Blue Origin to rebuild launch facilities after a major New Glenn explosion and be flying before the end of the year

Booster "Never Tell Me The Odds" and upper stages are safe after the explosion

We posted an update to last week's blog about the massive explosion, or "anomaly" that engulfed the Blue Origin launch pad and New Glenn launch vehicle during a static fire test.  

As this is the company's only launch facility there had been speculation that it might mean a delay of some years to rebuild before it could launch again, and this might put pressure on NASA's crewed return to the Moon by 2028. NASA had contracted Blue Origin to provide transport of key hardware to the Lunar surface, including rovers. 

The Blue Origin CEO, David Limp, said that surprisingly key components such as "The propellant farm, oxygen, liquid hydrogen and LNG tanks are all in good shape." 

It also means according to Limp that "We will fly again before the end of this year."

Fingers crossed that this won't cause delays to the NASA Moon program!

(BTW, there's no link between the Jeff Bezos owned Blue Origin pad rebuild and any incoming increases to your Amazon Prime subscriptions...) 

You can read more at the Blue Origin site here.

NASA says farewell to MAVEN 

Expected to only last one year, MAVEN returned key information for more than 11 years

On the 3rd of June 2026, NASA confirmed that their MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) mission was officially over, following loss of communication with the spacecraft in December 2025. Despite best efforts, contact was unable to be re-established. 

MAVEN was the first mission entirely devoted to studying the atmosphere of Mars and its evolution.  One of the important findings of MAVEN was a deeper understanding of how much radiation is blocked by Mars' atmosphere and how it would impact future crewed missions. 

“The science MAVEN has given us is key to informing what kind of radiation protection and safety measures we must take before sending humans to Mars,” said Louise Prockter, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The data collected from MAVEN will continue to provide valuable insight into Mars for decades to come.”

Other discoveries of MAVEN included:

• How the Martian atmosphere is eroded by Solar storms
• Different types of aurorae are found not just at the poles like they are here on Earth
• The gradual leaking of Mars’ atmosphere into space
• A better understanding of Martian dust storms
• Even chasing Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS as it headed out in the far reaches of the Solar System
• Plus more

As the Planetary Society commented on the spacecraft that was designed to last a year but worked for eleven, "That'll do, MAVEN, that'll do."

Signs of a large planet in the early Solar System that disappeared

The early Solar System was a chaotic place!

A slice of NWA 12774

We already know the complex history of the Earth-Moon system and other large bodies might have merged into other planets through collisions. 

Astronomers have now found evidence of a large world, maybe even the size of the Moon or Mars, that slammed into another body and completely shattered into dust and rubble. While this world has completely disappeared from the Solar System as we know it today, we've found evidence of its past through meteorites that have fallen to Earth that are very different to the local geology to put it mildly!

“It’s incredible to think there was once a world this large,” said Aaron Bell, an assistant research professor in the Department of Earth Science at CU Boulder. “We only know it existed because a few fragments of it happened to land on Earth. These meteorites preserved evidence of a completely different pathway through which early planets developed.”

One meteorite fragment that points to this different pathway is an angrite, in particular one called NWA 12774. Of the approx. 80,000 meteorites that have been found on Earth, only 68 are angrites.  Their chemistry is different from Earth's and were thought to have formed on asteroids of less than 400 km in diameter.  Studies showed that NWA 12774 was the result of pressures in a rocky body much, much bigger than that, of some 3,600km in diameter similar to the Moon or even 6,500km making it comparable to Mars. 

We know that the Moon and Mars have different chemical ingredients from NWA 12774, and this leads to the question "What happened to it?"

Scientists are unsure. It might have collided into another large rocky planet in the early days of the Solar System, and these fragments might have even contributed to the formation of other planets including Earth.  

Even more tantalising is there might be other members of the Solar System family we don't know about. 

“There are many meteorites sitting in drawers that haven’t been thoroughly studied, so there were likely more of these protoplanets we don’t know about,” Bell said. 

Read more here.

Aussie astronomers produce the largest map of the Universe's magnetic fields

Mapping the twisted light reveals where magnetic fields are found throughout the skies

One of the major advancements in recent decades is how astronomers use different light wavelengths, gravitational waves, neutrinos, and cosmic rays to form a more complete picture of the formation and development of galaxies and the large-scale structure of the Universe we live in. (This is often referred to as Multi-Messenger Astronomy.)

There are also large magnetic fields spread throughout the Universe and these influence its evolution over billions of years.  Astronomers are unable to directly view these magnetic fields, but by working out indirect methods to map them on a wide scale, they are able to study the fine details of the matter between nearby stars and an enormous of  number distant galaxies.  A new map released this week will offer future researchers an even better view of this influence on of the Universe as it's five times larger than all other magnetic maps combined. 

Produced by the CSIRO and the SKA Observatory (SKA), the map, called SPICE-RACS, is the result of observations with the CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope. It works by measuring how much light in radio wavelengths is twisted by magnetic fields as it travels vast distances.  

“For the first time, we can investigate fine details of the material between nearby stars, and study a huge number of distant galaxies." Said lead researcher Dr Alec Thomson. 

“We collected rotation measures from every galaxy detected in RACS – nearly four million galaxies – and reprocessed this original data from ASKAP to retrieve the full picture,” Dr Thomson continued. 

“With the information we now have on magnetic fields throughout the Universe, we can study things like how magnetic fields affect the galactic-scale interaction of our own Milky Way and its neighbours, the Magellanic Clouds. We can even potentially find the answer to questions like when did magnetic fields first appear in the Universe? We had once thought it would be impossible to answer these questions. I’m excited to say that is no longer the case." said Professor Naomi McClure-Griffiths, SKAO’s Chief Scientist.

You can read more about the release of SPICE-RACS here. 

Cheers,

Earl White

BINTEL

6th June 2026