Blue Skies Ahead! This month, we have an interview with Professor Jonathan Tennyson where he chats to Louisa and Lily about his founding of the satellite launching company Blue Skies Space, and in our Jodbite, Louis and Josh talk to postdoc Will McGenn about his work here at the Advanced Radio Instrumentation Group. In December, we also had an invite to attend RAL Space’s 21st Appleton Conference where Louisa and Phoebe chatted to some of the conference attendees.

The News

Launch window for NASA’s Artemis 2 mission opens

Ahead of its launch,NASA’s Artemis 2 moon rocket has been moved to the launchpad at Cape Canaveral ahead of its launch, which could happen later this month, and is planned to launch no later than April this year. This is the first crewed mission to return to our moon since the end of the Apollo program in 1972 and follows on from the Artemis 1 rocket which was an uncrewed mission launched back in 2022. The Artemis 2 crew consists of four astronauts, three of which are from NASA: Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, with a forth, Jeremy Hansen, who’s from the Canadian Space Agency. Together, they are headed for a 10 day flight that will include orbit around the moon, but it is only a flyby test mission so they will not land on the moon, but instead confirm the capabilities of the systems and hardware that will be vital for the success of the Artemis missions as a whole.
Artemis 2 is the second in a series of four missions with the ultimate aim of establishing the first long term presence on the moon. This lunar space station is planned to be used for further exploration of the moon for scientific discovery but also as a test bed for preparing for human missions to Mars.
In the final stages of preparing for launch, NASA plans to do what they call the wet dress rehearsal no later than 2nd February, which consists of the rocket being loaded with cryogenic propellants and all the launch countdown manoeuvres run through. They also practise safely draining the propellants from the rocket. This rehearsal will be able to uncover any issues so that they can be fixed ahead of the launch which will happen no later than April this year. This will definitely be something we are keeping our eye on in the upcoming months!

Interview with Prof Jonathan Tennyson

Lily and Louisa chat to Prof. Jonathan Tennyson about his involvement in the founding of Blue Skies Space and the recent launch of their first satellite Mauve. Prof. Tennyson is the current Massey Prof. of Physics at UCL and was recently awarded the gold medal by the Royal Astrophysics Society (RAS). In this interview we learn about his journey from doing a PhD in chemistry to becoming a founding member of a satellite launching company.

Jodbite with Will McGenn

In this month’s Jodbite, Louis and Josh chat with Will McGenn about his role in the Advanced Radio Instrumentation Group at the University of Manchester. Talking about designing and testing novel low noise amplifiers for use in radio astronomy experiments and how these technologies can be used in worlds outside of astronomy.

Soundbites from RAL Space’s Appleton Conference

We were honoured to be invited to the 21st Appleton Space Conference, hosted by RAL Space in December 2025. The conference covered all aspects of space research, from small start-up companies launching cube sats to the biggest international collaborations to develop governing laws & treaties for space development. During lunch, Louisa & Phoebe recorded some soundbites with an array of conference attendees on what they do in space - from AI to astronomy, an economist and a meteorologist!
Many thanks to Vicky Hall & Anna Purdue from RAL Space for inviting the Jodcast to attend the Appleton Space Conference. Our interview with Jane Hurley on research at RAL will feature in a later episode, so stay tuned!

Interview : Prof. Jonathan Tennyson, Lily Correa Magnus and Louisa Mason
Presenters : Sohini Dutta and Phoebe Ryder
Editors : Jamie Incley, Louisa Mason and Thea Hauxwell
Jodbite : Will McGenn, Louis Hurrey and Josh Bishop
Jodbite : Sushma Shankar, Aprajita Verma, Carla Dorricott, Will Lecky and Krista Hammond (with Louisa Mason and Phoebe Ryder)
Website : Lily Correa Magnus
Producer : Lily Correa Magnus
Cover Art : Image of Mauve in the cleanroom. CREDIT:Blue Skies Space.