -- The Euclid Galactic Bulge Survey — arXiv astro-ph

Curated from official sources — NASA/ESA/JAXA/ESO/NOAA/arXiv/Launch Library. Informational only.
Serial 20260625-22-v12 · 2026-06-25 22:01 UTC

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