Chartered by Stephen Hawking at @UCF to help the public be more involved in space through research and education — because space is our future.
Orlando, FL
- Tweets 133
- Following 16
- Followers 78
- Likes 149
Finding new worlds is how we stretch the map Stephen Hawking dreamed about. ALMA just imaged the gas swirl where baby giant WISPIT 2b (about five Jupiters) interacts with its birth disk ~430 light-years away.
1/2
1
1
24
Earlier telescopes had already imaged the still-accreting planet and the disk rings. This is the first system where we also see the predicted gas wake tied to that independently imaged protoplanet.
mpg.de/26990768/astronomers-…
2/2
8
Robotics will be crucial off Earth, which is why honest flight lessons matter. Katalyst Space just wrapped LINK, America’s first commercial space robot, after 85 days on orbit. It reentered September 25.
1/3
2
2
3
115
LINK never captured or boosted NASA’s Swift telescope. An early attitude anomaly burned through propellant, so the team shifted to proximity ops, arm kinematics, and gripper practice instead of the boost.
2/3
1
15
Contract to launch was about nine months on a roughly $30 million mission. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman called it a smart risk worth attempting. Flight data feeds Katalyst’s next platform, NEXUS.
katalystspace.com/news/katal…
3/3
19
While big rockets grab the headlines, all-weather Earth imaging keeps stacking up. Rocket Lab’s Electron just flew its 97th mission and delivered Synspective’s thirteenth StriX radar satellite into a 559-kilometer orbit.
1/2
1
2
2
33
That is 13 for 13 on dedicated StriX flights for Synspective, and Electron’s 18th launch of 2026. Synthetic aperture radar sees through clouds and darkness, so each new bird strengthens day-and-night surface monitoring.
globenewswire.com/news-relea…
2/2
25
Living off the land starts with tools that actually work on the Moon. Honeybee Robotics’ PlanetVac just published Blue Ghost Mission 1 results: a nitrogen-jet sampler scooped lunar soil in seconds, with no robotic arm.
1/3
2
4
20
3,659
Even with the sampling head tilted off-nominal, the first five-second pulse grabbed about 7 cubic centimeters of regolith. Across four firings the total was about 11. One rock nicknamed Dwayne lofted roughly 60 centimeters.
2/3
1
7
117
This is demonstrated pneumatic sampling on the lunar surface, not a propellant plant. It cuts risk for simpler sample return and for missions headed to Phobos and Titan.
link.springer.com/article/10…
3/3
7
101
Hawking wanted more minds on hard problems, including from orbit.
Google's Project Suncatcher targets early Oct on a Planet rideshare with Tensor Processing Units (AI chips) under launch stress, radiation, and heat. Pathfinder, not an orbital data center.
reuters.com/business/media-t…
5
10
247
Stephen Hawking wanted more people interested in space. We're getting excited about UCF Space Week, October 25-30, 2026! For more information:
ucf.edu/spaceweek/
3
5
16
6,673
NASA's James Webb finds infant galaxies seeding carbon, oxygen, and silicon ~500 million years after the Big Bang. Cosmic dawn was chemically busy; not a first-star (Population III) find.
eurekalert.org/news-releases…
3
13
89
Looking into the dusty universe keeps Hawking's questions practical.
NASA advanced PRIMA, a super-cooled far-infrared Probe Explorer, into Phase B toward ~2033. Planets, galaxies, black holes, water's path. Phase B is design work, not finished flight.
spaceflightnow.com/2026/09/2…
1
3
4
102
Hawking wanted space open to more than a few. Launch cadence is how that door widens.
Rocket Lab's next Electron is aimed near Sat 26 Sep for Synspective's StriX Launch 13 ("Owlright...") from Māhia, after the recent 96th success. Timing is tracker-soft.
nextspaceflight.com/launches…
4
8
184
Living off the land starts with tools people can learn to build.
Suzuki et al. (Scientific Reports) show heating iron-bearing minerals under high vacuum can release oxygen without melting. Lunar ISRU proof of concept; model minerals, more work needed.
nature.com/articles/s41598-0…
1
2
9
379
How far is "safe" from landing blast for space suits and solar arrays? Still too uncertain for ops distances. We can't yet predict the damage caused by dust flying 6x faster than a bullet since on Earth dust can't fly so fast and we lack experience. 1/2
arxiv.org/abs/2403.18584
2
4
17
795
The Hawking Center is sponsoring a special session on lunar plume-surface interactions during UCF Space Week. Register free for SpaceU Symposium, here: ucf.edu/spaceweek/symposium/
2/2
5
53
Bigger vehicles raise the stakes for who gets to take part.
Ship 41 is stacked on Super Heavy B21 at Pad 2. Flight 14 stays NET Mon 28 Sep, pending an FAA license modification. A wet dress may land in this window; stack and license are different clocks.
spaceflightnow.com/2026/09/2…
2
5
125
Hawking wanted space open to more than a few. Launch cadence is how that door widens.
Rocket Lab's Electron is next for Synspective's StriX ("Owlright...") no earlier than Sat 26 Sep ~00:15 UTC from LC-1B, after the 96th success. Timing is tracker-soft.
globenewswire.com/news-relea…
1
1
5
246