Jonathan McDowell

LAUNCH at 0256 UTC Mar 2 of Starlink Group 10-41 from Canaveral

Ah, I gather you are not a Princess Bride fan??

I do not think that word means what you think it means...

Yeah, I have finally learnt not to do that but it's hard to restrain myself...

Correct, I am denouncing the attack on Iran, not their response, although I'm not exactly thrilled with the wide scope of that either.

Slight correction: NASA did not announce cancellation of the EUS. However, it seems clear that it acutally is or will soon be cancelled.

In previous recent conflicts Iran has used Emad, Ghadr-110, Shahab-3, and Kheibar Shekan ballistic missiles.
The mix of missiles launched from Iran on Feb 28 is not known.

(To the best of my understanding, the attacks by the US and Israel on Iran were carried out with endoatmospheric weapons, so not my department . However I condemn these attacks which are manifestly against international law)

On Feb 28 Iran launched a series of exoatmospheric ballistic missiles with high explosive warheads against Israel, Doha, Dubai, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan.

Typo, sorry: this was Group 6-108

Suborbital LAUNCH of Rocket Lab HASTE with the Australian DART-AE Scramjet at about 0000:00 UTC Feb 28 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia

Nothing new, US has been cancelling joint US/Europe programs sinche the 1960s. For some reason Europeans keep coming back to the table "go on, punch me again please"

In particular ionizing solar flux (EUV and X-rays) heat the Earth's thermosphere and cause it to expand, increasing the density
in the 100-500 km range.

NASA lost a lunar spacecraft one day after launch. A new report details what went wrong Why did a $72 million mission to study water on the moon fail so soon after launch? A new NASA report has the answer.

Oops.

www.npr.org/2026/02/26/n...

I agree

Thanks. Interesting correction.

Satellite proposals threaten the night sky In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency responsible for authorizing satellite launches and operations…

Right OK so what can you do? Great news, especially if you're in the US (insert feelings here), both @darkskyintl.bsky.social and @aas.org have handy guides for how to write an FCC comment.
This is sort of astronomers' equivalent of "call your elected officials" kind of call to action, for context.

I want to repeat comments I already made on this plot since some news outlets seem to ignore them: Hubble will not reenter until early 2030s. The curve here is alarming, but will flatten out as we hit solar minimum in the coming years. I still think it's time for NASA to take action on a reboost.

NASA shakes up its Artemis program to speed up lunar return Launching SLS every three and a half years or so is not a recipe for success."

NASA's Isaacman, per arstechnica.com/staff/2026/0... announces: Boeing EUS stage cancelled, SLS to continue using Block I (Delta 4 derived) upper stage, new Earth-orbiting mission added to schedule in 2027 as 'Artemis 3' with an Apollo-9-type profle, old Art3 is now Art4, in (implausibly) 2028

The Dragon CRS-33 cargo ship made its deorbit burn around 0652 UTC Feb 27, and jettisoned the Boost Trunk at about 0710 UTC. The Trunk reentered over the Pacific near 127W 25N at ca. 0725-0730 UTC and the CRS-33 capsule splashed down near 117.7W 32.6N (off San Diego) at 0744UTC

LAUNCH at 1216 UTC Feb 27 of Starlink Group 6-103 from Canaveral

A brilliant run!
Also loved Most Historic Towns, would love to see a sequel to that..... (?Britain's Slightly Less Historic Towns?)

Dragon cargo ship CRS-33, which arrived at ISS last August, undocked from IDA-2 at 1 705 UTC Feb 26 and will return to Earth early Feb 27.

The curve will flatten as we go to solar min, so I think it will survive to the early 2030s

This should be getting better as we leave solar maximum. Here's an update of HST altitude vs. sunspot number.

I hear they are pretty agressive and have a nasty bite...

Good question about the small ticks, I'd have to look into the code but I suspect kilodays

Because it's been a while, here is an update of my plot on the altitude of the Hubble Space Telescope versus time

LAUNCH at 2304 UTC Feb 24 of Starlink Group 6-110 from Canaveral

No collision incidents yet due to Starlink. But there have been some close misses, I believe. It's just a matter of time.