Nik Proxima - Space Policy Wonk

Just a bit about me - I’m Nik, I’m a space policy student from DC, who wrote the alternate history Proxima: A Human Exploration of Mars! I’m also the managing editor of @spacescout.bsky.social - an intersectional news outlet covering all things space!

The 3 C's of space are: crowded, congested, and contested. That much is true in the case of ICEYE X36, which experienced an unwanted approach by a Russian satellite. This is a dangerous escalation of space warfare. www.spacescout.info/2026/10/russ...

Diplomacy meets distrust. At the UN last week, states outlined a strong agenda for #SpaceSecurity. And, the US accused Russia's Kosmos 2612 of behaviour “consistent with an on-orbit weapons operation.” @rcw4disarmament.bsky.social recap pg. 11: reachingcriticalwill.org/images/docum...

Our Hera spacecraft can now see Didymos and Dimorphos as two separate asteroids! 👀 Coming closer, it will study the effects of NASA's 2022 DART impact and help advance asteroid deflection as a planetary defence technique. The first detailed images of Dimorphos are expected on 25 November.

One of my key predictions for the next ten years is that imaging each other's assets in orbit will become an increasingly prevalent game of one-upmanship. There's a lot of stuff going on in space, and we are now really flexing the muscles of space to space imaging.

my friends the baltimore ravens better keep it together today

Thank you @nik-proxima.bsky.social for teaching us about an incredible quote

The US government is now asking Elon Musk to restore the access they say was never removed, Elon says was shut down by the US government, and both briefly tried to pretend was down due to a technical glitch, in between darkly hinting Ukrainians deserve to die for being stubborn or ungrateful.

Very interesting ASAP mtg today. Such a shame it's only by telephone, with no official recording. They're supposed to post official minutes, but the minutes from Dec 2025, Mar 2026, and June 2026 are missing. At least August 2026 is there. Anyway ...

New Study: Human Exploration Across the Moon | via @nationalacademies.org - nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/294...

ISS Transit Directly Past Jupiter. There are Seven People in the Frame of This Picture Credit Correct_Presence_936 www.reddit.com/r/spaceporn/...

These guys rock to record with, and this episode was genuinely so much fun. ISS is a station of compromise and wacky politics, but its our station of compromise and wacky politics <3

New episode up! Fresh off of talking Call of Duty and space nukes, we had @nik-proxima.bsky.social on again for a discussion on the nightmare that is Space Policy, all focusing around the ISS. How it came together, how it kept working through the decades, and how it probably couldn't happen today.

It is hard to understate how close to real the prospect of conflict in space is becoming. Grey action like this, which leaves us with a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty, is only further accelerant into an already tense geopolitical environment.

Fascinating perspective from 1958, just months after Sputnik, on what the discovery of satellites means for humanity and American leadership: www.foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/r...

Galileo Second Generation is taking shape. 🛰️ A new signal generation module, designed to be reprogrammed in orbit, will bring greater flexibility, accuracy and resilience to Europe’s satellite navigation system. Read more: esa.int/Applications/Satellite_navigation/Galileo/New_brain_for_Galileo

Space Rider has been a long time coming, although it seems like spaceplanes and other lifting bodies have had quite the challenge to service entry.

GAO says NOAA's next-gen GeoXO geostationary weather satellite program has been dramatically cut in past year (four sats instead of six, two instruments instead of five) to reduce cost from $19.6B to $13B, but risks gap in continuity of data. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

New bonus episode! Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 had 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 mission. You know the one. I'm obviously talking about the one where you help a British dude nuke and destroy the ISS by accident. We talked to space policy knower @nik-proxima.bsky.social to see how exactly illegal nuking the ISS would be.

NASA (Isaacman, Kshatryia, Parsons) will provide an update on Artemis progress on Friday, Oct 23, at 2:00 pm ET. www.nasa.gov/news-release...

Launching on 19 October, JAXA's Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission will attempt a world-first sample return from Mars’s moon Phobos. We're contributing deep-space communication technology and ground station support to help make the mission possible.

Cultural and human practice off Earth is an area that is desperately under-studied. We need to learn all we can about how we live and work through a cultural lens as we begin to push ever further into the Solar System.

🌍 2026 🗓 11th - 12th October 🕛 12:00Z 🛰 Meteosat-11

As always, Jessica doing the heavy lifting for the rest of us. But this bit by the US saying Russia placed weapons in space as early as 2007 confuses me; maybe they misspoke and meant the 2017 activities of Cosmos 2519/2521/2523? (read about it here: www.swfound.org/publications...)

Who put weapons in orbit first? Whose weapons are worse? Week 1 of UN #FirstCommittee descended into arguments over these historic questions. Support for #PAROS continues. But what new restraints are on the table? Recap via @rcw4disarmament.bsky.social reachingcriticalwill.org/images/docum...

We've got October's schedule for you! Especially excited to chat space policy with @nik-proxima.bsky.social and flying to space in a sweatshirt with @engineertexavery.bsky.social!

Congrats to the PRIMA team for being selected to move forward! www.nasa.gov/news-release...

Croatia became the 74th Artemis Accords signatory today (Sept 23) at a ceremony in Zagreb. www.nasa.gov/organization...

"Power Station" Painting study

“Concorde - 001's solar rendezvous", by Simon Cattlin (www.simoncattlin.com/gallery/001s...) a tribute to an actual event: this aircraft - still in the process of being tested - chased a solar eclipse over Africa for 70 minutes in 1973 (www.vice.com/en/article/t...)

A poem for Artemis II. By yours truly.

What an incredible machine. This is the power of NASA Science and Technology in action, improving life on Earth for all of us. Congrats to the X-59 team on a successful first flight! 📸 by Jared M Hamilton.

H3 launches first HTV-X cargo spacecraft Japan launched the first of a new generation of cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station, with potential applications beyond low Earth orbit.

With Artemis II approaching I know a lot of news outlets are starting to look for in depth photos and knowledge of this mission. I have a significant backlog of photos already available from the Artemis Program and will be on site covering the mission in the lead up to the launch in February.

Check out my new article for @spacescout.bsky.social! www.spacescout.info/2025/09/afte...

We face an uncertain future with spaceflight in the next 10 years, but do not forget that in our exploration of space we must continually reflect on who we are and why we go. Do our motivations for space accurately guide us, or lead us astray?

Everyone's dogfighting in space. These RPOs were separate from the SPADEX. Speaking of, the SPADEX included a power transfer from 1 sat to the other; it "involved operating a heater element in one of the satellites through power from the other satellite" www.ndtv.com/india-news/i...

NASA: TRACERS Mission Now Targeting No Earlier Than Summer for Launch science.nasa.gov/blogs/tracer...

First Quarter Moon on Sunday evening at 6.21 PM (UTC+7).

Rep. Chu Sounds Alarm on White House’s Proposed Budget Cuts to Mars Sample Return chu.house.gov/media-center... #Mars #NASA #Astrobiology

The launch of Minotaur this afternoon from Vandy is a powerful reminder of non-proliferation. When that vehicle was built, it was hopefully never going to be used - a delivery mechanism for nuclear warheads now turned into an orbital launch vehicle.

Planetary Defense remains a policy area with an incredible degree of unknowns. We must engage in proactive, multilateral cooperation to ensure the safety of the planet against hazardous NEO threats.

Attempting to spin up the writing gears for a new Medium article, stay tuned folks....

This weekend NASA lifted the Core Stage of the second SLS rocket into place on Mobile Launcher 1. This 212 foot tall stage is the backbone of the SLS rocket, and is responsible for the majority of the energy needed to reach orbit. 📸NASA