NASA announced a suite of awards and mission updates on Saturday to expand the agency’s Moon Base exploration, science, and infrastructure capabilities. The investments will advance commercial robotic deliveries, a nuclear-powered rover named PROMISE, launch and orbital transfer services, and surfac
City lights from the Midwestern United States to the East Coast sparkle across the landscape a couple of hours before sunrise on Oct. 18, 2026. Major urban areas visible in the photograph include Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan; and the New York metropolitan region. The International Space Stat
NASA successfully demonstrated technology designed to help spacecraft autonomously navigate to safe landing sites on the Moon and on other planets. An Alta-X drone equipped with the agency’s Safe and Precise Landing – Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) guidance, navigation, and control paylo
Students across the country will have the opportunity to connect directly with the International Space Station during a live, interactive in-flight call with NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Mark Rober STEM content creator and founder of ClassCrunchLabs Foundation. The event, hosted by NASA’s Office of
Meteor Showers, a Spacecraft Milestone, and a Supermoon Catch Taurid and Leonid meteors, spot Mars near Jupiter, celebrate Voyager 1’s light-day milestone, and watch November’s supermoon. Skywatching Highlights Transcript A month of meteor showers … a close pairing of Mars and Jupiter … and a superm
Twin Travelers In 1977, NASA launched twin spacecraft Voyager 1 and 2, taking advantage of a once-every-175-year planetary alignment of the four largest planets in our solar system: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Using six gravity assists between them, this Grand Tour gave us up-close views o
Although no ghouls, goblins, or trick-or-treaters come knocking at the International Space Station’s front hatch, crew members aboard the orbiting laboratory still like to get in the Halloween spirit. Whether individually or as an entire crew, they dress up in sometimes spooky, sometimes scary, but
The emeritus NASA astronaut and retired Navy captain will be responsible for the strategic leadership, stewardship, and continuous improvement of laboratory operations.
NASA’s Artemis III SLS (Space Launch System) core stage is integrated alongside the twin solid rocket boosters on Oct. 28 inside the Vehicle Assembly Building’s High Bay 3 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Technicians lifted the 212-foot rocket stage from the facility’s High Bay 2 using a o
NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory has found a large object that scientists have identified as a possible dwarf planet. A preliminary data analysis shows that the object is orbiting in the outer reaches of the solar system beyond Pluto and may be one…
The NASA STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) Internship Program at the University of Texas Center for Space Research places high school students on small, mission-focused research teams mentored by NASA, academic, and industry experts. During
Teams at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi tested RS-25 engine No. 10001 on Oct. 21, 2026. The hot fire test lasted for almost eight-and-a-half minutes (500 seconds), the same amount of time RS-25 engines fire during launch of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, with a
The Mobile Satellite Services Association (MSSA) is the newest Market Representation Partner (MRP) of 3GPP, a decision approved during the project’s Organizational Partner meeting (OP#56) on October 22, 2026.
From orbit, today’s space-based laser instruments measure Earth’s forests and terrain one narrow line at a time. Between those lines are enormous gaps that include millions of acres of land scientists never directly measure. NASA’s CASALS instrument will blend machine learning with an ultra-compact
As NASA works to build the Moon Base, crewed and robotic lunar rovers will play a crucial role during early development through technology demonstrations, astronaut transport, terrain mapping, scientific investigations, and resource prospecting. Data from these early missions will inform future mobi
Rockets vibrate, shake, and flex intensely as they climb into space, and spacecraft packed with delicate scientific instruments must survive those forces. Before any rocket leaves the ground, NASA engineers work to predict how those stresses will affect every part of a spacecraft. To do that, engine
As the supercooled propellant flowed into the core stage, and NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket roared to life, Allison Mjoen and her family watched with awe and pride. Mjoen, NASA’s operations manager for the agency’s Exploration Ground Systems Program, helped shape the systems and ground ope
NASA’s Artemis II mission sent four astronauts around the Moon and brought them safely back to Earth, laying a foundation for crewed flights to the Moon’s surface. Additional engineering data analysis of the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield confirmed initial data showing the heat shield performed as e
Sunlight illuminates the exhaust plumes of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft on Oct. 13, 2026. This visual phenomenon is known as a “jellyfish”; it happens near sunrise or sunset when the exhaust plume from the rocket becomes brightly illuminated, creating a glowing s
Description A lunar lander from Voyager Technologies completed nearly three months of environmental testing at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California in late September 2026. The tests demonstrate that the spacecraft is prepared to face the harsh conditions of launch, its journey to
Shaken, spun, baked, and blasted, the Griffin-1 spacecraft was put through weeks of tests to show it can survive the conditions of launch through lunar landing.
NASA experiments focused on human and plant health and drug-resistant organisms will travel to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s 35th Commercial Resupply Services mission for the agency from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, advancing research that benefits life on Earth a
NASA is testing heat shields that can keep astronauts safe as they return from missions to the Moon and Mars in an unusual way: by taking out the trash. When Northrop Grumman 24th cargo resupply mission for NASA undocked from the International Space Station, it carried a fleet of 12 small, experimen
The SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft is seen moments before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California in this Oct. 8, 2026, photograph. Aboard were NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 members NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Ad
ESA’s Themis reusable rocket stage demonstrator successfully completed its second ‘wet dress rehearsal’ at Esrange Space Center in Sweden on 29 September, testing the vehicle and ground procedures under representative cryogenic conditions.
A visualization of a dark Moon eclipsing the Sun is marked with handwritten notes in this April 6, 2026, screenshot from an Artemis II crew member’s tablet. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman (in blue) and Victor “Ike” Glover (in green) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) Jeremy Hansen (in red) observed impac
A research aircraft chased a sub-orbital rocket launch in Sweden to see how space agencies can better monitor and understand emissions in our atmosphere.
As an astronaut traverses the lunar South Pole, tribocharging from walking on the lunar surface and plasma charging from the ambient plasma generate electric charge on the spacesuit. This problem is severely compounded when entering lunar shadows and Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs). In these dar
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission is ending, with the crew scheduled to return in early October. NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev will head home from the International Space Station after supportin
Four crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 mission launched at 11:10 a.m. EDT Thursday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for a science expedition aboard the International Space Station. “Crew-13 is another demonstration of America’s unmatched capability in
Spacecraft propulsion traditionally relies on volatile fuels and separate, bulky systems for different types of maneuvering in space. NASA is working to change that paradigm. Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, recently completed a rigorous series of environmenta
Image: Like a climber, selecting and adjusting its grip on the next hold and slowly moving across a rockface, the robot seen here crawls across a dark laboratory clutching onto pieces of equipment to steadily build a structure underneath itself, piece by piece. Crawling through the growing frame wit
During NASA’s SpaceX Crew‑13 mission aboard the International Space Station, astronauts will support a series of biomedical and human performance investigations, including a new collaborative effort to study how spaceflight affects blood flow and clotting. NASA also is testing crew members’ manual p
Currently, space missions are one-shot affairs: satellites are sent to orbit to do their mission until they run out of fuel. The European Space Agency is working on a more sustainable future where satellites and spacecraft can rendezvous, dock, refuel, repair, recalibrate and even be repurposed for
Video: 00:03:09 The Meteosat Third Generation -Imager2 (MTG-I2) satellite was launched on an Ariane 6 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, this timelapse video shows the process of getting the satellite ready for liftoff up to its launch into space on 27 August 2026 at 22:11 CEST (17:11 local t
The European Space Agency’s FLEX Earth Explorer satellite and the Copernicus Sentinel-3C satellite have been launched together aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, marking a new milestone in Europe’s Earth Observation Programmes.
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Two Earth observation satellites – ESA’s Fluorescence Explorer (FLEX) satellite, and the third satellite for the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission – are encapsulated inside the nose cone of a Vega-C launcher and are awaiting liftoff at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.
The multi-modal model could help astronauts navigate craters, investigate ancient lava, and search for ice, as the US plans for a long-term lunar presence.
The European Space Agency’s FLEX satellite and the Copernicus Sentinel-3C satellite are scheduled to launch together aboard a Vega-C rocket on 15 September at 03:21 CEST (14 September at 22:21 local time). Watch the VV30 launch live from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, with coverage starting at
Video: 00:04:00 German company Isar Aerospace successfully reached orbit with their Spectrum launcher, lifting off from Andøya Spaceport in Norway at 21:12 BST/22:12 CEST on 5 September 2026. Spectrum is a two-stage, 28 m tall launch vehicle and, with its ten engines, is targeting to launch pa
Video: 00:47:00 On 4 September 2026, media representatives joined an online briefing ahead of the launch of ESA’s FLEX and the Copernicus Sentinel-3C satellites. The two satellites are scheduled to launch together aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 15 September at 03:
The spacecraft will study the mysteries of the cosmos while also testing the Coronagraph Instrument, designed and built by JPL to demonstrate advanced hardware for studying planets around other stars.
Deep Space Station 23 at NASA’s Goldstone facility in the California desert is the latest next-generation antenna to be added by the network’s enhancement project.
Engineers from the European Space Agency (ESA) and industry partners have completed an intensive concept study for Phoenix 3, a reusable spacecraft designed to fly experiments in microgravity and return them safely to Earth.