May 9, 2025

[Space Bites] Spying on Spy Satellites // Official NASA Budget Cuts // Dragonfly Milestone

The official NASA cuts are here. Several missions reach big milestones. The Solar Gravitational Lens will be challenging to use, and in our special bonus version on Patreon, [Space Bites+] an additional story about New Horizons scanning the clouds of hydrogen around the Solar System.

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00:00 Intro
00:19 NASA budget cuts are official
- https://www.universetoday.com/articles/the-white-house-releases-its-2026-budget-request-for-nasa-cuts-to-sls-gateway-and-orion
03:31 Milestones for Dragonfly and Roman
- https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/dragonfly/2025/04/24/nasas-dragonfly-passes-critical-design-review/
- https://www.nasa.gov/missions/roman-space-telescope/key-portion-of-nasas-roman-space-telescope-clears-thermal-vacuum-test/
05:22 Satellite occultations
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.03474
06:34 Complications with SGL
- https://www.universetoday.com/articles/using-the-solar-gravitational-lens-will-be-extremely-difficult
09:27 Vote results
10:09 Hakuto-R 2 arrives at Moon orbit
- https://www.universetoday.com/articles/ispaces-resilience-enters-lunar-orbit-itll-try-to-land-in-early-june
11:32 Rogue binary planets
- https://www.universetoday.com/articles/free-floating-binary-planets-cant-last-long
13:09 Strange object on the edge of the Milky Way
- https://www.universetoday.com/articles/its-either-the-milky-ways-farthest-known-star-cluster-or-the-smallest-known-galaxy
14:30 Guide to Space
15:50 Space Bites+
16:09 Importance of keeping up space missions

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