Space Stories: Cell Phones in Space, Good News in the Chilean Desert, and Moving Martian Water

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Credit: Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Mashable: “NASA Clears the iPhone to go to Space“

Apple’s iPhone may be one of the most popular phones on Earth, but it’s about to start conquering space as well. According to NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, NASA astronauts are now cleared to take smartphones into space, starting with the SpaceX Crew-12 and Artemis II missions. “We are giving our crews the tools to capture special moments for their families and share inspiring images and video with the world,” he wrote in a tweet.

—Universe Space Tech: “The Sky is Saved: Construction of Industrial Complex in Atacama Canceled“

AES Andes has announced that it will abandon plans to build the INNA industrial complex in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The implementation of this project could jeopardize astronomical observations…On January 23, AES Andes announced that it had decided to discontinue INNA in order to focus on its renewable energy portfolio. “When the cancellation is confirmed, we’ll be relieved that the INNA industrial complex will not be built near Paranal,” said ESO Director General Xavier Barcons. “Due to its planned location, the project would pose a major threat to the darkest and clearest skies on Earth and to the performance of the most advanced astronomical facilities anywhere in the world.”

—Tohoku University: “An Unusual Dust Storm on Mars Reveals How the Red Planet Lost Some of its Water“

The current image of Mars as an arid and hostile desert contrasts sharply with the history revealed by its surface. Channels, minerals altered by water, and other geological traces indicate that the Red Planet was, in its early days, a much wetter and more dynamic world. Reconstructing how this water-rich environment disappeared remains one of the great challenges of planetary science. Although several processes are known that can explain some of this loss, the fate of much of Martian water remains a mystery. A new study from an international team of researchers published in Communications: Earth & Environment on February 2, 2026, has brought us a significant step closer to solving this puzzle. For the first time, researchers demonstrated that an anomalous, intense, but localized dust storm was able to drive the transport of water to the upper layers of the Martian atmosphere during the Northern Hemisphere summer – a time when this process was previously considered to be irrelevant.

Space Tourism Ends for Now at Blue Origin

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The 38th and last New Shepard crew for some time. The crew from left to right is Alain Fernandez, Dr. Linda Edwards, Dr. Laura Stiles, Tim Drexler, Alberto Gutiérrez, and Jim Hendren. (Blue Origin)

If you didn’t find your way into orbit yet, your chances to do so in the near future have dropped precipitously.

Blue Origin is ending its New Shepard rocket flights for tourists starting immediately. The pause will last for at least two years while the company focuses on the upcoming Artemis III lunar mission.

In a press release, the company stated:

Blue Origin today announced it will pause its New Shepard flights and shift resources to further accelerate development of the company’s human lunar capabilities. The decision reflects Blue Origin’s commitment to the nation’s goal of returning to the Moon and establishing a permanent, sustained lunar presence.  

New Shepard is the first reusable spaceflight system to vertically land and has flown 38 times and carried 98 humans above the Kármán line to date. New Shepard has launched more than 200 scientific and research payloads from students, academia, research organizations, and NASA. This consistent and reliable performance, combined with an exceptional customer experience, has resulted in a multi-year customer backlog. 

Blur Origin is working to be part of the first lunar lander craft on the moon, not just a later one as planned, due to SpaceX’s difficultly meeting its milestones. If only Mr. Musk took the lunar mission as seriously rather than spending his energy on right-wing politics and questionable AI projects.

Space Quote: More Space Cuts, This Time in the United Kingdom

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Credit: Image by Sibling Yonten Phuntsok from Pixabay

“The UK punches above its weight in scientific impact and in space-related industry. This should be a national success story, but instead we are facing the possibility of unsettling and destabilizing threats to funding for cutting-edge science. STFC, the research council responsible for astrophysics, along with particle physics and nuclear physics, is expecting future budgets supporting facilities like our observatories to be just 70% of the current level, a potentially devastating cut at a time where costs are increasing. The resulting loss of jobs and reduction in roles could easily amount to hundreds of roles, spread around the country, let alone the loss of scientific opportunity as telescopes, missions and laboratories are shut down. These harms will last decades, but are imposed to make short-term budgets balance.”

-Statement by Chris Lintott, Professor of Astrophysics at Oxford’s Department of Physics, in a University of Oxford publication. This follows actions last year that folded the independent UK Space Agency back into the government bureaucracy. None of this portends well for the future of the space industry in Europe. However, similar planned cuts to the US space program – in particular the space science programs – were later reversed by Congress. One can only hope down the line the UK might similarly reverse some of these draconian cuts.

Second Launch by German Rocket Company Happens Soon

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Credit: Isar Aerospace.

You may remember the name Isar Aerospace from its attempt last year to launch a rocket from the Andoya Space Centre in Norway. It was the first test of the German company’s Spectrum two-stage rocket, and it lasted for less than a minute into launch. That’s how these tests often go.

The second launch, labeled “Onward and Upward,” is scheduled to happen shortly. While it was initially scheduled for January 21st, it has been delayed until March 19th due to pressurization valve issues.

This second time the Germans seem a little more confident given that the launch will include payloads – five CubeSats and one experiment. The company is also securing more space in Munich, Germany, Sweden (Esrange Space Center) and French Guyana (Guiana Space Centre).

When Dr. Markus Söder, Minister President of Bavaria, visited the Isar Aerospace facility last year, he stated:

The success story of our space program continues – and Isar Aerospace is playing a decisive role in writing it. …We are Germany’s Space Valley: Europe’s largest faculty for aerospace is being established at the Technical University of Munich – and 550 companies and 65,000 employees now work in this sector in Bavaria. The future looks bright. With the Bavarian high-tech agenda, we are investing a total of six billion euros in research and science. Live long and prosper, Isar Aerospace!”

Germany is no stranger to rocketry, which benefited the US in no small degree following WWII. With all of this energy directed towards the space industry, Germany and Europe become stronger players in this area and be somewhat less reliant on the US for future payloads.

Pic of the Week: Close-Up View of the Helix Nebula

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Image (Credit): Part of the Helix Nebula as captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI))

This week’s image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) shows an up-close view of the Helix Nebula, which is about 650 light years away. Taken by the JWST’s Near-Infrared Camera, we see the colors of the gases moving away from the exploding star.

NASA notes:

Here, blistering winds of fast-moving hot gas from the dying star are crashing into slower moving colder shells of dust and gas that were shed earlier in its life, sculpting the nebula’s remarkable structure…A blazing white dwarf, the leftover core of the dying star, lies right at the heart of the nebula…Its intense radiation lights up the surrounding gas, creating a rainbow of features: hot ionized gas closest to the white dwarf, cooler molecular hydrogen farther out, and protective pockets where more complex molecules can begin to form within dust clouds. This interaction is vital, as it’s the raw material from which new planets may one day form in other star systems.

Below is a wider view of the nebula from which the image above is taken.

Image (Credit): The full view of the Helix Nebula, taken by the ground-based Visible and Infrared Telescope for Astronomy as well as the JWST’s more focused view. (ESO, VISTA, NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Emerson (ESO); Acknowledgment: CASU)