🚀 Space Pulse · 2026-07-15 22:01 UTC

SPACE PULSE

Wednesday, July 16, 2026

⚡ TL;DR

Webb and ESO's VLT have together unveiled a third giant planet at Beta Pictoris, making it one of the most richly characterized young planetary systems known.

The day runs busy across launches, Mars surface science, and a steady drumbeat of moderate space weather still echoing from early-July solar activity.

🚀 LAUNCHES

IMMINENT - STARSHIP FLIGHT 13

• SpaceX Starship Flight 13 is cleared Go for Launch at 22:45 UTC tonight, July 16, marking the second flight of the Starship V3 configuration. ^[1]
• For the first time, the vehicle will carry 20 V3 Starlink satellites to orbit, with the satellites targeting ground station connections in South Africa after solar array and antenna deployment. ^[1]

COMING THIS WEEK

• Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-I Demo Flight is scheduled for July 18 at 05:00 UTC, carrying an unspecified cubesat manifest on the Indian startup's inaugural Vikram-I launch. ^[2]
• China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation has a Long March 7A mission confirmed Go for Launch on July 17 at 11:50 UTC with an undisclosed payload. ^[3]

LATER IN JULY

• A Long March 3B/E is scheduled around July 23 with an unannounced payload for CASC. ^[4]
• ISRO's GSLV Mk II will loft GISAT-1A (EOS-05), a geostationary earth observation satellite designed for continuous sub-continental monitoring and disaster response, targeting July 31. ^[5]
• Rocket Lab Electron will carry LOXSAT 1, a NASA Tipping Point-funded demonstration of cryogenic liquid oxygen fluid management in orbit on a Photon-LEO bus, also targeting July 31. ^[6]
• SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 will deploy nine Globalstar 2-R Mission 1 satellites to a 1,410 km, 52-degree orbit for the Globalstar LEO communications network, targeting July 31. ^[7]
• Orienspace Gravity-1 has an unknown payload targeting July 31. ^[8]

RECENT LAUNCH

• Soyuz MS-29 launched successfully from Baikonur on July 14 at 14:47 UTC, delivering NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina to the ISS. ^[9]
• The trio docked with the Prichal module at 17:52 UTC and entered the station at 20:30 UTC, raising Expedition 74 crew count to 10. ^[10]

🔭 DISCOVERIES

BETA PICTORIS GETS A THIRD PLANET

• NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has discovered Beta Pictoris d, a giant exoplanet hiding in one of the most-studied planetary systems in the Milky Way, already host to planets b and c.
• ESO's Very Large Telescope independently confirmed the find: Beta Pictoris d is 100 times fainter than Beta Pictoris b and ranks among the lightest exoplanets ever directly imaged from the ground, requiring more than 10 years of observational effort.

ANCIENT MARS IMPACT RECORD

• NASA's Perseverance rover has identified the "Broom Point member," a 75-meter-thick stack of layered bedrock on the rim of Jezero Crater built by repeated asteroid impacts and estimated to be more than 3.9 billion years old.
• Mastcam-Z imagery from sol 1,505 (May 15, 2025) shows bright-colored rock exposures across the crater rim consistent with this impact-gardened sequence.

ESA MARS EXPRESS - KAISER CRATER DUNES

• ESA's Mars Express has imaged a field of metallic-looking wind-sculpted dunes filling the ancient Kaiser Crater, offering a striking view of active aeolian processes on present-day Mars.

INTERSTELLAR COMET 3I/ATLAS

• ESO's VLT obtained the first-ever chemical fingerprint measurements of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, the brightest interstellar object yet seen; the composition indicates it formed outside our solar system and is older than the Sun.

ROMAN TELESCOPE AND TIDAL DISRUPTION EVENTS

• New research shows NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, once operational, will be capable of detecting supermassive black holes at great cosmic distances by spotting the tidal disruption events when those black holes shred passing stars.

HUBBLE STELLAR NURSERY

• A July 3 Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the stellar nursery LH 95 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, showing blue and white massive stars co-habiting with low-mass infant protostars against glowing red gas.

JAXA HAYABUSA2 FLYBY

• JAXA's Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully imaged asteroid Torifune during a close flyby on July 6, extending the mission's asteroid reconnaissance objectives.

🛰️ MISSIONS

ISS - EXPEDITION 74 NOW AT 10 CREW

• With Soyuz MS-29 docking complete, the ISS hosts 10 crew members for approximately the next two weeks before the new trio's long-duration stay of about eight months begins. ^[10]

CURIOSITY AT GALE CRATER

• NASA's Curiosity rover (sols 4947-4953) has been moving rapidly through distinct geological units at Gale Crater, continuing atmospheric and geochemical sampling as of the July 10 planning date.

JAXA LEV-2 LUNAR RESULTS PUBLISHED

• JAXA published research on its transformable lunar rover LEV-2, which demonstrated autonomous surface operations on the Moon; results appeared in Science Robotics in June 2026.

NASA DAVINCI VENUS ANALOG TESTING

• NASA's DAVINCI mission science team conducted helicopter-based analog flights over Utah terrain to test spacecraft entry protocols for the Venus descent probe.

NASA SKYFALL MARS HELICOPTER MISSION

• NASA's SkyFall mission to Mars, building on Ingenuity's legacy, will deploy a trio of aircraft to survey Martian terrain, probe climate history, and scout sites for human exploration.

ARTEMIS ACCORDS EXPANSION

• Serbia will sign the Artemis Accords at NASA Headquarters on July 16 at 17:00 UTC EDT (21:00 UTC), hosted by NASA Deputy Administrator Matt Anderson.

ESA ECLIPSE SCIENCE BRIEFING

• ESA published a full replay of its July 15 media briefing on the 2026 total solar eclipse, covering observational science opportunities tied to the event.

LISA COMMUNITY INPUT OPEN

• NASA has opened community input on LISA Science Gaps 2026, with submissions accepted through September 16, 2026, allowing researchers to identify priorities for the space gravitational-wave observatory.

WFC3/IR SENSITIVITY MONITORING

• An HST study extending photometric stability monitoring of the WFC3/IR channel through 2026 using star clusters 47 Tucanae and Messier 4 in F110W and F160W confirms a continuing slow sensitivity loss, with 4-7 additional years of data added.

☀️ SPACE WEATHER

CURRENT - ELEVATED GEOMAGNETIC CONDITIONS

• NOAA extended a Geomagnetic K-index 4 warning through 15:00 UTC on July 15, with the K=4 threshold actually reached at 05:54 UTC today; conditions flagged as persistence-driven.

RECENT ACTIVITY OF NOTE - EARLY JULY STORM

• On July 4, the Sun produced an X1.3 flare (R3 Strong radio blackout) peaking at 20:41 UTC from region N15W75, accompanied by a 10 cm radio burst peaking at 890 sfu and a Type II radio emission.
• That same CME-associated event drove the geomagnetic index to K=7 (G3 Strong storm) on July 4-5, with sustained K=6 (G2 Moderate) intervals across multiple synoptic periods.
• A follow-on M5.5 flare on July 5 at 17:57 UTC (R2 Moderate) and another M6.3 on July 3 contributed to the multi-day active period.
• A Type II radio emission on July 7 with an estimated CME shock velocity of 1,441 km/s indicated another fast-moving solar ejecta event from that period.

📄 RESEARCH

BETA PICTORIS d - THE LIGHTEST DIRECTLY IMAGED PLANET FROM THE GROUND

• ESO and Webb teams report Beta Pictoris d is 100 times fainter than Beta Pictoris b and among the lightest exoplanets ever directly imaged, confirming a third giant planet in this young nearby system.

BROWN DWARF ATMOSPHERIC BANDING DETECTED

• A new study reveals latitudinal variations in chemical abundances and cloud properties across a brown dwarf's atmosphere, providing the first direct evidence of Jupiter-like banding in a substellar object and constraining atmospheric circulation models.

VOLCANIC EXOMOONS AS AURORA DRIVERS ON SUPER-JUPITERS

• Researchers propose that the repeating radio bursts detected around roughly a dozen isolated substellar worlds could be powered by plasma injected from volcanic exo-Io analog moons, and assess the detectability conditions for such systems.

UNIVERSE EXPANSION ANOMALY FLAGGED IN DESI DATA

• A model-independent spline reconstruction using the latest DESI DR2 baryon acoustic oscillation data and the DES Dovekie Type Ia supernova compilation finds a localized anomaly in the late-time expansion history that departs from standard LCDM, warranting follow-up.

GAMMA-RAY MODES IN A TRANSITIONAL MILLISECOND PULSAR

• Researchers report the first detection of distinct gamma-ray mode-switching in PSR J1023+0038 using stacked Fermi data, mirroring the known X-ray mode behavior in this transitional millisecond pulsar that sits at the boundary between accretion-powered and rotation-powered states.

WR 25 REVEALED AS A MASSIVE TRIPLE SYSTEM

• High-angular-resolution observations of massive star WR 25 in the Carina Nebula show it is not a binary but a hierarchical triple, with the WN6ha primary and O5 companion in a 208-day orbit hosting a third body; total system mass approaches 100 solar masses.

📎 Sources

1. Starship | Flight 13 — Launch Library 2
2. Vikram-I | Demo Flight — Launch Library 2
3. Long March 7A | Unknown Payload — Launch Library 2
4. Long March 3B/E | Unknown Payload — Launch Library 2
5. GSLV Mk II | GISAT-1A (EOS-05) — Launch Library 2
6. Electron | LOXSAT 1 — Launch Library 2
7. Falcon 9 Block 5 | Globalstar 2-R Mission 1 (x 9) — Launch Library 2
8. Gravity-1 | Unknown Payload — Launch Library 2
9. Soyuz 2.1a | Soyuz MS-29 — Launch Library 2
10. NASA Astronaut Anil Menon, Crewmates Arrive at Space Station — NASA News Releases

Curated from official sources — NASA/ESA/JAXA/ESO/NOAA/arXiv/Launch Library. Informational only.
Serial 20260715-22-v28 · 2026-07-15 22:01 UTC · pulse.uzylab.com