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Now the US State Department has a “strategic framework for space diplomacy.”

The Washington Post points out this 25-page document (PDF) released Tuesday by the State Department. The Post reports this signals further involvement of the diplomatic corps in a realm that until now, has been largely managed by NASA and the Pentagon.

This first Strategic Framework for Space Diplomacy outlines how State Department diplomacy will advance continued U.S. space leadership and will expand international cooperation on mutually beneficial space activities, while promoting responsible behavior from all space actors, strengthening the understanding of, and support for, U.S. national space policies and programs, and promoting international use of U.S. space capabilities, systems, and services.


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NASA beamed a record 200Gbps to the ground using a space laser.

NASA’s 530km-high TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) system reached a staggering 200Gbps downlink to a receiver on the ground, IEEE Spectrum reports. This doubles last June’s 100Gbps throughput, which “was 100 times faster than the quickest internet speeds in most cities.”

Less than ten years ago, NASA was celebrating just over 600Mbps, but it now thinks the tech could eventually enable up to 5Gbps throughput from the moon:

Moreover, Mitchell says, they are looking at ways to push TBIRD’s capabilities as far away as the moon, in order to support future missions there. The rates under consideration are in the 1 to 5 gigabit per second range, which “may not seem like much of an improvement, but remember the moon is roughly 400,000 km away from Earth, which is quite a long distance to cover,” Mitchell says.


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Spoiler alert.

While ever-so-optimistically noting this is a preview of the Earth’s fate (in another 5 billion years or so), scientists at MIT, Harvard, and Caltech say that for the first time, they were able to see a star expand and engulf a nearby planet.

This horror show was captured within our own galaxy and included the use of NASA’s asteroid-hunting Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) to capture infrared light indicating dust released from the disintegrating planet.


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Lo-fi beats to orbit the Earth to.

Whether you put this up on the big screen now or bookmark it for a later session, NASA’s put together nearly an hour of 4K footage of the Earth with some relaxing music for your screensaving needs.

The videos were captured over the last year from the International Space Station during Expeditions 67 and 68.


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NASA’s first trip back to the Moon has a crew.

In a very Apple event-esque livestream, NASA announced the crew of the Artemis II mission, which will ride the costly and enormous SLS rocket to the Moon and back in 2024. Notably this is the first lunar mission to include a woman, a Black man, and a Canadian. The crew is Mission Specialist Christina Koch, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Pilot Victor Glover, and Commander Reid Wiseman.


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Crew-6 mission postponed just two minutes from launch.

NASA and SpaceX called off Monday’s launch intended to take the Crew-6 mission to the International Space Station following a last-minute technical issue with Falcon 9’s engine ignition system.

Providing the issue is resolved, the teams will attempt another launch at 12:34AM ET on Thursday, March 2nd.


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NASA’s InSight lander preemptively tweets its own eulogy.

It landed on Mars in 2018 to detect marsquakes — rumblings in the planet’s crust. But now, the robot seismologist is running low on power and sent what may be its final image of the red planet's surface. While InSight surpassed its two-year primary mission, it’s still hard not to feel sad for the lil’ guy in its final hours. You did good bud.


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A simple plan.

NASA and the European Space Agency are developing a plan to bring interplanetary rock samples — already collected by the Perseverance rover — from Mars back to Earth by 2033.

Watch as Lizzie Philip explains the plan, as it exists so far, for the Mars Sample Return Mission.


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NASA just released the full report of its investigation into James Webb.

Naming the United States’ flagship space after James Webb, a former Administrator of NASA was a controversial choice. Webb was: a.) not a scientist, and b.) presided over NASA during a time in which people identifying as LGBTQ+ were discriminated against. NASA investigated Webb’s involvement in those practices last year, and released the full report today.

Based on the available evidence, the agency does not plan to change the name of the James Webb Space Telescope. However, the report illuminates that this period in federal policy – and in American history more broadly – was a dark chapter that does not reflect the agency’s values today.


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Liftoff!

NASA’s megarocket, the Space Launch System has launched!


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The Verge
We are go for launch!

The countdown clock has just started, we’re less than 8 minutes away from the launch of the Artemis 1 mission.


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Please hold.

NASA’s Artemis 1 mission was scheduled to launch at 1:04AM ET. But the launch is now in a holding pattern while engineers try to figure out how much work still needs to be done after troubleshooting multiple issues, including an ‘intermittent’ hydrogen leak a ‘problematic’ ethernet cable.